Some of my thoughts and questions on "Wrapping up the holiday season"

[bh123]

changing a completely drawn but unpublished issue involving a cancelled licensed series into a completely drawn and publishable story for a totally different, unrelated newly licensed book that didn't take place even remotely in the same milieu, which would have ticked off both licensors had they known about it

So, did you have anything to do with that John Carter Warlord of Mars story that was transformed into a Star Wars story? Or are you referring to some other entirely different stories?

I believe I was the first to suggest, based on an ill-placed sound effect, that it was Spider-Man catching her with his webbing and not the Green Goblin throwing her off a bridge that broke Gwen Stacy's neck and killed her.

Oh, lord, it's all your fault!!! But, from a a purely legal perspective, the Green Goblin was the responsible party. He was the one who threw Gwen off the bridge. Anything that happened after that was his responsibility, and no one else's, in the same way that if a police officer accidentally shoots an innocent bystander while defending himself against an armed robber, it is legally the fault of the robber for creating the situation in the first place.

That Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were Magneto's children, and not mutants.

Does Neal Adams factor into any of this? He was the very first artist to draw Magneto without his helmet, and gave him a look very similar to that of Quicksilver.

I dusted off a character named Chthon, from a science fiction series I'd concocted some years earlier

As an H.P. Lovecraft fan, I've always liked Chthon, as he had a presence and backstory that was somewhat akin to the "elder gods" that Lovecraft wrote about. That, and I've said that Chthon provides the perfect back door to redeem the Scarlet Witch after "Avengers Disassembled." He possessed and controlled Wanda in the Avengers issues you co-wrote, so you could say he did the same during "Disassembled," albeit on a more subtle, anonymous level.

Peter Gyrich, the government agent who at the end of the issue shuts the group down, had an interesting double pedigree; named for Jim Shooter's cousin (if I remember correctly, this was Jim's idea and meant affectionately)

Peter David thought that Shooter based Gyrich on himself. In a way, it makes a certain sense. Gyrich, from his perspective, was the responsible, orderly-minded individual who was given the thankless task of reigning in a disparate bunch of super-powered misfits and getting them to behave in an adult, respectable manner that was approved by his government supervisors. Of course, the Avengers saw Gyrich as a petty, power-mad bureaucracy-obsessed tin-pot tyrant. I can definitely see that as a metaphor for the position Shooter probably found himself in as editor-in-chief, stuck between the fickle, unpredictable, easily offended freelance talent and Marvel's profit-minded corporate management. Then again, maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

DOCTOR WHO XMAS SPECIAL 2007: VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED, which, while very enjoyable, was considerably darker than earlier Xmas specials and suggests a possibly nasty turn in the next series

Looking forward to seeing it, just so long as it is not as dark as Torchwood was. My problem with much of Torchwood's first season was that it had this "Ooooooh, look how edgy and dark and adult we are, aren't you impressed, because you should be" vibe to it. Kind of like some of the comic creators in the late 1980s who felt that by tossing in over-the-top amounts of sex & violence into their work they were somehow creating the next Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns, confusing the trappings with the actual substance.

Ah, well, at least Torchwood had a few good episodes. And dark Doctor Who can work, if done properly. Just look at "Genesis of the Daleks," which opens with a squad of ragged gas-mask-clad soldiers getting mowed down by machine gun fire in slow motion... and after that grotesque intro it still manages to get progressively darker and downbeat over the next six episodes! The reason "Genesis" worked was it was well-written, as well as well-acted. I don't mind a darker Doctor Who season, as long as it was well-produced, as opposed to merely shoveling out copious amounts of gore & carnage, which was the problem with some early 1980s stories.

Blah blah blah... enough from me. Thank you for your time, Steven. Looking forward to future columns.

[bartl]

I believe I was the first to suggest, based on an ill-placed sound effect, that it was Spider-Man catching her with his webbing and not the Green Goblin throwing her off a bridge that broke Gwen Stacy's neck and killed her.

