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Five Notable Comic Events From 2009

No Fly Zone: Five Notable Comic Events From 2009
© Mania

Greetings, Maniacs, and welcome to the obligatory end-of-the-year column here at The No-Fly Zone. Now, comics are a huge medium to cover, and it’s damn near impossible to do a comprehensive look at every awesome or noteworthy thing that’s happened in 2009. As we cover the wide-open field of everything that isn’t superhero stuff, it makes it even more challenging. As such, we’ve got five things we liked (or should at least notice) from 2009, presented here on its final day.

1. Marvel Buys Marvelman

We honestly never thought we’d be able to look forward to this. Fans have begged for Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman’s seminal postmodern superhero title to see the light of day again. After the publisher Eclipse declared bankruptcy, Todd McFarlane bought its assets in hopes of obtaining the rights to Marvelman. Neil Gaiman contended that he still owned the character after Moore handed off the rights to him. Marvelman’s original creator, Mick Anglo, finally spoke up, and a huge granny knot of a legal battle ensued. Moore stayed in Northampton and quietly shook his head. All the while, quiet rumblings from Marvel’s legal team reached the comics press by degrees and Neil Gaiman all but confirmed it in Wizard—the House of Ideas wanted to buy Marvelman. Fans speculated about reprints, future installments, and, at the very least, a conclusion for Gaiman’s final arc on the series. But still, no one knew who even owned the seminal British superhero. At the 2009 San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada broke the news. Mick Anglo owned the character. Marvel had bought the rights. And then, here in the NFZ, Moore gave his blessing to the project—as long as they didn’t put his name on it, but you knew that. Marvel has been pretty quiet since then about what they plan to do with Marvelman, but we want to see Gaiman’s original arc concluded. Then, reprint the whole series in trade paperback in tandem with an omnibus hardcover. After that, it’s safe to say that Marvelman will have a future with Marvel, but the specifics remain to be seen.

2. The Watchmen Movie Finally Comes Out

Whether you loved it, hated it, or ignored it, the damn-near impossible happened in March when Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie finally hit theaters. Critics said “Meh” for the film’s coldly fetishistic violence and redundancy in adapting the comic. Geeks flocked to the cinema and sang Snyder’s praises in the streets for the near-religious attention to detail. Mr. and Mrs. American Family covered their children’s eyes and left before the movie ended. Regardless, after 20 years in development hell, the movie finally came out. Now, everyone can stop speculating and spinning fantasies of the Terry Gilliam adaptation that never came to be. In some ways, the film was everything it was expected to be, for better and worse. Its painstaking attention to detail often made it look like a simple rehash of the comic, both translating Moore’s brilliance faithfully and bringing to life some visuals that worked better on the page. Thus, it was perfect for fanboys who rate a comic film on its faithfulness to the source material, but not for anyone who wanted the movie to stand on its own merits. At the same time, the film certainly had a few awe-inspiring moments that, again, occurred from copying already quality material. And, predictably, Moore ignored it (though he recently described it as “wretched,” without saying if he’d seen it). It is not a perfect film, but it is one worth seeing and discussing. It made this year’s list for its significance in the history of comics. If nothing else, the film is now out on home video in three different iterations, and we can now quit wondering what it would be like.

3. 100 Bullets Concludes

Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s 100 issue crime drama finally wrapped up in April of this year, coming full circle with the story of Dizzy Cordova—a young Hispanic woman approached in the first issue by Agent Graves after she gets out of prison. Graves gives her a briefcase and proposition: a gun, 100 untraceable bullets, undeniable evidence against those who killed her family, and carte blanche to take revenge. Throughout the entire series, Azzarello reused the same scenario to reveal a larger story tied to the founding of America itself and the shadowy Trust—a group of 13 crime families in tenuous alliance with one another. Graves once served as the head of the Minutemen, who acted as an internal police force for the families. But, when the Trust betrayed him, Graves went rogue. 100 Bullets is the story of his grand play for revenge. He reassembles the dispersed Minutemen to finally bring down the greatest criminal conspiracy in history. But, there’s so much more to it than that. 100 Bullets cultivated a fan base that spent 10 years pouring over the hundreds of clues scattered throughout the series. Plots and discrete subplots unfold at rapid fire, making it a truly complex and involving epic. Maniacs, if you plan to read 100 Bullets, get all 13 trades, lock the door, turn off the phone, and settle in. The series is so complex that it’s easy to lose track of its unwieldy cast, twisted history, and endless series of double-crosses. The longer you read without stopping, the better. But once you get a few issues in, you won’t want to.

