MARVEL COMICS MRVGQ: MAJOR RUN ON TUESDAY ->
The Plain Dealer
May 23, 1998 Saturday, FINAL / ALL
'X-MEN' FANS CAN EXPECT CHANGES
By MICHAEL SANGIACOMO; PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
On the 35th anniversary of the release of the first issue of "The X-Men," a new team of deadly anti-heroes will be introduced: The X-Men.
Things could get a bit confusing, but Marvel officials said it will all be made clear in the two core X-books, "Uncanny X-Men" and "X-Men," in August.
The introduction of the evil X-Men launches a new story line for Marvel's mutants. It also marks the long-awaited return of Nightcrawler and Colossus to the group following the cancellation of "Excalibur."
In other X-changes, "X-Factor" will be put out of its misery with issue No. 149 or 150, to make way for a new title, "Mutant X." Havok dies in "X-Factor" No. 149, but as he dies, his soul migrates to another dimension, an alternate Earth, where it re-animates the body of that world's deceased Havok. There, he finds a somewhat familiar group of X-Men that he joins.
Marvel is toying with the idea of a double-sized book; half would be the final issue of "X-Factor," issue 150, and the second half would be the first issue of "Mutant X."
Another member of the X-Men will get a solo series beginning late this year, though Marvel declined to identify the character.
John Byrne, who made his reputation writing and drawing the adventures of the X-Men in the '70s and '80s, will write and draw a new "X-Men" comic that should begin late this year. Actually, the Byrne series sounds intriguing - he will document the "missing years" of the original X-Men. Few current readers are even aware that the "X-Men" comic was canceled by Marvel for poor sales with issue No. 66 in 1970. The series ran reprints of earlier comics for four more years until the birth of the new X-Men in 1974.
Marvel's next generation
Make way for the next generation of Marvel superheroes. Beginning in August, MC2 will begin with three new titles: "Spider-Girl," "J2" and "A Next." The comics are aimed at the "Gen 13" set and will feature sexy, smart-mouthed superkids in lead roles.
Spider-Girl is the teenage daughter of Spider-Man and Mary Jane, as seen in a recent issue of "What If?"
"J2" is the adventures of the 14-year-old son of the Juggernaut, one of Marvel's most powerful villains. The press release promises "mischievous escapades spiced with hilarity."
"A Next" is the next generation of Avengers featuring J2; Thunderstrike; Stinger, the teenage daughter of Ant-Man; and Mainframe. The MC2 adventures take place in an alternate universe, which is an unfortunate cop-out. It raises the issue of caring about characters who readers may never see in the "real" Marvel universe.
Nick Fury on the small screen
The Nick Fury television movie airs 8 p.m. Tuesday on Fox and stars "Baywatch's" David Hasselhoff in the lead role.
Coincidentally, or perhaps as a result of actual planning, the tele-movie is being released just weeks after the "Nick Fury-Agent 13" miniseries, which returns Fury to the land of the living. As resurrection stories go, the miniseries was not too bad.
Silent Bob speaks
Movie-maker/comic writer Kevin Smith will speak about multimedia-ism at Ohio State University's Ohio Union West Ballroom, Columbus, 7:30 p.m., June 2.
He will show previously unseen clips from his films "Chasing Amy," "Mallrats" and "Clerks," in which Smith appears as "Silent Bob." I expect he will also talk about his upcoming work on "Green Arrow" for DC and "Daredevil" for Marvel.
Tickets are $10 for nonstudents and available through TicketMaster.
===============================================================
BPI Entertainment News Wire
May 22, 1998, Friday
TV REVIEW; 'Nick Fury'
By MICHAEL FARKASH, The Hollywood Reporter
Let us tell you about Nick Fury. He was one of the roughest,
toughest commandos to come out of the Big One. Heck of a fighter.
Women loved him. Men admired him. Nazis despised him. Later, Fury
became head of the covert law agency S.H.I.E.L.D., and the 1960s
were never the same.