Oh, lord, it's all your fault!!! But, from a a purely legal perspective, the Green Goblin was the responsible party. He was the one who threw Gwen off the bridge. Anything that happened after that was his responsibility, and no one else's, in the same way that if a police officer accidentally shoots an innocent bystander while defending himself against an armed robber, it is legally the fault of the robber for creating the situation in the first place.
There wasn't much chance of her living, anyway.
That Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were Magneto's children, and not mutants.
Does Neal Adams factor into any of this? He was the very first artist to draw Magneto without his helmet, and gave him a look very similar to that of Quicksilver.
Except that Marvel has that whole homo superior thing going, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are definitely homo superior (hetero superior?).

[Charles RB]

Looking forward to seeing it

You should, it's a great ep.

Though when it comes to dark Who, the truly darkest thing I can think of is The Long Game/Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways in Series 1. The Doctor makes things worse, bringing about a hundred years of Hell for Earth and death for billions and helping the Daleks - and the Daleks go on to burn whole continents and outgunned people are slaughtered trying futilely to hold back the Daleks so the Doctor can finish a weapon... that, in the end, he won't use. Which means the Daleks would kill Earth, turn everyone into Daleks and then kill billions more, and that those people on Satellite 5 died for nothing, and the only reason that didn't happen is because of a very daft deux ex Rose that the Doctor didn't know would occur.

That is dark. That's our hero failing on every concievable level.

[Steven Grant]

So, did you have anything to do with that John Carter Warlord of Mars story that was transformed into a Star Wars story? Or are you referring to some other entirely different stories?

Completely different. I've never had anything to do with Star Wars or John Carter in any fashion.

Oh, lord, it's all your fault!!! But, from a a purely legal perspective, the Green Goblin was the responsible party. He was the one who threw Gwen off the bridge. Anything that happened after that was his responsibility, and no one else's, in the same way that if a police officer accidentally shoots an innocent bystander while defending himself against an armed robber, it is legally the fault of the robber for creating the situation in the first place.

Regardless of who the district attorney would blame, you have to remember Spider-Man is a massive twisted bundle of guilt complexes...

I also worked out around the same time that Peter's Uncle Ben was a fence, which explained the otherwise highly unlikely scenario that a low rent thief robbing Manhattan TV stations would be randomly knocking over residences in the middle of Queens... "The Burglar" would have been there to fence to him, Ben would've been trying to cheat him or blow him off, once thing led to another, etc... that one didn't stick, though, since it drastically undermines the whole philosophical premise of the series...

Does Neal Adams factor into any of this? He was the very first artist to draw Magneto without his helmet, and gave him a look very similar to that of Quicksilver.

If Neal had any notions that Magneto and Quicksilver were related, he never mentioned it to me or anyone I know.

As an H.P. Lovecraft fan, I've always liked Chthon, as he had a presence and backstory that was somewhat akin to the "elder gods" that Lovecraft wrote about. That, and I've said that Chthon provides the perfect back door to redeem the Scarlet Witch after "Avengers Disassembled." He possessed and controlled Wanda in the Avengers issues you co-wrote, so you could say he did the same during "Disassembled," albeit on a more subtle, anonymous level.

I didn't read much of "Avengers Disassembled," so I couldn't say if that's a comfortable fit but, sure, why not? In a way it kind of makes sense, because my problem with Chthon was that we never had the opportunity to show him at top power level. Being an earth god, the original earth god, he'd theoretically have total control over the earth and be able to contort it to his will. Which Wanda more or less inexplicably gets the power to, resulting in the House Of M parallel Earth. (I think... I never read much of House of M either...) That's definitely Chthon-level power...

I suspect, though, that whatever Joe and Brian have in mind, Chthon's not a part of it...

Chthon did provide me with an interesting moment a few years later, when Marvel was publishing their Darkhold series. The writer - ?... name escapes me... Marcus McLarin? - broached me at a Midnight Sons meeting (I was briefly working on Nightstalkers, but that's another story...) to tell me he was bringing back Chthon. I think I was supposed to be excited about it. It's always interesting when someone - and it's almost always meant in the spirit of homage, there's rarely anything but the best intentions attached - tells you they've dredged up one of your old characters and they're going to write it. That's the disconnect they never see: they're going to write it, not you. At which point it doesn't have anything to do with you... Steve Gerber gets that a lot, and people never understand why he's never enthusiastic to learn someone else is writing, oh, Omega, or Howard The Duck...

