Broken Frontier

According to Wizard, they were the biggest names in comics seven years ago. A. David Lewis continues to press the fast forward button and determines how those names have spelled out today.

Wizard’s 1998 Power Players - Part I

Here’s the short version:

In 1998, I was a regular, avid reader of Wizard for all of the comic book news that Marvel’s Bullpen Bits or DC letters pages didn’t bring me. I felt nourished and informed. I knew who the players were – because Wizard told me.

Last month, I reviewed the first 9 persons named as Wizard’s “Power Players” for 1998. Some have fared well, but only three have arguably have retained their positions of superstar status. As we climb higher, though, that ratio hardly improves, and the years prove not to be kind to many of Wizard’s selections.

16. Garth Ennis: “Ennis is the Quentin Tarantino of comics.”

The Wizard Staff worded this even better than they may have known. Ennis-as-Tarantino serves as a perfect metaphor for a creator whose gory impact is better known than his actual work. Following the resolution of Preacher and two installments of Just a Pilgrim, Ennis became Marvel’s Punisher-man, largely catalyzing that character’s new movie and video games. That niche, however, has become his sole residence, with September’s revamped Ghost Rider presenting an outside chance of providing him with a revitalizing Kill Bill.

15. Grant Morrison: “Grant Morrison spins superheroes his own way, and fans love it.”

Four for eleven to the Wizard Staff. By remaining innovative, unpredictable, and versatile, Morrison has managed not only to stay ahead of the game, but also help in reshaping it entirely. After capping off his JLA-run and Matrix-laced Invisibles, Morrison embraced mutantdom with The New X-Men by taking risks with these franchise characters unheard of since John Bryne and Claremont’s original run. Now, with his wide-reaching Seven Soldier of Liberty titles, Morrison remains one of the medium’s top commandos.

14. Kevin Smith: “One man takes comics to a mass audience every day, and his name is Kevin Smith.”

Truly, Kevin Smith is the only cross-media comic book superstar this side of Stan Lee; say “Warren Ellis” to the average person, and they’ll say, “Who?”, while that same person will instantly identify Smith as “that Silent Bob guy.” Unfortunately, while he absolutely is comicdom’s best mainstream ambassador, that “every day” status now proves woefully inappropriate. With mini-series half-completed, long delays on announced projects, and a renewed commitment to his cinematic business, the stretches of time grow longer and longer in which Silent Bob remains, for comics, silent.

13. Joe Kelly: “Kelly is moving Marvel in a lighter direction.”

When the paradigm was a polarized gritty realism versus light, Kelly-esque adventure romps, he truly did rule the day with Deadpool and his other forays into the X-universe. However, particularly in a post-September 11th environment, when readers were looking for superhero titles to return to their inspirational roots while maintaining a complexity of plot structure, Kelly’s star began to wane. His Justice League Elite series which concluded in June never quite caught fire, and his Space Ghost series became better known for Alex Ross’ involvement than Kelly’s actual scripting. He remains a strong journeyman writer for comics without question, but his light touch doesn’t grab the way it once did.

12. Kurt Busiek: “Isn’t just plain ol’ being the best storyteller in comics enough?”
Like Kelly, Busiek has also scaled back, either intentionally or inadvertently. The man who simultaneously launched the reboots of Avengers and Iron Man alongside Thunderbolts and his concurrent Astro City has now holed up in that urban setting with Astro City: The Dark Age. While once Marvel’s go-to guy (and continuity historian), Busiek may have been swept out of the House of Ideas with the completion of JLA/Avengers. Brian Michael Bendis be warned.