Now, Fox debuts the Marvel comic book character in his first
live-action movie, with David Hasselhoff ("Baywatch") playing the
curmudgeonly, eye-patched, cigar-chompin' Nick Fury. The script
embraces its original comic magazine pedigree and gives it a campy
twist, placing the TV movie firmly into the territory of
action-thriller light.
That said, when you rack up the film against most of the other
live-action, super-hero movies, "Nick Fury: Agent of
S.H.I.E.L.D." does not come off too badly. Visual effects are
exciting and inventive, the action hardly flags under director Rod
Hardy ("The Buffalo Girls"), the high-tech stuff is colorful, and
the women agents and villains look like starlets.
Hasselhoff is somewhat engaging in the role and actually does
get the Nick Fury look down, committing himself to the character.
But we never quite believe he's the tough ex-soldier and spymaster
of Marvel legend. The "Baywatch" star works very hard to make it
play, but the casting match here is just not perfect.
Fans of Hasselhoff and younger viewers may be enchanted.
However, adults are never able to suspend our disbelief
sufficiently to really take this actioner seriously because of the
light tone underneath it all.
The script by David S. Goyer keeps us firmly entrenched in
fantasy territory, with melodramatic elements assembled all the way
down to the villainess's evil laugh.
So expect an unapologetic romp with the German kids of old Nazis
plotting evil, New York to be menaced with a biological weapon,
Fury to reunite with the woman he loved and lost, and high-tech
gadgetry that would make James Bond envious.
In the TV movie, Fury rejoins S.H.I.E.L.D. (a k a Supreme
Headquarters International Espionage Law-Enforcement Division) to
battle the evil HYDRA organization and villainess Sandra Hess
("Mortal Kombat"). She has a plan for revenge against both Fury
and America involving a deadly virus.
Soon, Fury and his team are facing Hess, who is specifically
ticked off because Fury brought down her father, Baron Wolfgang von
Strucker. To counter the threat, Fury works with his old flame,
Valentina Allegro de Fontaine (Lisa Rinna of "Melrose Place"), as
well as other go-getter operatives. Fury's also been poisoned, so
he has a deadline to stop the HYDRA operation.
Rinna does a solid job, but her role as written doesn't give her
much to play, other than commando agent and regretful lover. Hess
has some supremely evil lines to deliver, and at one point, wears a
giddily colorful costume that's way over the top. Much of her
dialog is also in the realm of the extreme.
For those tuning in, just relax and roll with it and expect
lovely women in black fighting togs but no bikini babes.
NICK FURY: AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Fox
Airdate: Tuesday, May 26, 8-10 p.m.
(PROFILE
(BPI
(style:review)
(regarding:television)
________________________________________________________________________
SPOTLIGHT, Pg. H12, TRAVEL -- GET UP & GO REGIONAL TRIPS YOU CAN MAKE IN A DAY -- INFOBOX
Marvel-ous!;
You'll find everything from soup to superheroes like Spiderman at the Marvel Mania restaurant.;
It takes just two steps past the doorway to set off the alarms. Blasts of bells, whistles and explosions bounce off the gun-metal gray walls and ricochet out the door.;
Ding.;
Wrrrrr.;
Pow!;
It's an ominous welcome to the Marvel Mania restaurant tucked on the edge of the Universal Studios theme park.;
The latest in the growing trend of theme restaurants opened in February, and it doesn't count on movie or music memorabilia for its attractions. There are no skeleton-thin models or overpaid athletes behind this venture. This restaurant features the costumed characters who have dominated the pages of Marvel Comics since the 1960s.;
Spiderman. The X-Men. The Incredible Hulk. The Fantastic Four. They are the inspiration and the obvious attraction for baby boomers and their children at this life-sized comic-book eating experience.;
Don't look for Reed Richards or Professor Xavier riding herd over this comic-book world. They have given way to the rather mild-mannered Mark Taitt, the general manager. He was the boss of the San Francisco Planet Hollywood before heading south to take command of the prototype for what eventually will be a five-restaurant chain.;
"Everything is designed over the top," Taitt says. "Even down to the plates we use, this restaurant has been created to be both appealing to youngsters and adults.";
That assault begins as soon as patrons pass through that noisy doorway. The foyer is filled with kiosks housing items from some of Marvel's biggest names.;
Dr. Strange's cape hangs just a few feet from the armored suit worn by Iron Man. A handful of "spider trackers" are in another area while Captain America's Shield sits a few feet away.;
