Interpreting censorship as damage part two: Perhaps you would like to read Michael Chabon's original screenplay for Spider-Man 2, which differs significantly from the one that was filmed. Perhaps you were disappointed to find that it's no longer available at McSweeneys.net. Perhaps you are interested to know that you can download the whole thing here.

Jeff Lester's revisionist take on the famously botched conclusion of Kirby's New Gods saga. A must.

The Lost writers room sounds a lot like conversations between the Roth brothers:

DL: We have one writer, Brian K. Vaughn, who writes comic books, and then another writer, Adam Horowitz, who's like a die-hard sports fan.
CC: Yankees fan. He used to sell hot dogs at Yankees Stadium.
DL: We'll ask Vaughn an easy sports question, like how many innings are there in a baseball game...
CC: Or what is the color of the Carolina Panthers or what sport do the Carolina Panthers play...
DL: And then we'll ask Horowitz to name two of the Avengers. And they will face off, and it's fun to watch them, you know, try to answer questions outside of their specific area of expertise.

Abhay Khosla on the new Blue Beetle series:

Consider the likely goals of the creators at the outset of the series:

(1) Tell a single two-year meta-story that was comprised of smaller story arcs (what TV fans might call the "Buffy" model); (2) launch a new superhero character in a marketplace hostile to new superhero characters; (3) launch an ethnic character to an audience that never supports minority characters; (4) tie into the shitty, oppressive meta-story of the "DC Universe"; (5) remain independent enough of the shitty, oppressive meta-story of the “DC Universe" to convey the book’s own meta-story in a comprehensible way; (6) service a meta-arc while satisfying the demands of monthly fans-- e.g. having a superhero fight every issue; (7) tell a superhero origin story as well as telling a teen coming-of-age story; (8) juggle a superhero cast-- heroes, villains, mentors, etc.-- with a sizable supporting cast for the teen coming-of-age story; (9) place the brand new Blue Beetle character into some kind of larger context visa vi earlier iterations of the Blue Beetle brand name, without angering fans of previous iterations by suggesting those earlier versions were somehow less than the new version, while still allowing said fans to see the new characters as being a worthy inheritor of the brand name; and (10) present an all-ages book that's friendly to new fans looking for a new character to latch onto but also friendly to DCU otaku.

SPOILER WARNING: they fail.

This copyright notice, from Journalista, has been a long time coming:

Panels from the first page of the original Superman story that appeared in Action Comics #1, ©1938 Detective Comics, Inc. and the Estate of Jerome Siegel. Hot damn, that was fun to type! Let’s do it again: ©1938 Detective Comics, Inc. and the Estate of Jerome Siegel. God bless America.

Seven story ideas about Batman

Batman is having doubts about Robin. At 13, Robin is small and weak, and he wears a bright red vest that makes him an easy target. So Batman sends Robin away to military academy and starts recruiting a new partner. He’s thinking a black guy would be good, like in the movies – the white guy and his quiet, dignified black sidekick. He tries out a couple of black guys, but they don’t have Robin’s blind devotion and disregard for his own life. He pulls Robin out of school and the Dynamic Duo is reunited.

A priceless jewel-encrusted bird statue is to be exhibited at the Gotham Museum. Everyone expects the Penguin to try to steal it, and the museum directors are counting on Batman to foil his plans. Batman realizes that he’s created a situation of moral hazard. “Let the Penguin steal the fucking thing,” Batman says. “If they insist on exhibiting these fucking bird statues all the time, it’s their problem.”

A liberal city council member runs for mayor of Gotham City, advocating a “harm reduction” policy for drug offenses. Batman’s not about to let this wimp go soft on crime in his town. Fortunately, Wayne Enterprises has a very profitable line in voting-machine software.

Batman is intrigued by the idea of S&M roleplaying, and spends an hour looking at websites that feature photos of men tied up and abused by women in elaborate leather costumes. He’s careful to clear the browser cache and history when he’s finished.

Wayne Enterprises takes a big hit in the telecommunications collapse of 2001. Batman, in his secret identity of Bruce Wayne, lays off thousands of employees. He also fires much of his senior management team, including Lucius Fox. “You’re dead weight, old man,” Batman says.

Batman’s Justice League teammates get sick of him barking orders through their telepathic link. “I’m sick of that maniac yelling in my brain,” says Green Lantern to Superman. “I have a power ring that manifests my will in physical form, and you’re invulnerable, and he’s just an asshole in a costume. Why do we let him talk to us like that?”
“Shhh! Shhh!” Superman says. “He’ll hear you!”