Peter David thought that Shooter based Gyrich on himself. In a way, it makes a certain sense. Gyrich, from his perspective, was the responsible, orderly-minded individual who was given the thankless task of reigning in a disparate bunch of super-powered misfits and getting them to behave in an adult, respectable manner that was approved by his government supervisors. Of course, the Avengers saw Gyrich as a petty, power-mad bureaucracy-obsessed tin-pot tyrant. I can definitely see that as a metaphor for the position Shooter probably found himself in as editor-in-chief, stuck between the fickle, unpredictable, easily offended freelance talent and Marvel's profit-minded corporate management. Then again, maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

Yes and no. I don't know that Jim based the character on anyone in particular; it's fairly easy to tell when Jim has based a character on himself. (ex: Star*Brand.) He did name the character after his cousin, but, like I said, I think that was just affectionate hat-tipping and not aspersions. Under successive writers, though, Gyrich took on definitely Shooteresque aspects. (I gave him a couple myself.) I think it was sort of an under-the-radar in joke; not sure Jim was ever aware of it. It wasn't uncommon to use the character as a sort of stand-in for him, and heap indignities on Gyrich people would never get away with heaping on Jim.

Looking forward to seeing it, just so long as it is not as dark as Torchwood was. My problem with much of Torchwood's first season was that it had this "Ooooooh, look how edgy and dark and adult we are, aren't you impressed, because you should be" vibe to it. Kind of like some of the comic creators in the late 1980s who felt that by tossing in over-the-top amounts of sex & violence into their work they were somehow creating the next Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns, confusing the trappings with the actual substance.

My big problem with Torchwood is that the characters were all self-destructive idiots. Except maybe Jack, for whom self-destruction is less nuisance than a canker sore. I gather they're making changes for Season 1, which will apparently run on BBC America almost concurrently with the BBC airings. Torchwood's far and away the most successful show BBC America has ever run. (And Sci Fi Channel, which bought Dr. Who rights, turned Torchwood down because no one in America ever heard of it...)

- Grant

[king mob]

CI also worked out around the same time that Peter's Uncle Ben was a fence, which explained the otherwise highly unlikely scenario that a low rent thief robbing Manhattan TV stations would be randomly knocking over residences in the middle of Queens... "The Burglar" would have been there to fence to him, Ben would've been trying to cheat him or blow him off, once thing led to another, etc... that one didn't stick, though, since it drastically undermines the whole philosophical premise of the series...


If my memory serves me, Alan Moore came up with the same idea in the mid-80's when asked at a convention how he'd do Spiderman. It's one that makes perfect sense, but of course you're right, it would kill the idea behind the character off once & for all.

Mind you, they could do something really daft to ruin the character and have Spidey do a deal with the devil. As if that would happen....


My big problem with Torchwood is that the characters were all self-destructive idiots. Except maybe Jack, for whom self-destruction is less nuisance than a canker sore. I gather they're making changes for Season 1, which will apparently run on BBC America almost concurrently with the BBC airings. Torchwood's far and away the most successful show BBC America has ever run. (And Sci Fi Channel, which bought Dr. Who rights, turned Torchwood down because no one in America ever heard of it...)

- Grant

You'll be getting the second series a fortnight after us, though I don't know if it's going to be edited. The big problem with the first series was it was a mess & incredibly badly written with incredibly under-developed characters. Owen for example started out as an annoying rapey wanker who we're supposed to believe turns into this sensitive thoughtful wanker. Of course there was the complete cluelessness as how to handle Jack, which was simply daft as 'Dark Jack' just didn't work.

The second series does promise change, mainly because now it's transferred from BBC3 to BBC2 it's no longer the flagship drama of a channel & has become just part of a bigger channel's programming. As part of the deal to take the programme to BBC2 it's been told to improve as the controller of BBC2 really didn't like the majority of the first series, so from all accounts the production team have taken their criticism on board and made an effort to improve Torchwood.

We'll find out in a couple of weeks if they have. I hope they have as it's got potential to be a nice bit of British telefantasy.

[Charles RB]

Owen for example started out as an annoying rapey wanker who we're supposed to believe turns into this sensitive thoughtful wanker.

And got to open the Rift, causing an apocalypse. Twice.