11. Joe Madureira: “Madureira is revolutionizing comic art for the new millennium.”

After the American Revolution, General George Washington became President; Mad, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found when the dust settled. His Battle Chasers was as big a hit as his lead character’s bust size...and then, Mad, too, went bust. As said at the JoeMadFan.com site (http://www.joemadfan.com):
After Battle Chasers #9 Mad! decided to leave BC and start a game company called Trilunar. Triluner created a game called Dragonkind. [...] After Dragonkind got canceled Mad! worked doing games for NcSoft, which started with a game called Exarch. [...] Exarch was also canceled, but Mad! stayed with NsSoft and started work on a game called Tabula Rasa [...] Currently Mad! is still at NcSoft working on another game which has yet to be announced. As well as working on Darkstalkers and other recent covers, mostly for Udon.
Perhaps Mad had a hand, recently, in NcSoft’s hit City of Heroes and its follow-up City of Villains. But his revolution in comics books themselves appears to be well over. Mad has left the building.

10. Steve Milo: “He’s got the biggest checkbook in the business and can make or break a title.”

Like Madureira, Milo has been removed from the board of the current comics scene. This one-time King of AnotherUniverse.com, a major player in the online world of comics in the days before Amazon.com, was forced to abdicate the realm he created when it was absorbed into Fandom.com and he was ousted. This proved a mixed blessing, to be sure, since Milo moved over to run the show at Marvel.com while Fandom eventually withered. Still, the boy-regent who fashioned Another Universe out of his own college dorm seems sadly unlikely to become the future king as well.

9. Michael Turner: “Michael Turner is the booster rocket that blasted Top Cow into orbit.”

It bears mentioning that any one of these “descents” from being one of Wizard’s Power Players to something of a lesser status can be just as much the result of industrial shift or strange fate as any individual’s actions. Such is the case with Michael Turner, a powerhouse artist who, remarkably, remains a strong part of the current landscape despite his lengthy battle with cancer. The protégé of Marc Silvestri, Tuner was instrumental in the creation of Witchblade for Top Cow, his own creator-owned Fathom for Aspen, the launch of the new Supergirl in Superman/Batman, and the initial images and covers to Identity Crisis. Should Turner be counted out of the whole equation? Certainly not. But, like an all-star ballplayer, he might temporarily need to be placed on the disabled list.

8. Jim Lee: “Jim Lee does everything someone  can do in the comic business, and his presence is always felt.”

Score another for the 1998 Wizard Staff (five-for-eighteen). Lee is an artist, a writer, a publisher, and a businessman. He lured Alan Moore back to superheroes, he provided Warren Ellis a playground, and he gave Mark Millar a wide berth. At the same time, he got to team up with Stan Lee as part of the Just Imagine... series and roped a new generation of fans with his work on both of DC’s preeminent icons Batman and Superman (all the while hooking Jeph Loeb and Brian Azzarello in to do the writing chores). Now, with items like All-Star Batman and Robin on his upcoming dance card (as well as the conclusion of such titles like Planetary), Lee continues to prove himself as the Renaissance Man of Comics.

7. Marc Silvestri: “Marc Silvestri has run the ‘studio system’ to perfection [as executive officer of Top Cow.]”

Surprisingly, Silvestri has proven himself a survivor of the Image-style days, combining his glitz with enough sharpshooter narrative to allow writers like Morrison on New X-Men or Mark Waid on the recent Hunter/Killer to feel comfortable with their words in his care. Still, like Turner, Silvestri is a victim of circumstances outside of his control, namely the pendulum shift from artist-drive properties to writer-driven ones. Nevertheless, his position could be reinvigorated should The Darkness video game become a hit, thrusting a new market into his crosshairs.

6. Alex Ross: “Ross is the 500-pound gorilla of comics.”

Yes, true, absolutely. Six-for-twenty to Wizard...

...except, how long can Ross maintain his status without delivering a new comic in its entirety? His oversized, painted editions of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Captain Marvel, and the Justice League notwithstanding, Ross hasn’t delivered work on a full series since Kingdom Come. His covers, posters, sculptures, and plot-work keep his hand firmly in the game, for certain, but he might need to deliver something all his own before another seven years pass, if only to remind us why his detailed, realistic style inspires so many.

