Famous Mustaches of the Movies

From 1944, here's an image of little-known actor Alan King from the movie Phantom Lady.

It's good to know that more than 60 years later, his mustache (and furrowed brow) are still able to find employment in Hollywood, having grafted themselves to the face of Leonardo DiCaprio.

There is no question in my mind that you needed to think about this as much as I have.

Thor and Hellboy: Not Speaking to Each Other

RIP Gene Colan

I've really been enjoying the blog set up by Jim Shooter, one-time editor-in-chief of Marvel. He's been delivering his side of the story surrounding some very contentious moments of comic book history which went down during his tenure. Having grown up hearing the opposition's case, it's interesting to hear his defense.

Last night, reflecting on his most recent posts about how he became editor-in-chief, I was reminded of an incident at the San Diego Comic Con 2009. At a 1970s panel, Gene Colan delicately touched on his reasons for leaving Marvel, never naming any names. After this gracious display, the moderator, Mark Evanier, wondered if his other panelists could share stories like Colan's, encouraging them to be similarly diplomatic. To this, Doug Moench quickly grabbed the microphone and intoned, "I'll say it: Jim Shooter."

I did laugh with Moench, but his behaviour - his evident still-sore feelings towards Shooter - really highlighted what a class act Colan was. The 70s panel was supposed to have been preceded by a Gene Colan panel, but he missed it, leaving Evanier to scramble an ad-hoc "Colan tribute" panel in its place. Colan received a few rounds of applause when he arrived for the 70s panel. I was concerned about his absence, as his health problems were well-documented, but he assured the crowd that being at Comic Con was a tremendous lift to him.

At the same time I was reflecting on that episode, Gene Colan had passed away.

I didn't really take notice of Colan's name until I began digging up back issues of Tomb of Dracula. His art was so important to the tone and consistency of the series and later I found it looked even better in black & white (via the Essentials library)!

I wasn't as crazy about Colan's super hero work; his Iron Man looked so rough, with none of the sleek sheen I expected (having been raised on Bob Layton's designs). But when Iron Man wasn't in costume, I had no complaints about his work on the series. He was meant to be drawing jackets, pants and skirts, not spandex!

My love for Marvel's 1950s Atlas output eventually led me to Colan's earlier work (I have a few coming in the mail, actually). It's particularly neat to see Colan's war stories, which are almost always the highlight of whatever issue they appear in. The full page splashes he used to introduce each of his tales made them stand apart from what his contemporaries were doing and his depiction of military battlefields and equipment were always convincing.

I'm sad for Colan's family to have lost him, but as a comic book fan I feel nothing but gratitude to him for living and producing as long as he did; I think it's particularly great how his health problems a few years ago brought him attention and adulation from most corners of fandom. Gene Colan can't be replaced, but his work will never be forgotten.

My current comic list

After looking over the 52 new issue #1s being introduced by DC Comics in September (see them all here), I concluded I wouldn't be sampling any of them, deciding instead to wait for critical reactions to the series and plan to collect the trades at a later date; I'll probably wind up buying the trades of Grant Morrison's Superman, at the very least.

This left me considering the current state of my comic book purchasing. I'm afraid the list has become very thin, particularly since Marvel gives me everything they publish. For the other publishers, there are still titles I'm very interested in, but I wish there were more.

Books which have almost completed their run:

• Xombi (DC Comics) In which an odd hero with odd powers combats odd forces of evil. It's a little odd. Due to end with #6, owing to DC's line-wide reboot in September.
• John Byrne's Next Men (IDW) Resuming Byrne's 1990s series about people with superhuman powers and the often harsh effects those powers have on the world around them, this is due to wrap up with issue #9.
• Comic Book Comics (Evil Twin) An ambitious history of comic books told in comic book format. There's more than enough material to keep this series running for years, but sadly it's due to end soon with issue #6.
• Marineman (Image Comics) Ian Churchill created this hero as a child and has brought him to life as a labour of love. Will end with #6.
• Royal Historian of Oz (SLG) An amusing tale of an Oz fan who finds the land of Oz is real and what happens when he absconds with a treasure trove of Oz-originating materials. Ends with #5.