These displays rest next to the restaurant's bar that features a backdrop of illustrations of many of the Marvel comic-book characters. Patrons can check out one of the numerous video monitors that constantly feed cartoons and stats of the comic characters while sipping comic-themed concoctions.;
A Journey into Mystery would be known as a frozen margarita outside the comic world. A Marvel Triple Action is a blend of rums, pineapple and orange juice with three pipettes filled with various alcohols and juices that can been added as desired.;
Strolling toward the dining area is Captain America. He slips his trademark shield over his shoulder to shake hands with a young fan. A parent's attempt to take a photograph fails as the camera has run out of film.;
"I have to go call and see if everything is OK. I'll come back later," Captain America says. He signs an autograph before slipping away.;
Taitt explains that five costumed characters wander through the restaurant. Spiderman stands outside the door signing autographs. Storm, Wolverine and Silver Surfer have the day off.;
"As people get tired of them, we can bring in other super heroes," Taitt says. "But, Spiderman is the biggest attraction we have.";
The majority of the facility's 25,000-square feet has been devoted to the dining areas that will seat 400 guests. Only the Fantastic Four's mansion comes with more video screens, displays and images of the Marvel gang.;
That's particularly noticeable in one of the four "Comic Book Rooms." A little more intimate than the main dining area, each room has four sets of booths and its own video screen flashing colorful comic images throughout the meal.;
Images of Nick Fury and The Thing -- painted in Roy Lichtenstein fashion -- tower over the diners. Examination of those works stops as the seat begins to vibrate.;
"Each seat in the Comic Book Room has been designed to work with the cartoon images," Taitt says.;
As the Hulk stomps his foot and screams, the seats shake in tandem.;
The Marvel theme continues to the menus. Both the children's and adult's menus are comic books filled with themed selections accented by drawings of super heroes. Varied versions of the Human Torch are used to explain the spice level of different dishes.;
You can munch on Gambit's Sugar Cane Shrimp ($ 9.95) or tackle the Incredible Hulk Burger ($ 9.95). Other selections include Ghost Rider's Ribs ($ 15.95), Doc Ock's Wok ($ 10.95), Daredevil's Rolled Billy Club ($ 8.95) and the Two-Gun Kid Cheeseburger ($ 8.50).;
Picks for kids include Dare Dogs, Cap's Battle Burger and Champions Cheese Pizza. The selections -- all $ 5.95 -- come with Marvel Mania munchies (cheese crackers), drink ands dessert.;
All are served on plates featuring the Marvel characters.;
"That has all been selected on purpose. It is all part of the presentation," Taitt says.;
With all of these comic book assaults on the senses, it would seem the restaurant could be its own arch enemy. The cartoons, characters and fancy menus don't tend to hasten patron's out the door to keep the turnover quick enough to be profitable.;
That's been no problem so far.;
"The average restaurant has people staying 45 minutes. Ours stay about 55 minutes. We are not worried about that extra 10 minutes," Taitt says.;
Of course Universal Studio patrons -- who can enter through a special entrance and then return to the theme park without having to pay for the privilege -- don't want to waste time. Park patrons, to Taitt's delight, are making up only 50 percent of the diners.;
Taitt explains the newest restaurant on the theme block has to have repeat business from locals to survive. That's why the restaurant can be accessed from inside or outside the park.;
"A lot of theme restaurants are having problems because they have concentrated on the design rather than the food. People come and see the place and then the food isn't good enough to make them come back," Taitt says. "We have gone the other way.;
"If a child asks the parent to come here, the parent will be more likely to agree because they know the food will be good.";
The company will use the same format when at when the second edition of Marvel Mania rolls out in Orlando.;
For now, only Universal City offers the X-perience of dining in the restaurant the X-Men helped inspire.Infobox -- IF YOU GO;
MARVEL MANIA;
Where: Adjacent to Universal Studios Hollywood. Exit Highway 101 at Universal Center Drive or Landershiem Boulevard.;
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. 11a.m.-11p.m. Friday and Saturday.;
Bar: Separate fromthe restaurant.;
Restaurant: Seating for 250 on main floor; party and banquet seating for 150.;
Reservations: Highly suggested especially on weekends. Telephone (818) 762-7835.;
Marvel characters featured: 104.;
Super villians in bar area: 60.;
Shopping: Animation cels to T-shirts in Marvel Mania stores.