As of today, Batman hasn’t cried for his parents in 9,211 days.
_____
Previously: 13 story ideas featuring Green Lantern.

Thirteen story ideas featuring Green Lantern

Green Lantern puts his power ring down somewhere and can’t remember where he put it. As luck would have it, all kinds of supernatural outer-space crap starts happening right then. Fortunately he finds his power ring and smashes them.

Green Lantern gets jealous of Superman for being more famous than he is and challenges him to a big fight. Superman declines. Green Lantern goes to find Superman to kick his ass, but right when he gets there some thieves are trying to rob a bank. Superman and Green Lantern team up to stop the robbery, and Green Lantern’s envy is mollified. But then the next day the newspaper says “Superman, Green Arrow foil bank robbery,” and Green Lantern is really mad.

Green Lantern’s girlfriend complains that he doesn’t do enough household chores. Green Lantern tries to use his power ring to do the chores, but he makes a terrible mess.

Green Lantern goes on vacation to the Carribean to forget about saving the world and stopping crime for a while. But while he’s there people keep coming up to him and asking him to help them solve their problems, and he returns to the United States even more tired and stressed than he was before.

Green Lantern messes up and aliens take over the world.

Green Lantern invites all the other superheroes to his birthday party, but they’re all busy.

Green Lantern’s brother calls and asks Green Lantern if he (the brother) can borrow some money. Green Lantern is in sort of a quandry, because he knows the brother lost all his money playing blackjack. He tells the brother he’ll give him the money if the brother demonstrates that he’s making an effort to address his gambling problem, e.g. by going to Gambler’s Anonymous meetings. The brother gets huffy and resentful and asks Green Lantern who he (Green Lantern) thinks he is to be telling the brother how to live his (the brother’s) life. “You’re not Dad, you know!” Green Lantern’s brother says. After that they don’t talk for a long time.

Some of the people who Green Lantern used to work with in his secret identity see pictures of him in his Green Lantern costume and recognize him. They call him up and take him out for a beer and tell him that his secret is safe with them. But one of them in particular has always been jealous of Green Lantern (even before he discovered that he was Green Lantern), and Green Lantern fears that this jealous ex-coworker is going to go to the newspapers with the information about Green Lantern’s secret identity. So Green Lantern has to deal with this somehow. Maybe he digs up some dirt on the guy and says, If you reveal my secret, I’ll reveal yours. Although that wouldn’t be very heroic.

Green Lantern starts taking piano lessons. It’s just something he’s always wanted to do.

Green Lantern realizes that he’s been doing things the hard way. He tells his power ring to figure out which are the most important situations that need to be addressed, and then just deal with them itself. The power ring turns out to be better at dealing with crime etc. than Green Lantern himself, and this makes Green Lantern depressed.

Green Lantern starts betting on sporting events, and he gets pretty deep into debt with a shady bookie. He wagers it all on one big sporting event, then uses his power ring to ensure victory for the team he bet on. It’s not clear how this one ends – if Green Lantern’s scheme is successful or not.

Green Lantern starts to think that, because he’s dependent on a power ring, he’s less of a man than Batman. So Green Lantern starts going out on patrol without his power ring, to see if he can succeed as a superhero with only his wits and his natural strength.

Green Lantern gets a high-speed Internet connection in his home for the first time. He becomes an avid reader of political blogs, and as a result his crimefighting suffers.

Talented comics people seem to be dying off faster than sympathetic corner boys on The Wire. Now comes word that Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens has died of leukemia, aged 52. Stevens was a craftsman of a kind they don't make much anymore: in love with his own idealized physical world and beautifully drawn line. As a teenage boy I had this poster up on my wall, for obvious reasons.

Massive balls award: So this guy writes and draws a webcomic called A Rusty Life for six years, and no one really reads it, because it's not very good. So he posts on Reddit, with the heading "Dear Reddit: What is it about my webcomic that no one likes!? I've been drawing it religiously for 6 years and I can't manage more then 100 hits." And then everyone on Reddit tells him what sucks about his strip. I doubt that this will enable him to make the strip any better, but you've got to admire the effort.

Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown and writer of some awesome and weird Defenders comics, died on Sunday. Gerber is one of those figures who seem to have occurred at the wrong moment: in the fifties he could have worked with Harvey Kurtzman at EC and seen his stories illustrated by Bill Elder; in the eighties he could have helped draft the Creator's Bill of Rights with Scott McCloud and Dave Sim and published Howard the Duck with Eclipse or Aardvark-Vanaheim. Instead he was a 1970s fan-turned-pro, like Roy Thomas and John Byrne, and he worked for Marvel, and he probably had very little chance at happiness in that situation, but fortunately for us all he was too ornery to turn into a bitter old drunk and instead he fought. If he hadn't appeared, no one would have filled his strangely shaped spot, and comics today would be different and worse. Tom Spurgeon has a lovely obituary.

According to John Marcotte, "'One More Day' isn’t the stupidest Spider-Man plot Marvel has unleashed on the public. In fact, it’s not even in the top five."

The Spider-Mobile: Try to wrap your mind around the sheer number of ways that a car driving on the side of buildings violates the laws of physics — even the relaxed type of physics one encounters in comic-books. How would it get from the ground to the wall in the first place? How can it move from one building to the next? What happens if a two-ton car is being supported by a one-inch plate-glass window? I don’t know the answers to these questions and I suspect that Gerry Conway and Ross Andru don’t either.

Oh and in case you forgot, Spider-Man has the coolest mode of transportation ever invented: web-swinging. Putting Spider-Man inside a car is like putting Aquaman inside a plane.

Yet another day

(or, how the current issue of Spider-Man makes explicit the dark bargain at the heart of comics fandom)

Briefly, for nonfans: Twenty years ago, Spider-Man married his longtime girlfriend Mary Jane Watson. Now Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has decided Spider-Man works better as a single guy than as a married guy. This being comics, any narrative event can be reversed by some incoherent gimmick. So: Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May is badly wounded by a bullet meant for our hero. The Devil appears to Spider-Man and offers him a choice: he can save his aunt's life, but he has to give up his marriage. This being comics, "give up his marriage" doesn't mean "get a divorce," it means that history is altered, and everyone's memory is wiped, and Peter Parker and Mary Jane never got married in the first place. And so Pete and MJ weep and kiss and remember the good times in a special two-page spread that's like a parody of a love montage in a movie. (There's an image of the two of them riding a tandem bike, for god's sake.) And then Peter wakes up, and Aunt May is downstairs making pancakes, and I threw up in my mouth a little.

Of course, there's the obvious evolutionary backwardness of the whole thing: to choose an octogenarian aunt over a loving and healthy and presumably fertile marriage is to prefer death to life. But there's an aspect of this that's more specific to comics culture. One More Day states the dark side of the geek bargain more explicitly than anyone really wants: Everything can be the way it was before, when you were a kid. All you have to give up is girls, and marriage, and procreation, and the possibility of a healthy adult relationship. That's been the deal between fandom and the comics industry for decades. There's plenty of fans who've made the same choice Peter Parker did, and who now sit alone in their apartments, surrounded by comics and DVDs and collectible figurines. But there's something really unpleasant about having it said out loud, or presented as heroic.

"The great George Herriman rarely passed up an opportunity to draw smoke coming from a chimney. He seemed to place smoke in a picture the way a hat designer would place a feather in a lady's chapeau." Complete with beautiful examples.

You have probably been wondering, "What is fringe Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's favorite superhero?"

The answer, predictably enough, is Berlin Batman -- the alternate-universe Batman of Weimar Germany, who prevented the work of protolibertarian economist Ludwig von Mises from falling into the hands of the Nazis in Batman Chronicles 11.

It turns out that, if necessary, you can say "Batman is not just a river in Turkey." If it ever comes up.

Update: Nate Fisher, the Connecticut teacher who was fired for giving a student a copy of Eightball, won't be prosecuted.

"In a retouching feat worthy of the great Stalinist purges, Dan DeCarlo has been expunged from the institutional memory of Archie Comics!"

A Connecticut high school teacher named Nate Fisher lost his job after giving a 14-year-old female student an issue of Daniel Clowes's Eightball. (It's the one that was republished as Ice Haven, if that means anything to you.) Isn't that just the kind of thing the other Nate Fisher might have done in his twenties? NYMag and Publishers Weekly have commentary on their websites. The school's local TV station weighs in with the kind of insight that characterizes local TV news everywhere.

Interview with Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk:

There were a bunch of chapters where I found myself going, “Dude, you’re talking about the story. Use your eyes. Don’t just read the words. Use your eyes, Douglas.” It’s something that because I’m such a word person that it’s hard for me to do, but I realize also that this is how comics work on my brain. This is how comics work on everybody’s brain. And it’s hard to talk about visual things in words in the same way that it’s hard to talk about music in words.