Jack's going to come back to find Owen's been leading Torchwood and they just lost several million records.

[Perry Holley]

Completely different. I've never had anything to do with Star Wars or John Carter in any fashion.So what was it, if you don't mind us asking?

[Steven Grant]

If my memory serves me, Alan Moore came up with the same idea in the mid-80's when asked at a convention how he'd do Spiderman. It's one that makes perfect sense, but of course you're right, it would kill the idea behind the character off once & for all.

I was going to say... it's amazingly easy to come up with ideas and root out previously unseen but inherent possibilities if you don't have a problem Carthagenating a character. Most companies, especially those to which franchises are far more important than individual stories (and I'm not suggesting stories are unimportant to them, just saying that in the pecking order of corporate things maintaining franchises is up the ladder from telling even the best short-lived story the world has ever seen...), kind of get their back up when you start talking scorched earth...

Mind you, they could do something really daft to ruin the character and have Spidey do a deal with the devil. As if that would happen....

As I understand it, Mephisto isn't the devil anymore... he seems to be more along the lines of The Adversary, the "judge angel" God gave permission to torment Job... The Adversary wasn't the devil either...

In any case, doing a deal with the devil... that's something future storytellers can just blow off and never mention if they choose, unless it leaves Spider-Man radically transformed, and then they have to reverse it somehow. Personally, given the Civil War circumstances, I'd have preferred to see a long storyline where Peter, left with no other options, cuts a deal with Tony Stark where May and Mary Jane are given new identities and sent off to safety where they don't have to live under threat of revenge from old Spidey villains, while Peter basically sells himself for their sakes to an authority whose righteousness he's incapable of acknowledging, with the soulcrushing knowledge that his "masters" do know where his loved ones are at all times. It'd be interesting to see how long they could go without having Stark or some stand-in threaten harm to wife and aunt when Spider-Man doesn't obey orders they believe are good. Not that I think it's a storyline that would easily sustain... how many Spider-Man books are they selling these days?

You'll be getting the second series a fortnight after us, though I don't know if it's going to be edited.

BBCA tends to blank out overt swear words and nudity. Don't recall if Torchwood had any nudity. But as it has gone BBC-2, I suspect its overt raciness over there will be toned down a bit as well.

The big problem with the first series was it was a mess & incredibly badly written with incredibly under-developed characters. Owen for example started out as an annoying rapey wanker who we're supposed to believe turns into this sensitive thoughtful wanker. Of course there was the complete cluelessness as how to handle Jack, which was simply daft as 'Dark Jack' just didn't work.

What as "Dark Jack" again? Let's see... Gwen was a complete git throughout, and I wouldn't mind at all if she were written out of series and replaced with... oh, some woman with half a brain. Suzie sent the tone for the series by being the first to go off book, but as she seemed at the time to be set up to be destroyed it was okay. Then it turned out the theme of the series was: humans really are too dumb to be trusted with alien technology, a thread that has also run through Dr. Who. Whasizname the secretary keeps a functioning Cyber(wo)man in the basement without telling anyone. Tish's first response to meeting an alien is to have a torrid affair with it. Owen's a pissy brat who's grasp of the general situation seems to extend only to the end of his nose. By mid-season you pretty much get disabused of any notions than Gwen could ever have really been a cop, since every response, aside from her steadily gaping slackjawed and befuddled through the cavern between her front teeth, to every bizarre situation rather than, oh, apply police procedure or approach the situations with calm rationality. Still, it's a watchable enough show since the storylines were often interesting, they did get at least an appealing interaction between the characters going and most of it rides on Jack and his mysteries and Barrowman's personality and charisma anyway. Thing is: you want to like the team, but they make it difficult sometimes. I don't mind, for instance, that Owen is a serial philanderer, though that makes him potentially unlikable by standard TV terms, because it suggests something interesting about his personality and background. Then they go and blow it all on an otherwise quite good episode where he falls desperately in love with a woman he can't have, or at least can't hold onto for long. (Who played the pilot, anyway?) I know it's supposed to be a clever reversal episode where Owen is the one loved and left, but it sort of undermines everything else they'd done with the character up to that point. He might as well have cut a deal with the devil. Of course, they need that for the final two or three episodes, where he's a totally amok spoiled brat taking out on everyone else that someone had the audacity to say no to him...