Rick Bentley, The Fresno Bee
LOS ANGELES
The Incredible Hulk and Spiderman join diners at the Marvel Mania restauranat Universal Studios theme park in Hollywood. Spiderman Map
Marvel Mania
Adjacent to Universal Studios Hollywood
Map shows California coastal area with a detailed area highlighting the Los Angeles area (see microfilm for map)
________________________________________________________________________
FANFARE, Pg. G2
SO HERE'S THE WACKIEST GIMMICK OF ALL - GOOD WRITING FOR COMICS
Andrew Smith
Captain Comics has seen a lot of goofy gimmicks to boost funnybook sales: Hologram Covers; Big Guys with Guns; Bad Girls with Few Clothes On; even (Lord help us) Nuns with Guns.
Now comics are trying the wackiest gimmick of all: It's called ''Good Writing.''
After too many years of lame-o storytelling, the big companies are hiring the best in the business to pen their top titles. The latest coup is a fellow named Kevin Smith, best known for his movies Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy. Smith (no relation) will pick up the writing chores on Marvel Comics's Daredevil and DC Comics's Green Arrow sometime after wrapping up his latest movie, Dogma.
''But,'' I hear you gasping, ''why would a famous writer-moviemaker- raconteur like Kevin Smith lower himself to write comic books?''
Beats me. Next thing you know, Stephen King will debase himself by writing network television. Like The X-Files, maybe.
Anyway, if you've followed Smith's career, it's pretty obvious that he's quite a funnybook fan himself. After all, Chasing Amy took place at a comics convention, and Mallrats had a cameo by Marvel Comics founder and pop-culture guru Stan Lee.
This won't be the first time Smith - who plays ''Silent Bob'' in all his films - has appeared in comics. Clerks the comic book (published by Oni Press, 6336 SE Milwaukie Ave., Suite No. 30, Portland Ore., 97202) was co-written by the Bob. And a new four-issue miniseries (called Jay & Silent Bob) will follow this June.
So it's obvious Smith has a love for four-color funnies. Heck, he must love comics, to tack his name on to second-tier titles like Daredevil and Green Arrow. I mean, we're not talking Superman here. ''The Man Without Fear'' is blind, and the ''Emerald Archer'' shoots, um, really sharp arrows.
OK, there's a bit more to them than that.
Daredevil is a martial artist who, while blind, has other heightened senses that allow him to hear heartbeats, read newspapers by touch and find his way around with ''radar sense.'' He's got a sterling supporting cast, including his ex-junkie girlfriend, bumbling law partner ''Foggy'' Nelson, the World's Meanest Boss (yes, including yours) and a terrific bad guy in the hulking form of ''The Kingpin'' of New York's underworld. Oh, and he dresses in red tights.
Green Arrow is the second of that name, the son of the original arrow-shooting Batman wannabe introduced in the '40s. GA is the most politically correct hero in comics, being equal parts Caucasian, Oriental and African-American. He's a former monk unfamiliar with the ways of the world, who is - to his complete consternation - irresistible to women. And he dresses in green tights.
