Way back in March 1996, the biggest news of the month was the arrangement between Marvel and Image founders Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. Surely hindsight will show this short-lived and ill-remembered run isn’t the most noteworthy thing covered that month…
After the unsuccessful Marvelution (see last week’s review of “Wizard” #54), Marvel needed something exciting to show stock holders, something that would inspire confidence. Their solution was to hand over four of their classic properties to two creators who visibly and vocally abandoned the company four years earlier to start their own. The deal was finalized in December 1995, and somehow “Wizard” was able to get this artwork for their cover that was published the next month. That’s some speedy promotional work for a series still more than half a year away.
Letters
Jim McLauchlin, the regular curator of the mail column, took a break this month and was replaced by Kathy Newman from the promotions department. It might be a bit late for the praise to matter, but I found her replies to be much more interesting than Jim’s. It’s hard to explain why, exactly, but she comes off as more natural, whereas Jim is trying too hard to be cool.
There is one delightfully quaint letter from a guy named Adam Frey. Adam wrote in because he had recently discovered cyberspace thanks to America Online, and he was so excited because there was a DC Comics room where he could have intelligent conversations with other fans. Alas, he also found trolls who would reply to his thoughtful fanboy posts with “Superman sucks.” Kathy responded that she had encountered trolls as well, but hoped that one day soon “the kids” would start typing in full sentences and people everywhere could have “real conversations”. Maybe one day, Kathy. Maybe one day…
Features
Paradise Found is a three-page look at Terry Moore and his still-new “Strangers in Paradise”. It’s a good read, but is mostly generic praise and responses from Moore. The most fascinating part (with hindsight) is buried in a sidebar: Moore had plans for a Magnum Opus called “Diamond of Time” for when “SiP” concluded, which was expected to happen sooner than it eventually did. Maybe we’ll get that when “Five Years” is over?
First Look: The Dreaming is a promotional piece for Vertigo’s follow up to ”The Sandman”. The series was like an anthology, with rotating teams handing different arcs. A long-term claim to fame here is the first introduction between writer Peter Hogan and artist Steve Parkhouse for the second arc. The two liked working together and eventually reunited for Dark Horse’s wonderful “Resident Alien”.
The Crow Must Go On is four pages of news about the sequel to the Crow film, which was being made quickly after the success of the first film. Star Brandon Lee died during an on-set accident while filming the first one, so there was a lot of morbid curiosity about how the sequel was being handled.
Spin Doctor is a four-page profile of Kurt Busiek and his current projects. Still riding high off his success with “Marvels”, the writer was working hard to make sure his next efforts were good enough to prevent him from always being known as “The Marvels Guy”. I think that worked out for him. Also, this article was good enough to get me interested in tracking down his issue of “Untold Tales of Spider-Man”.
Continued belowQ&A: Mark Waid is what it sounds like for five pages and is pretty comprehensive. Waid claims to know Superman’s social security number, but doesn’t share it.
Big Bang is a primer for Magic the Gathering and includes some information about the man who created it, Richard Garfield.
In Krash Course, Greg Capullo gives tips on facial expressions and body language.
This month’s edition of Drawing Board, where fans submit their own artwork, was an all-female theme. That is, all the drawings are of women. The artists were all male (with an ambiguous Toni thrown in). Homemade Heroes, which showcases kitbashed action figures, also went with an all-female line-up but had better representation with half of the creations being from women.
Trailer Park, the home for all your movie news, was full of duds this month. Of all the rumors and plans announced here, the only one that came true was Alicia Silverstone’s turn as Batgirl in Batman & Robin. Everything else either fell through (films for Hulk, Silver Surfer, Green Hornet) or got altered (Julie Roberts as Poison Ivy, Patrick Stewart as Mr Freeze, Val Kilmer as Batman again). I guess you can’t win them all.
Top 10 Comics
“Gen13” #1 was the top ranked back issue, followed by four Bad Girl books, two issues of “X-Files”, and a couple issues of “Wolverine” that weren’t recent releases: #1 and #75. I’m not sure how those two got in, because there didn’t seem to be any big Wolverine news going on at the time. The tenth spot was rounded out by “Preacher” #1 which, while not my cup of tea, has actually stood the test of time much better than any of the other entries.
The number one recommended book for February 1996 was “Death: The Time of Your Life” #1. The miniseries was written by Neil Gaiman and served as his follow up to “The Sandman”. This excellent choice was followed by “Captain America” #450, which was in the midst of a revival as Mark Waid replaced long-time scribe Mark Gruenwald. I imagine it was hard to get too excited about it since the upcoming reboot had already been announced. The final big recommendation was for “Untold Tales of Spider-Man” #8, which was being pushed for its $0.99 cent price tag. As mentioned earlier, this issue of “Wizard” has convinced me to track down the series, which was set between early issues of “Amazing Spider-Man” while Parker was still in high school.
Market Watch
“Marvel vs DC” was the top seller for December 1995 and demand was high, but retailers reported it was still only selling for its $3.95 cover price. Not including that crossover, Marvel took 19 of the top 25 sales positions and DC’s best selling book, “Batman” #527, was languishing in the #26 spot. Image occupied the other top positions. Meanwhile, retailers reported the bad girl trend was staring to cool off.
Wizard Profile
This month’s back page went to Paul Chadwick, creator of “Concrete”. His answers to the standard questions were more thoughtful and unique than was typical, which also happens to accurately describe “Concrete”. If you haven’t read the series before, I highly recommend it.
That’s it for the fifty fifth issue of “Wizard”. Check back next Thursday for more of the most important news in comics, circa April 1996.
