Bill says, “Blog about comics. Like, compare/contrast Siege and Blackest Night.”

I generally try to avoid the nerdiest of nerdy comic stuff here, saving it for Alert Nerd, but I do what my readership commands. Because I care.

I have, in fact, written about Blackest Night in a meta kind of way, a few times before. But not in this space, and not in earnest after the first issue actually hit stands. Seige, I have been a bit reticent about.

To bring the non comics-savvy up to speed…

Blackest Night and Siege are ‘event’ comic book miniseries being published by DC (Batman) and Marvel (Wolverine) respectively.

Blackest Night spins out of events building over the last few years in the Green Lantern books (being Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps), and deals with the emergence of Black Lanterns – zombie versions of deceased characters empowered by black power rings and running around acting like jerks and ripping out the hearts of the living in order to facilitate the return of Nekron, the physical embodiment of death in the DC Comics universe. There is also now a Lantern for every other color in the rainbow, not just Green. The Orange Lantern is like a deranged Muppet on acid. Right now, Blackest Night is six issues into its 8 issue story and have seen lots of inconsequential characters (Aqualad, Hawkman, Damage) get butchered by zombie superheroes, seen the Flash literally outrun Death (again), and seen an exploding zombie Batman.

Siege is, as Marvel bills it, “an event seven years in the making,” going back to Brian Bendis and David Finch’s Avengers: Disassembled, a story in which a deranged Scarlet Witch, grieving the loss of the imaginary children she had with her android husband The Vision (don’t ask), freaked out and used her ridiculous reality-altering powers to murder Ant Man, Hawkeye, Vision and Jack of Hearts, blow up Avengers mansion and generally pave the way for a new take on the Avengers as a super-team, a take that included Spider-Man and Wolverine as team members and generally met with howls of derision from tens of people who were big fans of Photon and Jack of Hearts and Triathlon and Doctor Druid (ie. while I, as a writer, do not believe there are inherently bad characters, these characters come shockingly close to such a distinction). In Siege, the Green Goblin is the Director of Homeland Security and he and his team of Avengers (who are actually criminals dressed as the Avengers; the real Avengers are all basically criminals in a stunning twist) are starting a war against Asgard, the place where the Norse gods live, which Thor has conveniently parked a few feet above a farm in rural Oklahoma. Captain America (who was dead until like a month ago), Iron Man (who is in a persistent vegetative state in his own monthly comic) and Thor (who is basically awesome because he is Thor) are going to team up again to save the day, and this is a big deal because Iron Man is basically responsible for Cap’s death and used Thor’s DNA to make a cyborg murder drone that looks like Thor, which resulted in nobody liking Iron Man very much for awhile.

The two events are emblematic of the way that each publisher handles big events. On the DC side, the main attraction is the miniseries itself and its attendant fireworks show. Big stuff happens in each issue, with lots of sturm und drang, and there is a surfeit of bitchin’ fight scenes and macho dialogue. It is a formula that DC has used well over the years, going back to 1986′s Crisis On Infinite Earths (which is still the event comic that all other event comics are judged by). With Marvel, however, the trend seems to be that the aftermath of an event is more interesting than the event itself. Civil War led to the Initiative storyline, which is still affecting at least a few books; the end of Secret Invasion led to a status quo where Norman Osborn ran everything and the heroes were forced to go underground, and Siege is already promising another huge status quo change in its wake that Marvel is calling “The Heroic Age” in its marketing copy.

Ultimately, Blackest Night and Siege are two very differently structured events, but I’ve been reading and enjoying both for what they are.

I think I forget each year about just how much I love Thanksgiving, at least until it’s right upon us. It’s that curmudgeony part of me that wants to gripe about traveling and seeing my family that’s responsible for it, I know. This year, I was fixated on how I didn’t get to cook or bake while my mother and sister did the lion’s share of the food prep, too. Once I got there, though, all of the gripes faded a bit and got lost somewhere in the turkey and beer and pie and playing children and people I haven’t seen in over a year and such and whatnot and then – bam – it’s the holidays and I don’t mind the incessant Christmas music quite so much.

Actually, I’m even kind of over my need to contribute to the feast in some way. Talking with a coworker about her struggle against a bedeviling cake recipe may have cured me of that (and led me to say, “That’s what they mean when they call recipes like that food porn – some people somewhere are doing that in some kitchen, and it’s great to be able to see that, but doing that in your own kitchen in front of people you care about is just going to alienate them and make things awkward.”

It’s become a bit of an annual thing to reflect a bit on what I’m thankful for, and who am I to break form? I’ve gushed effusively about friends and family not too long ago in my reflection on turning 30, so I’m just going to hope that they still know I appreciate them.