Books which come out infrequently:

• Rasl (Cartoon Books) Jeff Smith's slow burn story of a man who can travel between realities; gaps of 4 months between issues are typical.
• Kurt Busiek's Astro City (DC Comics) Kurt Busiek's creator-owned series of a world of super heroes told from a grounded perspective. Has historically had difficulty shipping monthly and has now been absent more than a year.

Books which come out regularly:

• Usagi Yojimbo (Dark Horse) Stan Sakai's rabbit ronin in feudal Japan has been running since 1987 with very few gaps. Usagi plays to a small but devoted audience.
• Atomic Robo (Red 5) The adventures of a robot hero, often checking in on him at various points in his 20th century history. Played primarily for laughs, Atomic Robo seems to be on the verge of being a hit; for now, it's a cult favourite.
• G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (IDW) Larry Hama revisits the continuity from his 80s-90s G.I. Joe series, with even some of his original artistic collaborators reuniting with him. Hama's wry perspective on the world is constantly amusing and his strange ability to make G.I. Joe plausible keep me entertained.
• Glamourpuss (Aardvark-Vanaheim) Although I've never read Dave Sim's Cerberus and don't really have an interest in the histories of the comic strip artists he recounts here, I like his brash sense of humour; some of his pieces, like the bit about the CN Tower, are inspired.

Having seen what I currently consider worth buying, if you have a recommendation to make please leave it in the comments.

Y kant Blackmask spel?

As a fan of older literature which have fallen into the public domain and yet are not readily available, I've made a few Amazon purchases to try and complete my collections of authors such as John Buchan and Sax Rohmer. Unfortunately, I soon discovered some of the public domain publishers were very fly-by-night - generic covers, spelling errors, punctuation errors, pages out-of-sequence; amongst these are a few samplings by the publisher Blackmask.

But! I chanced to notice Blackmask had a copy of Sax Rohmer's Bimbashi Baruk of Egypt and its cover certainly demonstrated a superior sense of design. Clearly if some effort had been put into the cover, surely this would be reflected in the contents as well? Look at the cover!

I was so pleased by the effort Blackmask made at being creative that I missed a certain unforgiveable typo. Bimbashi Baruk of... "Eygpt?!" Does no one at Blackmask have a copy of Word they could use to run spellcheck?

Needless to say, I'm done with buying public domain books from shady publishers like these.

The Official Index to the Avengers: September!

Completing the most recent incarnation of the Official Index to the Marvel Universe trade paperback collections, the Avengers edition ships this September!

AVENGERS: OFFICIAL INDEX TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE GN-TPB

Marvel brought together its greatest heroes in 1963 to form the world’s premier super-team: the Avengers! Now, an account of their adventures through the intervening decades is assembled in a single volume for the first time. The OFFICIAL INDEX chronicles every issue of the first three volumes of AVENGERS, Brian Michael Bendis’ acclaimed NEW AVENGERS and more — covering more than 600 issues with detailed synopses, character breakdowns and fascinating trivia. Collecting the Avengers chapters from AVENGERS, THOR & CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE OFFICIAL INDEX TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #1-15. 352 PGS./Rated A …$19.99 ISBN: 978-0-7851-5522-5

Recommended reading: X-Men

Although I've prepared recommended reading lists for many Marvel comic titles which have been made into films, I didn't expect to write one up on the occasion of X-Men: First Class's release. In fact, I wasn't certain I would even watch First Class, on account of how little I thought of X-Men 3: the Last Stand.

And yet, here we are; First Class is actually a rather excellent movie and afterward, as the comic-savvy member of the group who watched the film, I was quickly asked to explain some of the background on the characters and plots used in the picture. This brought forward a few happy memories of the X-Men as a comic book franchise, so I decided to go ahead with a recommended reading list after all. Because the X-Men's publications cover such a vast array of titles, I'm going to divide the franchise up by decades, discuss a few specifics and generalities about the franchise at the time, then submit my recommendations. Shall we begin?

