Blast Off Weekend: Burbank and the Endless Comic Shops

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day where stores purchase specially solicited issues to help bring in new readers and give them out for free. It gets people in the door and makes decades of comic book lore a non-issue for new readers. Nearby store The Comic Bug did two big events on Saturday and Sunday with dozens of guests, food trucks and signings. Pulp Fiction had special guests and if you donated to the Los Angeles Food Bank, you got more free issues. We weren't really interested in any free comics and perused the shelves for good reading in general. The lady picked up a short stack of graphic novels and got me The Infinity Aftermath following the events of The Infinity Gauntlet where Adam Warlock and several others now hold the powerful gems.

On Sunday it was off to a G.I. Joe and estate sale before we randomly visited FOUR additional comic book/geek themed establishments in the area. I'm not sure why Burbank is the place for all things creative arts but hey, it was fun to see the different set ups and offerings at each. Emerald Knights has a pretty industrial facade with no windows and I wasn't quite sure they were open until I pushed the door in. The staff was nice and chatty while the space is equal parts comics and gaming with tables upstairs for tournament and group play. I grabbed an awesomely random lead figure of Wildcats gunman Grifter for the shelf. Down the street was Geeky Teas, a board game cafe that had space for events along with swag for fandoms like Doctor Who and Back to the Future. Further along still is Creature Features which is a movie lovers paradise with oh so much memorabilia like magazines, soundtracks, promotional items and more. CF hosts art galleries and special guests, today it was a tribute to Dave Stevens' THE ROCKETEER as well as a signing with composer Charles Fox. There was an abundance of Hard Target and Batman Returns buttons as well as a couple Demolition Man, San Angeles Police Department pins! Our final Burbank comic stop was The Perky Nerd, a super clean comic and games shop with a small event space and cold brew coffee.

WonderCon '17: The Panels

Aside from an excellent exhibit floor, WonderCon had several panels every hour and we ended up attending several on Friday and Saturday. On Friday we checked out a session on the pre-visualization of hit Wolverine movie Logan where guests discussed creating a non-superhero movie starring superheroes and how writer/director James Mangold pushed them to "make it real". Which is kind of weird when you think of it since the dude has a metal skeleton and another guy can control people with his mind but whatever. It did push the crew to be more creative and not fall back on tired tropes or exaggerated action sequences with lots of explosions. After that it was a celebration of Buffy and Angel to celebrate 20 years with a preview of an upcoming oral history book from genre writer and super fan Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. This was a fun panel as the two talked about how they ended up writing a book on Buffy (their publisher wanted another book after their Star Trek themed oral history, anniversary was coming, one of their favorite shows) and the good old days of genre journalism of the 80's and 90's with Fangoria, Starlog, Cinefantastique and Cinescape. Gross told a funny story about looking up Joss Whedon and calling him and the young writer being so thankful of the early support. In the years to come, Whedon would make himself available to Gross for hours at a time for interviews but when Whedon landed The Avengers, the accessibility ended.

The Arena was pretty quiet and media presence was limited in general with only Warner Brothers putting on a studio panel that filled up quick as Annabelle 2 and Wonder Woman were previewed. But the cast and crew of Archie showed up to a full house with Luke Perry looking very scruffy and not knowing how to handle social media while the kid who plays Archie started talking and freaked everyone out. Turns out he's from New Zealand and has the accent too boot.

Jim Lee's WildStorm celebrated 25 years with a large panel of artists, writers, inkers and contributors. Highlight tidbits included learning that Lee now has 9 kids from two wives and that WS started off in a one bedroom apartment, then two bedrooms then an actual studio in a bank building. Lee and long time inker Scott Williams argued about who would pay for the fax machine and realized they needed assistants and finance people to actual run a company. It was a very familial atmosphere as Lee encouraged young artists to strive and become the next themselves, not a copy of him. Many were away from home for the first time and lived in a nice apartment in a nice part of town that was soon trashed and dubbed the "Crack house". Lee helped the young guys with money, buying cars, bailed them out of jail and to save time, hired someone to come in and cut all of their hair at the same time. Apparently they all got sweet bowl cuts. There was mention of Brett Booth who unfortunately couldn't attend, Damme it! I asked Lee if between WildCats toys, a video game and animated series if a film was ever seriously considered. He responded that it never got past the pitch stage and it would have just been too big a project for the pre-X-Men and Spider-Man era.

We caught the tail end of Valiant's panel on digital offerings that includes a Ninjak web series then sat in for the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary. Cleaned up versions of old games are on the way as well as additional upgrades to latest release Street Fighter V. E-gaming league, the Capcom Cup is also in full swing with hundreds of thousands of dollars up for grabs. I'd love to check one of these events some day to see some bitching gameplay and epic smack talk.