Both titles have been good reads for some time, and it's disappointing that sales have been marginal. Marvel and DC comics are obviously banking on Smith's cachet to draw readers to these titles, both of which are currently on the brink of cancellation.
Still, we won't know until at least late summer, when Dogma wraps up and this new writer climbs on board.
In the meantime, however, there's no dearth of good writing around. The Captain is really very pleased with how funnybooks are rising to the challenge of entertaining their readership in the face of TV, movies and the Internet.
If you remember the dynamic comics of your childhood and want to see them again, look no further than all-ages books like Incredible Hulk, Starman, Avengers, Captain America, Thunderbolts, Astro City, Supergirl, Supreme and Justice League of America. They are so much darn fun, the Captain's wife is getting jealous.
Plus, Marvel has hired fan favorites Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti to punch up Black Panther (soon to be in a movie with Wesley Snipes), Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (soon to be a TV movie with David Hasselhoff) and The Punisher (who was already in a movie with Dolph Lundgren, which the Captain is trying to forget). And Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the duo who launched The Uncanny X-Men into the stratosphere some 20 years ago, have signed on for another tour of duty with Marvel's Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, respectively.
Imagine that: Comics that are fun to read. Just plain old good storytelling, with nary a hologram cover, heavily-armed muscleman, half-naked babe or psychotic nun in sight.
It's crazy - but it just might work!
Captain Comics, who thinks Daredevil and Green Arrow should team up every Christmas, can be reached at capncomics@aol.com
===============================================================
The Observer
The Observer Review Page; Pg. 1
How Spider-Man changed my life;
A moment of revelation under a Roman fresco
BY GEOFF DYER
I remember with absolute clarity the first marvel comic I bought. Spider-Man 46, 'The Sinister Shocker'. This was the issue of March 1967 and it cost 10d. I was eight, a working-class boy at a primary school in Cheltenham and I was entranced: obviously, by the costumed acrobatics and spectacular fights, but I also liked the glimpses of the ongoing soap opera of the life of Spidey's alter ego, Peter Parker.
This was the phase in Parker's life when, having been spurned as puny and stuck-up, he was at last becoming integrated into the fashionable, semi -alternative life of college. At one point in issue 46, Peter turns up at a coffee bar with Mary-Jane, one of two gorgeously hip women he's become friendly with. When he asks M-J if she wants to go for an ice-cream she replies, 'Not while the juke is jumpin' dad! Since you can't shake up a storm with your wing in a sling I'll take a rain check till the coins run out.' Also on the scene is Flash Thompson, puny Parker's arch-tormentor and in one of the ironies milked to death by Spider-Man creator Stan Lee Spidey's biggest fan, who is about to be drafted into the army and will go to Vietnam ('Mmm! There's something about a male in uniform! It's wow city!' sighs Mary -Jane.) Now lots of this, it goes without saying, went way over my head. In future issues I would come across all sorts of references to Woody Allen, to Dear Abbey that meant absolutely nothing to me but, from issue 46 on, I was caught in Spidey's web.
By the age of 12, I was fairly fluent (albeit with a Gloucestershire accent) in the kind of Marvelese quoted above, that sanitised version of American youth-speak. Although Spider-Man remained my favourite I also got into Thor, Daredevil and The Fantastic Four which meant, by implication, that something of America's burgeoning psychedelic culture was being graphically imprinted in my head.
And that's not all. One of the reasons Marvel had an edge over their main rivals, DC, was the way that their brand of superheroics did not take place in a fantasy vacuum but in the here and now of American life. In issue 68 (January 1969), Spidey becomes caught up in the 'Crisis on Campus'.
In issue 78 (November 1969), Hobbie Brown, a young black window-cleaner burdened by domestic problems, is fired by his racist boss and decides to try his luck as a supervillain, The Prowler. Spidey beats him but, instead of turning him over to the cops, tells him to go back home to his girlfriend ('that's where it's really at').