4. Planetary Actually Concludes

Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s Planetary only ran for 27 issues, but the earliest installments have advertisements for the Nintendo 64 system. It began in 1998 and went from monthly, to bimonthly, to quarterly and finally, to whenever Warren Ellis felt like it. Illness, other commitments, and god-knows-what else contributed to a lengthy series of delays, the worst being two calendar years in between issues 15 and 16. But, if you read it from start to finish, it’s worth the wait. Sold as a bit of alternative superhero fiction, it really tells the story of the Planetary group, dubbed “Archaeologists of the Impossible.” They research the secret history of the world by exploring strange phenomena, all of which tie draw on existing works of genre fiction. Thus, there are superheroes, giant monsters, jungle explorers, and every other type of story we Maniacs love. It’s like looking into a world where all the stories are true and coexist with one another. It’s the biggest crossover ever, if you think about it. Anyway, the series all but wrapped up with the 26^th issue, and 27 served as a sort of epilogue. However, it was worth the wait. Much of the series hinges on Elijah Snow’s role as the Fourth Man on the team, having replaced Ambrose Chase, who was shot before the series began. But, there may yet be a chance to save him.

5. Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis Illustrated

Robert Crumb has long been synonymous with controversy. He was a founder in the underground comix movement in the 1960s and continues to work today. Crumb has fielded accusations of racism, sexism, and Christ-knows-what-else through much of his career—mostly by people that don’t get the joke. Crumb is, in effect, mocking stereotypes and taking much of the wind out of their sails. However, his reams of drawings of comically lurid women and weird sex have never failed to both fascinate and enrage people. Adapting the Book of Genesis right out of the King James Bible is really a logical step for him—mostly because it’s the last thing you’d expect from the man who gave us Fritz the Cat. Crumb pretty much depicts Genesis word-for-word. He doesn’t copy every line of text, but he shows everything, including the reams of lineage outlined in the book. And, Genesis has a lot of, er, begetting. Crumb actually depicts the sex in the book, though it’s not nearly as graphic as some would have you believe. But, it’s still in there. Lot’s daughters get him drunk and get their incest on to secure heirs for the family. Adam and Eve make some heirs of their own after getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden. As expected, the morality police have condemned The Book of Genesis Illustrated. They do so for depicting stories from the very book they’ve said we should all read and even teach in schools as history. It’s a hilarious masterstroke by Crumb on a lot of levels. First, it serves to show how very intense the Bible gets in some places. Second, from a purely literary perspective, it lends a humanity to the stories that’s often missing in other depictions. The sight of Adam playfully tackling Eve in the Garden is touching in the way that it would be to watch any pair of lovers play. And, it’s the last thing you’d expect from Crumb. But, he’s done a great service for both believers and non-believers alike. The Book of Genesis is of inestimable historical significance—even if it’s not an accurate history—and Crumb brings some venerable, important stories to life in a manner that’s, in the end, completely respectful.

That’s it for this year, Maniacs. Have a safe and happy New Year and join us again next week!

You are now exiting The No-Fly Zone.

Kurt Amacker is the writer of The No-Fly Zone, Mania’s weekly alternative comics column. He is also the author of the comic miniseries Dead Souls, published by Seraphemera Books. Dead Souls is available from the Seraphemera Books website, Amazon.com, and at comic shops everywhere. He can be reached at kurt_amacker@seraphemera.org.