5. Bob Harras: “He has the first and last say on each and every comic that comes out from the top publisher.”

The Fall of Bob Harras is an epic that bears exploring in full someday. However, the one-time X-Men Group Editor rose through the ranks to Marvel’s top creative man by 1998...only to be axed for a variety of circumstances (corporate restructuring in the wake of Marvel’s bankruptcy, an emphasis on “New Marvel” with Quesada, the lack of merchandising in conjunction with the X-Men movie) shortly thereafter. Practically disavowed by fandom, only recently has the writer of Nick Fury Vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. returned, this time to DC with what was initially a Captain Atom revamp, now its own, original character, Breach. In interviews for the series, Harras has expressed his interest in what power costs people and what sacrifices have to be made. Few would know better.

4. Steve Geppi: “If you bought a comic, he made a nickel off it.”

Seven-for-twenty-two. With Diamond holding a near-monopoly on comic book distribution, the main difference between Geppi in 1998 and Geppi in 2005 is that, if you bought a comic, he now makes a whole dime on it. The Reign of Diamond continues.

3. Paul Levitz: “Paul Levitz is the hands-on boss at DC Comics.”

Eight-for-twenty-three. Levitz, like Carlin, remains firmly in place even seven years later, currently steering DC’s logo revamp into place after its thirty-year predecessor. Like Harras, however, the buck stops with Levitz, and while he has avoided and countered any number of internal fiascos over time, a true crisis (perhaps, for instance, if Infinite Crisis  or the Superman movie tanks) could ultimately unseat him. Unlikely, though -- With Alan Moore cutting ties and CMX caught in a censorship controversy, watch Levitz to lead the spin control.

2. Joseph Calamari: “Marvel Comics is in a bankruptcy and you don’t even know it...And while Wall Street might not be convinced that the company is doing well, comic fans everywhere will tell you that Marvel is still on top of the heap.”

Well, we should have known it. The fact that the Wizard Staff assumes such a disconnect between readership’s awareness and the company’s own viability underscores, perhaps, the problem with the article overall: Perception trumps permanence, visuals beat vision. The Marvel bankruptcy soon became – if, despite Wizard’s insistence, it was not already – a well-known issue to fandom. And, as an interesting consequence of that period, even the average reader has a slightly greater awareness of comics being a business, not just a fan club. Ask a comic store reader who Calamari was; now ask them if they know the name Avi Arad. The ratio would be telling.

1. Todd McFarlane: “In basketball, it’s Michael. In the world of leggy supermodels, there’s Cindy. Action films? Arnold. And in comics, our man is instantly recognizable by first name alone: Todd.”

Again, Wizard word can and will be used against it. McFarlane’s grip over comicdom has lapsed as assuredly as Cindy Crawford’s on supermodeling and Schwarzenegger’s in cinema. In fact, like Arnold, he has moved on to other pastures; instead of politics, Todd first moved to television with an animated Spawn series on HBO and a live-action Spawn movie before becoming a toymaking titan. However, while Spawn continues to be published, his role as a former partner of the break-off Image team and comic book creator remains akin to Michael Jordan’s basketball career: He’s retired.

There are fluctuations to any business, particularly in the entertainment industry and particularly in our current, computer-accelerated age. Further, the comics industry has been in a massive state of – dare I say it? – mutation in recent years, continuing to carve itself out a spot amongst popular, cinematic, and digital culture.

Yet, I can’t help but be disturbed by the impermanence of Wizard’s list, not even a decade old. Eight-for-twenty-three? Barely a third of their choices remain formidable sway, several of which have left comic book-making entirely. Maybe it was the editorial direction of the magazine at that time which informed the choices on that list. Maybe there were political influences involved, certain parties and players who needed to be appeased. Maybe this list was what readers wanted to see, rather than what was indeed true. Maybe...

Or maybe I should have been reading The Comics Journal instead...