THE 1960s

As one of the founding titles in the Marvel Universe, X-Men was one of two (along with Daredevil) which I feel struggled for a long time to discover its voice. Perhaps it's because X-Men was launched as an attempt to recreate the successful Fantastic Four formula (just as Daredevil was aping Spider-Man), yet it ignored many of the elements which Stan Lee & Jack Kirby had already perfected in Fantastic Four; while the FF had no alternate identities, the X-Men maintained double lives, effectively doubling the cast by devoting time to the X-Men in and out of costumes. I don't believe the original X-Men never really gelled in their civilian guises, which were spent mainly at beatnik coffee shops. They did gradually all find romantic matches (while Cyclops was finally paired with Jean Grey), but I never felt the team was as down-to-Earth as the FF. They didn't have the FF's occasional money troubles (Xavier was loaded), nosey neighbours (they lived in the country) or even the occasional bouts of colds and flu's (a staple of Spider-Man comics). The team also graduated from Xavier's school in the first year, making their continued presence at the school a little odd.

I feel the X-Men didn't become remarkable until near the end of the 60s when Roy Thomas & Neal Adams had their all-too-brief run; even then, it's primarily for Adams' art as his design for Havok is a classic and his interpretation of the Sentinels became the standard.

Recommended: X-Men#56-65 (Neal Adams' run)

THE 1970s

After flirting with cancellation, the X-Men returned in a big way with an almost entirely retooled lineup in 1975, with Cyclops now leading Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus and a certain Canucklehead who would snikt his way into our hearts, Wolverine. With Chris Claremont seizing control over the X-Men franchise for the next 16 years, the X-Men developed a consistent creative voice and Claremont's inter team banter and relationships became the new standard for successful super hero team books. Claremont also dropped the X-Men's secret identities from the book, as the team would simply travel incognito in civilian clothes rather than maintain double lives. I feel this eventually led the X-Men franchise into a incestuous world populated only by mutants, their pals and their enemies rather than interacting with the world at large, but at the time it was a much better fit than the old secret identities.

Recommended: Giant-Size X-Men#1 (the new team forms), X-Men#112-113 (terrific X-Men-Magneto fight), X-Men#117 (Xavier's origin), X-Men#120-121 (X-Men vs. Alpha Flight), X-Men#125-128 (X-Men vs. Proteus)

THE 1980s

The 1980s opened with the infamous "Dark Phoenix Saga" which led Jean Grey down a path of corruption, until she finally took her own life to save the universe; it wasn't where Claremont originally meant to bring his story, but it brought the X-Men franchise to even greater highs. It was almost immediately followed by "Days of Future Past," the first of many X-Men stories to delve into time travel as a future version of the young X-Man-in-training Kitty Pryde tries to change the past. These two stories hung a pall over the X-Men's world, but Claremont still kept matters even-handed with yarns like "Kitty's Fairy Tale" and his "X-Babies" romps.

The X-Men (their title now called "Uncanny X-Men") became so successful that their franchise expanded with Xavier training a new class of teenagers in New Mutants, Wolverine taking his first solo adventure in a mini-series (later receiving the first of many ongoing solo books), the original five X-Men reunited in X-Factor, with even Jean Grey back in the fold (long story short: she wasn't really dead) and the X-Men-in-England premise of Excalibur. The additional books distilled Claremont's own voice in the franchise, but I felt his former editor Louise Simonson complimented his ideas in her X-Factor book. In fact, I don't think X-Factor gets enough credit from X-Men fans - her subplot about Cyclops going insane over Jean's seeming resurrection is still great. Kudos are also due to her "Fall of the Mutants" stories in which Apocalypse transformed Angel into his Horseman of Death while Cyclops and Jean resolved the tension of their relationship. Simonson (joined at times by her husband Walter on art), along with talents like Art Adams, Bill Sienkiewicz, John Romita Jr. and Alan Davis brought new energy to the X-Men's world.