Marvel's knack for siphoning the Zeitgeist into the action meant that a version albeit a heavily distorted one of contemporary American history was finding its way across the Atlantic to me in the English mid-west (ie Gloucestershire). After family memories of the Somme and the Airfix -generated recreation of the Second World War, this fantastic version of American life was, without question, my most important exposure to extra -curricular history. Like the two world wars, this comic-book America was something I learnt about began to find my way around, to make sense of independently.
The Dandy and the Beano were simply comics; Marvel was a universe, subtly different from my own. I have always tended to assume that my life began to stray from the template laid down by class and family when I fell under the influence of my English teacher at grammar school, where I was encouraged to read books like Sons and Lovers; that is when I took my first steps on the well-worn path of the scholarship boy. Now, I realise, it started much earlier, when I bought that copy of Spider-Man 46.
In 1928, D. H. Lawrence wrote a beautiful essay, 'Hymns in a Man's Life', in which he reflected on the way that the hymns he heard as a boy 'mean to me almost more than the finest poetry, and they have for me a more permanent value, somehow or other.' It didn't matter that the words of these hymns were often banal or incomprehensible to him; what mattered was the 'sheer delight' they inspired in 'the golden haze of a child's half-formed imagination.' Even at this late stage of Lawrence's life he had less than two years to live the sense of 'wonder' engendered by these hymns was 'undimmed'.
I feel the same about the comics in my life. They not only had a profound influence on my childish consciousness; they also formed my tastes as a reader and provided me with the first sense of discrimination of ranking some artists higher than others in the visual arts, especially when, after a hiatus of six or seven years, I began collecting comics in earnest.
From O levels to the beginning of university, instead of unswerving loyalty to Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four, I collected whichever issues of any comic were drawn by particular artists: Neal Adams, Berni Wrightson, Barry Smith and, especially, Jim Steranko. Artists like these had begun to carve out more and more freedom for their own highly personal visual style.
Typically, their work would peak in a few masterly issues and then, unable to keep to the gruelling deadlines of monthly production, there would be a marked deterioration or they would move on to another title. Steranko's best work, for example, is found in a dozen panel-bursting, genre-advancing issues of Nick Fury, three sensational issues 110, 111 (featuring a 'strange, mad, psychedelic nightmare' sequence) and 113 of Captain America and an iconic cover of The Incredible Hulk King-Size Special 1.
The years passed. Through comics I became interested in other artists: first, Roger Dean, then the really big hitters like Salvador Dali. Even when I got a broader sense of art history, my preferences and special interests were profoundly influenced by that early exposure to Marvel comics. To put it simply, I liked Michelangelo because the obsessive and extreme torsion of his figures was so obviously derived from that of Jack Kirby (virtuoso creator of the FF and mentor of Jim Steranko).
All this became clear to me suddenly last autumn, when I experienced what I can only think of calling a moment of intensely heightened autobiography. The church of Saint Ignatius in Rome is famous for the trompe l'oeil cupola by Andrea Pozzo. Before you get that far into the church, however, you look up at the vault of the central nave, at the epic fresco, also by Pozzo.
Completed in 1694, The Triumph of Saint Ignatius shows the dead saints of antiquity slugging it out in a zone of sheer spectacle. Amid dizzy perspectival foreshortening, the continents of the world are represented by four corbels. On one of these on one panel, as it were, of the huge graphic myth of the ceiling a woman with a spear sends two beefcake figures tumbling from her precarious perch (identified by the single word 'AMERICA') into the emptiness of illusionistic space.
According to Freud, there is no time in the unconscious; at certain intensely charged moments there is no time in consciousness itself. Looking up at the image-crammed ceiling I experienced a sensation which mirrored what was depicted above, a kind of temporal vertigo. The 30 years that separated the man staring at this baroque fresco in Rome from the boy who had bought his first Marvel comic in Cheltenham fell away, became compressed into a single instant of wonder.
Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer's new novel, 'Paris Trance', will be published in April.
March 17, 1998 |
