(click ’em to big ’em)
Love was in the air at MKE Comicbook this past month, as our topic of discussion was favorite romance/wedding/relationship issues. There was also a second topic of discussion that was also pretty interesting — “when did a comicbook series “jump the shark”?” Anodyne Coffee, as every month, was a GREAT host!
Don brought a few titles to share in both topics:
Romance: The Stories of Alan Moore/”For The Man Who Has Everything” – Superman birthday-story that touched on affections between Supes and Wonder Woman.
Romance: from Frank Miller’s “Born Again” Daredevil arc, between Karen Page and Matt Murdock, where Matt shows his love for Karen despite her betrayal of his secret identity.
Romance: again, with Frank Miller, in his extraordinary “Elektra Lives” graphic novel, in the intensity of feeling that Matt had for Elektra.
Romance: Concrete/The Human Dilemma, where Paul Chadwick wrestles with the problem of a character having sexual desires, a shared affection, but an inability to act on those shared desires.
Shark: Surprising no one, “All-Star Batman and Robin” which jumped the shark right from the first issue with its over-the-top writing and just bizarre characterization (coincidentally, also by Frank Miller)
Shark: except in “reverse-shark” fashion, this was a bad series that unexpectedly became good – Prophet.
Luke brought one Shark series – “Haunt” from Image, when the book switched writers, it was as though the new creative team did not read ANY of the previous issues, and this was NOT a good thing.
Jony, a comicbook fan with an admittedly large soft-spot for superhero romance had a few good romance books:
X-Factor 43 – the long-awaited “coupling” of Layla Miller and Jamie Madrox (a moment I’m also a big fan of!),
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight – for its same-sex romance scene, done with great sweetness and humor,
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – for a scene between Mina Harker and Alan Quartermain, which didn’t shy away from the notion of an older couple enjoying physical intimacy.
Uncanny X-men 173 – for the heart-breaking “non-wedding” scene of Wolverine and Mariko.
Jony also had one Shark moment – X-Factor 100 with all of its 90’s garishness – foil cover, bad costume design, and weak character writing.
Molly had one romance moment – she liked Runaways for its depiction of a inter-racial, inter-galactic teen romance (sorta like a Romeo-and-Juliet, but with aliens)
Emilio brought some romance books –
Uncanny X-men 153 which featured the Kitty and Colossus relationship,
Fantastic Four Annual 3 for the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm,
Dr. Strange/Strange Tales 126 for its introduction of Strange’s long-time romantic partner, Clea.
Kate brought three books two romance mentions, and one that combined romance AND jumping the shark!
She thought the Star Wars: Union arc was a good, galactic wedding story,
Dark Reign: Fantastic Four 2 was neat for its showing an alternate universe where Captain America and Iron Man fell in love,
and Black Panther 18, which was romantic because it featured the wedding of T’Challa nd Ororo Munroe, but jumped the shark for forcing two great characters into such a poorly written romance.
I brought a couple romance books,
Chester 5000XYZ – the “erotic, robotic Victorian romance” from Jess Fink,
New Mutants 37 which featured a date between the Devil and super-heroine, Magma.
Preacher, while violent, sometimes vulgar, always original, is ultimately a love-story.
Strauss mentioned The Phantom Stranger, as done by Dan Didio, for completely missing the mark on how the character was supposed to behave.
Rachel brought a book similar to Kate’s “double-whammy” of being a romance AND jumping the shark in one work. She thought “Paying For It” did a great job of describing one man’s history of intimacy with sex workers – being well-written, thoughtful, and intelligent, but then, through its appendices, trashed any positive thoughts she had towards the creator.
Shawn, too, had a double whammy in the Wolverine: Origin limited series – it DID feature an early romance of Wolverine’s, but also really diminished the character’s appeal to Shawn, as it removed much of the “mystery of Wolverine.”
Batman: Lil’ Gotham (the Valentine’s issue) had a great story wherein the Joker accidentally spills a love potion on himself, thereby acquiring many devoted girlfriends and causing him to completely freak out from all the affection!
All-Star Western: Jonah Hex‘s romance with Talula Black was also highlighted as a good and well-written character romance.
Don put together another great Jeopardy-style trivia game – with great topics like “Hug You Like An Animal”, “One More Day”, “Crushes, Flings, and Paramours”, “Love Gone Wrong”, and “Superman’s Girlfriends.” At every one of these meet-ups, the time always goes by too fast, I learn about comics I’d never heard of before, and I leave the building with such warm feelings for these comicbook fans of MKE. There’s some really great people here. 🙂