WonderCon '17: The Floor

After that tremendous Thursday of Extreme Studios anniversary, Irish pub happy hour and a quick trip to Disneyland's California Adventure Park, it was time to start the WonderCon! With badges being mailed out early, we breezed past a giant line waiting to pick up their badges outside. Inside, I had the immediate sense that the show was bigger than years prior and I think I'm right. For 2017, WonderCon was utilizing all four Halls A-D for registration, Arena queue and the actual exhibit floor. Compared to the first or second year where we shared with a large volleyball tournament which lead to some amusing co-mingling of athletes and cosplayers outside. While there weren't any huge installations or Hollywood showpieces, DC, Boom, Gold & Silver Age Comics, a pink unicorn looking thing, a sizable Artist Alley, Disney and Capcom were are all out in force.

Walking around for several hours, I realized we'd barely covered half the floor! There was a solid mix of comic books, action figures, Funko Pops, art pieces, mystery boxes, prints, movie posters and film soundtracks. For the older goer you had 50's and 60's Disney pieces or a frigging oil paint by numbers set featuring James frigging Garner as Maverick! With a Wild Storm 25th anniversary panel scheduled and Jim Lee being a guest of honor, I was hoping there would be some sweet 90's Image stuff and for the most part I was not disappointed. One booth had WildCats figures for $15-20 a pop while another had a beat up in package Zealot for $4, sold! On the hunt for a McFarlane Toys Shaft or Dutch figure from Youngblood but only saw the likes of Troll or Badrock, hello Amazon! Big Red Comics and another vendor had some sweet $1 bins, bagged, boarded and in alphabetical order.

Capcom had an awesome four sided installation with multiple Street Fighter games to play as it's the 30th anniversary but on one side was a real highlight, a faux bedroom decked out in 90's glory i.e. Michael Jordan and Home Alone posters along with tube TV's to play Ducktales or Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers! To top it off, you got a snap bracelet on the way out, 90's forever! On the new trinkets front, I grabbed some custom Cyclops and Captain America zipper pulls along with a bottle opener with Ron Lim Cap art. Cosplay wise you had Game of Thrones in groups, much Star Wars, stilted Transformers and Voltron and one Jack Frost.

While there were huge walkways in some of the hall, over in A things got narrow and crowded, cheaper real estate? Hand crafted hats, belts, phone cases and the like were on display along with prop weapons and real knives. Flash Gordon's Sam Jones was the most recognizable actor selling autographs. While there were a dozen food trucks outside, concession stands inside had surprisingly decent sustenance with usual offerings like pizza, deli sammiches, burgers and soft serve ice cream but no bars on the floor. All in, the best WonderCon floor I can think of in recent memory.

Paneled Goods: The Kindred

After revisiting Divine Right I hopped into some Backlash, the badass, mutagen enhanced soldier turned Stormwatch combat instructor. Before receiving his own monthly series, The Lash was teamed up with fellow resident masked deadly smartass Grifter from WildCATS for miniseries The Kindred. You see both Backlash aka Marc Slayton and Grifter aka Cole Cash were part of Team 7, a covert ops action squad that were exposed to the Gen Factor, a crazy, pink, radioactive type dealy that gave them all powers. Backlash is able to turn into mist and utilizes psionic whips to take fools out or swing over stuff while Grifter got the short thrift as his powers of telekinesis waned but he ages slowly and heals fast. But he's a deadly sharpshooter and was trained by an alien warrior so it all works out. Exposure to the Gen Factor gave Team 7 powers but also made some of them mad and commit suicide. Tapping into "The Rush" accelerated the mental and physical deterioration.

Hitting stores in 1994, four part The Kindred follows former teammates turned bitter acquaintances Backlash and Grifter as they attempt to rescue their former leader John Lynch and his assistant Alicia Turner. They've been kidnapped by a villain called Bloodmoon and taken to Caballito island. Lynch and Turner are put on trial as we learn that Bloodmoon is actually Robert Diaz, a thought dead member of Team 7. Injured and left to die, Diaz washed up on Caballito island where he was taken in by The Kindred, human/animal hybrids resulting from secret experimentation done by Lynch's contemporaries at International Operations. Basically The Kindred are the results of an early version of the Gen Factor so it's Lynch's and I.O.'s fault times two. It's action and one liners galore as Backlash goes in with the troops, Grifter turns up, they're captured, they escape, they rescue their comrades and shocked to learn that Diaz is still alive. Grifter tries to help his former friend but after so much pain and the mental derangement of the Gen Factor, Diaz is hearing none of it. After lots of bloody battle and explosions, Grifter has the chance to save Diaz after a bridge collapses but Backlash can't hold up the two of them and forces Grifter to let go, essentially killing Diaz a second time. While Backlash and Grifter begrudgingly team up for the series, by the end Grifter is back to thinking that Lash is a self centered @$$hole only looking out for himself.