• Batman – I am never not thankful for Batman.
• Rocket Raccoon – an ill-tempered, talking raccoon astronaut with a penchant for shooting things.
• Scribblenauts – a game in which you can use items as various as the Large Hadron Collider, God and a plethora of Internet memes to assist you in solving puzzles.
• That I’ve managed to meet an amazing woman who doesn’t just tolerate my nerdiness but enjoys it and shares in it. And that (although I’m sure I’ll get chided for self-deprecation) I’ve not yet managed to screw it up royally.
• Pumpkin Pie
• Batm- wait, did I say that already?
• That I’ve not seen any films directed by Uwe Boll this year.

Please note that this is not a numbered list and that the actual order of importance may vary.

Last fall, the list of books I have set aside for me at my local comic shop looked like this:

Warner Bros. announced a restructuring at DC today, with current Publisher Paul Levitz resigning and returning to writing full-time, where he’ll be focusing on getting Adventure Comics canceled (you read that Gentleman Ghost brick that he tossed in during Infinite Crisis, yes?). Taking his place is Diane Nelson, who has a proven track record of success that you might know as the Harry Potter movies. She will be reporting to movie guy Jeff Robinov.

It seems obvious that this restructuring (and rebranding as DC Entertainment) is structured toward a smoother transition between print and screen for DC properties. And the nerds are freaking out. Just like they freaked out about the Disney/Marvel deal of two weeks ago, a deal that is a net positive for all parties concerned and has no immediate negatives that I can perceive.

STFU, Nerds.

I just spent my last post complaining about reactionary nonsense, and now here I am doing it again. Oh no, DC is now owned by the corporation that already owned them. Oh no, now we might get a decent Wonder Woman movie someday.

Take a deep breath and ask yourself this question:

Batman?

As long as you can answer yes, everything is fine.

In celebration of Comic Con weekend, here are some superheroic covers, one of which is a bizarre special request from a reader.

The Cardigans – Iron Man (Black Sabbath Cover)

Link Wray – Batman Theme (Neal Hefti Cover)

When Batman “died”* in the pages of Final Crisis #6, I think everybody knew that the cape and pointy-eared cowl would pass to Dick Grayson, the original Robin/Nightwing.  Tim Drake, the current Robin, is too young and doesn’t smoke nearly enough to cultivate that Christian Bale-y voice.  Jason Todd, the unlikeable , brutish Robin II who was killed via a reader poll in the late ’80s, was back from the dead and mentally unstable – a bit too mentally unstable to take the reins from a guy who wears tights and beats up clowns and guys dressed like animals because he wants his dead mother to love him (think about that).  None of the other possibilities ever really made much sense.  Which is one of the reasons why the Battle For the Cowl event that filled the gap between the end of the Crisis and notable comics writer and Scotsman Grant Morrison’s drug-addled return to Batman with June’s Batman and Robin #1 was simply not very good.

With two issues under its utility belt so far, Batman and Robin has been an incredibly fun ride.  Morrison has always been the kind of talent that, for me, does his best work in the sandbox of a licensed character, and each of his collaborations with artist Frank Quitely are noteworthy, a rule that Bn’R does nothing to disprove.  In fact, this is some of Quitely’s best superhero work – much more kinetic than the admittedly great All-Star Superman (another collaboration with Morrison), full of inspired touches, like sound effects that are integrated into the action – after Robin smashes into a wall in issue #2, the spiderweb of lines radiating out from the impact spell out the word SMASH.

Morrison’s writing isn’t quite on par with All-Star Superman, but considering that #10 in that series is one of my top 5 favorite single issues of a comic book ever, that’s a tough act to follow.  But it’s easy to get caught up in Dick Grayson’s mix of enthusiasm and trepidation about taking over the Bat-mantle, and even easier to love 10 year old Damian Wayne’s near-constant air of malicious glee as he insults Alfred and reminds everyone about how he was raised by his mother’s League of Assassins.  Damian, too, is a character at juxtaposition with himself – he’s his mother Talia’s creature without a doubt, but has rare, glimmering moments when he’s trying to be his late father’s son.  Instead of the normal status quo, this temporary reprieve from Bruce Wayne is refreshing because of the new dynamic between the titular duo here – both are learning how to be who they’re going to be and learning how to tolerate each other.  In a sense, Morrison has ruined Batman, but in the best and most enjoyable way.

While I’ve slowly been whittling DC books off of my pull list, Batman and Robin is the first one that I’ve added in at least six months, and with my comics dollar going a shorter distance each week, that’s the highest praise I can muster.

*I, for one, don’t expect comic book death to last any longer than is dramatically expedient, having been trained in the twists and turns of fakeout cliffhanger deaths (“Cyclops is dead!”/”Cyclops is alive!”) and implausible resurrections by a life of X-Men fandom.  Not to mention that Morrison showed Batman alive and well, just temporally displaced, in the very next issue of the title in question.  The impermanence of death in a fictional universe where a karaoke machine from the future can destroy a god is not, nor should it be, shocking.