Recommended: X-Men#129-137 ("Dark Phoenix Saga"), X-Men#141-142 ("Days of Future Past"), Uncanny X-Men#153 ("Kitty's Fairy Tale"), Uncanny X-Men#161 (Xavier & Magneto's history revealed), Uncanny X-Men#162-167 (X-Men vs. Brood epic), Wolverine#1-4 (Wolverines goes to Japan), Uncanny X-Men#168 (Kitty brings home Lockheed the dragon), Uncanny X-Men#181 (X-Men in Japan), Uncanny X-Men#182 (Rogue loses control of her personalities), New Mutants#18-31 (Bill Sienkiewicz run), Uncanny X-Men#190-191 (barbarian world), Uncanny X-Men#198 (Storm in Africa), New Mutants Special Edition#1/Uncanny X-Men Annual#9 (both teams go to Asgard), Uncanny X-Men#200 (Magneto's trial), New Mutants Annual#2 (Cypher saves the team), Uncanny X-Men Annual#10 (the horrifying X-Babies), X-Factor#15 ("death" of Angel), X-Factor#18 (Cyclops goes mad), X-Factor#24-26 ("Fall of the Mutants"), Excalibur Special Edition (Excalibur forms), Excalibur#1-7 (Alan Davis' first run), Uncanny X-Men#254-255 (Moira MacTaggert's X-Men crash and burn)

THE 1990s

Claremont departed the X-Men in 1991 and the franchise finally fell on hard times; although it remained on top with fandom, the book appeared to be less about creative expression and more about milking a cash cow. Peter David had an all-too-brief run on X-Factor, envisioning the team as government agents, while Alan Davis wrote & drew a terrific series of Excalibur stories and even Scot Lobdell could turn out a nicely restrained "sit around and talk" issue. But overall, the franchise was obese; too many characters, too many interrupted plots, too many titles (including a second X-Men team book dubbed "X-Men"). The New Mutants graduated into the darker X-Force series (and spinning their leader Cable into his own book), but a new cast of students eventually arrived with Generation X, while the minor Wolverine character Maverick gained and lost his own series in just 12 issues, becoming the first X-Men spin-off to suffer low sales.

Recommended: Uncanny X-Men#268 (Wolverine & Captain America's past revealed), Excalibur#42-67 (Alan Davis returns to write/draw), Cable: Blood & Metal#1-2 (surprisingly good background of Cable), Uncanny X-Men#297 (Xavier briefly regains his mobility), X-Factor#87 (team is psychoanalyzed), Uncanny X-Men#308 (team celebrates Thanksgiving, Cyclops & Jean get engaged), Uncanny X-Men#309 (Xavier struggles to be happy for Cyclops & Jean), X-Men#30 (Cyclops & Jean marry), X-Men/ClanDestine#1-2 (okay, recommended because I love ClanDestine more than any other factor), X-Men#-1 (Magneto & Xavier's last conversation as friends)

THE 2000s

A lot of the fat was pulled from the franchise in the 2000s, although it steadily grew back. Claremont returned to the X-Men just in time for 2000's feature film, but he was swiftly shunted aside to the spin-off X-Treme X-Men, while Grant Morrison rebuilt the franchise in his image, ballooning the number of mutants into the millions, developing a host of just plain odd characters and flinging Cyclops into the arms of former villain Emma Frost. I felt Morrison was at his best with "Riot at Xavier's," where a gang of Xavier's own students turn violent. When Morrison departed the ranks of mutants were quickly culled, paving the way for books like Peter David's new X-Factor, casting the team as private investigators rather than government agents. A third team book was added to the ranks with Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, while Xavier - repeatedly undermined by stories which cast him as morally gray or even sinister - was rehabilitated in X-Men: Legacy. Various attempts were made to revive the old young mutants in training formula after Generation X was cancelled, leading to New Mutants, New X-Men, Young X-Men and back to New Mutants again.

Recommended: New X-Men#134-138 ("Riot at Xavier's"), X-Factor#16 (Madrox discovers one of his dupes has his own family), World War Hulk: X-Men#1-3 (Hulk smashes the X-Men), X-Men: Legacy#208-210 (Xavier redeemed), X-Factor#39 (birth of Madrox & Siryn's baby), X-Factor#40 (Madrox turns suicidal)

2010 to present

The X-Men took out a fourth series in 2010 ("X-Men") and Uncanny X-Men is set to be cancelled and relaunched in the near future. Recently, stories have begun to rebuild the mutant population, forming the entire premise behind Kieron Gillen's great Generation Hope series. Beyond that, Wolverine stars in two ongoings of his own, while the other team books include X-Factor, New Mutants and Uncanny X-Force.

Recommended: Generation Hope#1-6 (Hope's team of new mutants begin recruiting)