As if you didn't know, I love 90's comics. The supersized bodies, egos and action all make for some fun and intense reading. With a globe spanning security force, secret mission backstory, genetic experiments gone wrong, hostile buddy dynamic and exotic locales, you really got a lot of bang for your buck. Sure it's overblown with the action, one liners, muscles, hot babes and all but that's the point, it was the action decade! You get Grifter talking about someone suffering from lead poisoning after shooting them, quoting John McClane as he swings in shooting, scantily clad, uber buff men and shapely women and oh so many masks with exposed hair. The layered and intricate backstory adds history and heart to the goings on but never gets too confusing between I.O., Team 7 and whatnot. Jim Lee and Brandon Choi provide story details while Brett Booth gives it all a kinetic and violent edge with lots of destruction, physical dust ups, fire and more destruction. This is also the series that sees Backlash jump kicking a man-bear as the Island of Dr. Moreau influence is used to excellent effect. Next time we dig into Backlash's ongoing series!

Paneled Goods: Divine Right

Oh man the 90's, the most action packed decade in comic books! I grew up during the Image Comics boom, reading and collecting the science fiction tinged and kinetically violent WildC.A.T.S., Brigade and Backlash and later thanks to .25 bins picking up runs of Prophet, Youngblood, Cyber Force, Savage Dragon and more. I'm not sure when I grabbed Jim Lee's Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Farady but at a recent show picked up the first several issues in a collected edition for a few bucks. I have the entire run sitting in storage halfway across the country which was not going to help me after getting hooked again. For any comic book fan, Jim Lee is one of the luminaries; his crisp, exciting art coupled with his nice guy attitude has served him well from being a young upstart at Marvel to laying claim to the highest selling comic book issue of all time to creating imprint Wildstorm at Image, selling that to DC and now running the shop as Co-Publisher. DC has recently re-released Divine Right in a graphic novel and included several tie-in issues along with some sketches from the man himself. It's on Amazon but if you're reading this from the west side of Los Angeles, check out Pulp Fiction on Sepulveda where most graphic novels are 30-50% off.

Starting in 1997, Divine Right introduces us to Max Faraday, a part time pizza delivery guy and college student with a hot older sister and thinks he's cool but really isn't best friend. Always on the internet, Max has struck up an online relationship with Susanna Chaste but never met her in person. Remember chat rooms from the 90's? Phew, flashbacks! One night, Max randomly downloads the Creation Equation, a mystical formula that goes way back and from beyond our universe. Basically, Max has downloaded the powers of God but doesn't know it. Soon enough he's being chased by aliens and rescued by members of The Fallen: Brande, Tobruk and Exotica; wizard, warrior and babe types who know all about the Creation Equation. International Operations, Wildstorm's version of S.H.I.E.L.D., gets involved so we get universe familiar faces John Lynch and Caitlin Fairchild along with the members of Gen 13, along with former agent resurrected from the dead Christy Blaze helping to guide and protect Max. It's only a matter of tick tocks before members of The Rath catch up as of course they have their own nefarious plans for using the power of God.

Reading Divine Right again after all these years was at once familiar and nostalgic while at the same time exciting, fun and surprising. You get 1997 style chat interfaces, computer windows and comic book-ness, you know, all dudes are super buff and chiseled, all women are super hot, big action scenes and one liners. There's a lot of juvenile humor and male fantasy turned on it's head while providing several strong female characters. What surprised me was how deep the story goes into the Wildstorm universe and in watching Max change as a character. He starts off innocent and kind then when corrupted by power and threatened by evil, he suddenly feels he knows what's best for the entire planet, becoming an "evil" force himself. I also didn't remember it drawing in so many characters from the Wildstorm U like Gen 13 and Lee's awesome super powered team WildC.A.T.S. but it all fits tightly together since the CATS were always fighting alien warlords and whatnot.

Lee writes and pencils here with assists from the likes of Scott Lobdell, Carlos D'Anda, Albert Deschesne, Rachelle Brissenden, Richard Starkings and Scott Williams to create a big, exciting and vibrant tale of huge adventure, faith, love and action that takes us from a crappy apartment to an alternate version of Heaven and back again. There's character and ideas layered deep throughout as each issue starts with a passage from the bible as well as one from Max's personal slacker manifesto, recurring bits like Whak! cola are a nice touch as are the fantasy sequences that turn out to be horrible nightmares. The detail and scope in Lee's work is always impressive as each panel is filled to the brim with characters in ornate costumes, giant vistas and of course, action. This is what I feel comic books were made to be, larger than life, epic adventures that explore life's themes with manly men and womanly women. It's a fantasy, it's a break from reality so let's really revel in it and go for it. Next up, rereading some WildC.A.T.S. and Backlash!