Welcome to New York City, a place destroyed by villains far more than any other. Now, it’s time for the geeks to takeover and dismantle the Big Apple at this year’s New York Comic-Con.
The only panel that intrigued this Moody eye on the “soft open” of Thursday’s first day was the World Premiere of the DC documentary, Necessary Evil: Super-Villains of DC Comics.” Seeing how the past 4-weeks had launched an evil takeover of the monthly ongoings, the doc appeared to fall on the right week.
Of course, the timing was hardly ironic.
For the most part, this feature was more compelling than PBS’ Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle, a doc the Reverend, Cardinal and I recently had a pleasure of podcasting (which you can blame our villainous Abott for not posting yet). As the cast of GHG declared in San Diego: Marvel has the heroes; DC has the villains. Villains are the ones that drive heroes to stand up for truth, justice and the American way (or whatever vengeful reasons they have for doing what is “right”). Insert many more tropes here! What I loved especially about Necessary Evil, was the twofold nature of nearly every hero and their classic rogue. Joker is the dastardly reflection of Batman; Zod of Supes; Professor Eobard “Zoom” Thawne of Flash (hence, Reverse-Flash); Cheetah of Wonder Woman…
Okay, so not all of them go that way, but you catch DC’s drift. There’s more to these super-villains than twirling mustaches, twisted pasts, and greedy goals. Lex Luthor is a lot like your friendly neighborhood mayor, or president in many ways. Doing good, doings lots of good even, for the betterment of himself…and for his home. You know, with his own ideas of (to quote the McMahon’s) “what’s best for business”. Of course Clark has a few issues with Lex’s idealogies. But even cooler, the two have had to team-up on many occasions to battle forces that, say, the Justice League simply can’t handle on their own (hello Crime Syndicate). Even further than Grant Morrison’s classic run on the JLA were events like Final Crisis that drove even Bruce Wayne to brandish a gun. The femme-fatles like Poison Ivy, criminal masterminds like Black Mask (the new top dog in Arkham Origins), and superior intelligent alien crazies (Brainiac) are all references in Nec. Evil.
Does a lot of this sound familiar? You betcha bottom dollar.
The documentary serves as the perfect *drumroll please* “jumping-on point” for anyone interested in reading DC comics for the first time since they were begging their moms to take them to flea-markets, or for anyone who’s been “out of comics” now curious about The New 52. Part of this documentary — and believe me, there’ll be more — appears part PR stunt to further clarify changes (and origins) to many of the villains, explain why they kept what they liked (i.e. basically anything Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder have written, as both are heavily featured here), and give reason for September’s “Villains Month”. Baddies who don’t get nearly as much shine as, say, the Penguin or Sinestro, such as Parasite or Black Adam get some much-deserved shine here.
The bottom line is that if you’ve been keeping up with your favorite Caped Crusader, Emerald Knight or Man of Steel in the pages of DC’s funnypages in recent years, there’s no necessary reason to give this 90-minutes of your time. Others who’ve been out of the comic loop in some time will enjoy this more hardcore vets, although the Neophyte who was right alongside me for the panel referred to the film as “something she could have waited for on Netflix while cleaning up the apartment.”
So, let’s clean house with what was deemed Villains Month, shall we?
The Good: I was really excited to read the Lex Luthor one-shot, considering my new favorite writer Charles Soule had the assignment and the face that Luthor is the focal point of this whole Forever Evil thing, anywho. It was a decent read — and I wouldn’t mind seeing Soule give him another whirl — but something felt missing. Bane‘s solo dish in Batman #23.4 compelled me to read the comic in Tom Hardy-voice, which made the book far more cooler than it should have been. I’d say jump straight to this week’s new Arkham War, also written by Peter Tomasi, which is great for fans of Blackgate. Black Manta, who Johns refers to in the doc as perhaps “the most evil character [Johns] could come up with,” considering he killed Aquaman’s child. Vicious. His own one-shot in Aq #23.1, written by Tony Bedard, isn’t the best but should definitely school heads of rookie fish. Other GOOD Goods: Robert Venditti’s Relic (GL #23.1, but I highly recommend jumping to GL #24 instead!), James Tynion’s Ra’s Al Ghul (Batman & Robin #23.3) & Court of Owls (B&R #23.4), Marguerite Bennett’s Lobo (JL #23.2), Brian Azzarello’s First Born (WW #23.2), Frank Tieri’s Penguin (Batman #23.3) & Man-Bat (DC #23.4).
The Bad: Cause when we’re talking villains, Bad means better! Soule’s highlight of F.E. was clearly Arcane (Swamp Thing #23.1). Black Adam (Justice League of America #7.4), may have ended abruptly, but our own Father McPhail preached plenty of reason to dig into one of DC’s most compelling bads. General Zod‘s shot at redemption was quite profound, thanks to one the hottest pens in comics in Batman/Superman‘s Greg Pak (who also dished out some goods on JL #23.1’s Darkseid and his title’s Doomsday feature) and outstanding visuals by Ken Lashley. If you loved Man of Steel (someone out there other than me does, right? Right?), this is one you don’t want to miss. For a villain who either hasn’t quite received or deserved the credit of a rogue to a classic hero, Cheetah‘s one shot (Wonder Woman #23.1) written by longtime Star Wars comic scribe John Ostrander is a treat for this sleeper. You’ll learn why the girl pretended to be friends with Diana all those years (cause that’s what girls do?), and more on the cult of Hippolyta and all that great greco roman empirical jargon. Other BEST Bads: Brian Buccellato’s Grodd, Rogues and Reverse-Flash (The Flash 23.1, 23.2 & 23.3), Aaron Kuder’s Parasite (Superman #23.4), and Jeff Lemire’s Count Vertigo (Green Arrow #23.1).
The Ugly: We couldn’t mention that Face-Off without talking about its loser, Killer Croc, a popular Arkham villain who’s new origin is simply fudged up. We’re fans of the rustic art, though. Even the Joker, who’s very early adventure was a mixed bag of jokes for many (some high reviews, some low), failed to entice in Batman #23.1. Even Adam Kubert’s art wasn’t up to par with his work on Rebirth. Other NASTY Uglies: Matt Kindt’s Sinestro (Green Lantern #23.4) & Harley Quinn (D.C.’s #23.2), admittingly tough assignments like Ann Nocenti’s Joker’s Daughter (TDK #23.2) & Gail Simone’s Ventriloquest (TDK #23.1), Derek Fridolfs’ Poison Ivy (DC’s #23.1), Corey May’s Deathstroke (Teen Titans #23.2), John Layman’s Clayface (TDK #23.3), Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray’s Mr. Freeze (just watch Paul Dini’s “Batman: Animated Series” episodes on him instead of TDK #23.2).