The second series does promise change, mainly because now it's transferred from BBC3 to BBC2 it's no longer the flagship drama of a channel & has become just part of a bigger channel's programming. As part of the deal to take the programme to BBC2 it's been told to improve as the controller of BBC2 really didn't like the majority of the first series, so from all accounts the production team have taken their criticism on board and made an effort to improve Torchwood.

I'm told the head writer for the first series was one of Davies' pets, but his stuff unsupervised isn't good. While Dr. Who always has a strong sense of directiont throughout a series - all the seemingly random threads in the last Dr. Who series came together amazingly well in the three part climax - on Torchwood there was a sense of them working from minute to minute, basically cobbling weird phenomena into as many old Avengers (Steed & Peel) version plots as humanly possible...

We'll find out in a couple of weeks if they have. I hope they have as it's got potential to be a nice bit of British telefantasy.

Hey, despite its multitude of flaws it's still a very watchable series, and very popular over here...

- Grant

[bh123]

Though when it comes to dark Who, the truly darkest thing I can think of is The Long Game/Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways in Series 1. The Doctor makes things worse, bringing about a hundred years of Hell for Earth and death for billions and helping the Daleks - and the Daleks go on to burn whole continents and outgunned people are slaughtered trying futilely to hold back the Daleks so the Doctor can finish a weapon... that, in the end, he won't use. Which means the Daleks would kill Earth, turn everyone into Daleks and then kill billions more, and that those people on Satellite 5 died for nothing, and the only reason that didn't happen is because of a very daft deux ex Rose that the Doctor didn't know would occur.

That is dark. That's our hero failing on every concievable level.

Unfortunately, it also made the Doctor look like a complete idiot.

If the Doctor had activated his weapon, yes, it would have not only wiped out the Dalek army, but killed everyone on Earth. Which sucks.

However, if the Doctor had not activated the weapon (and cosmic powered Rose hadn't shown up to pull a honking big deus ex machina) then the Dalks would have killed him, and then proceeded to kill everyone on Earth in any case, and then they would have gone on to threaten the rest of the galaxy, killing probably billions more. Which sucks even more.

So, yeah, in either case, eveyone on Earth would have died, but if the Doctor had destroyed the Daleks, at least it would have meant that that the massive lost of life was confined to that one tiny corner of the galaxy.

The Doctor's sole reason for not using his weapon is that he did not want to be the one who was personally responsible for all those deaths on Earth. Which, as I said made him look stupid, because he had to know he was in a no-win scenario that unfortunately required him to commit a difficult act that in the long run would have saved more lives.

The series one finale would have worked much better if the Doctor had resigned himself to having to use the weapon, shoing that he was a second away from pressing the trigger, and then in the nick of time Rose shows up to save the day. Still a massive deus ex machina, but at least that way the Doctor would not have looked so damn ineffectual.

[bh123]

My big problem with Torchwood is that the characters were all self-destructive idiots. Except maybe Jack, for whom self-destruction is less nuisance than a canker sore.

Well, yes, there is that.

Say what you will about Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart -- i.e. narrow-minded, bureaucratic, quick to see violence as the best solution -- at least he wasn't a dysfunctional, petulant SOB who had bi-sexual affairs with his teammates and/or aliens at the drop of a hat.

I think the main reason that Torchwood even half-worked in its first year was John Barrowman, who even when he had to play Jack Hakness as a much darker character, still had this suave, mischevious, charasmatic air about him which made the character so compelling.

Truthfully, I think Jack works better when he travels with the Doctor. I much more enjoyed his cheeky, humorous verbal fencing with David Tennant than watching him having to babysit a bunch of malajusted whiners on Torchwood. When he finally snapped in the last episode of the season, brutally chewing out each and every one of them for their boneheaded decisions over the past dozen episodes, I almost cheered. If I had been in his shoes, I'd have gotten to that breaking point of frustration long before then.

Anyway, if you're going to have a show built around a character like Jack Harkness, it should not be so consistently dark and downbeat, because that just does not suit him.

[king mob]

In any case, doing a deal with the devil... that's something future storytellers can just blow off and never mention if they choose, unless it leaves Spider-Man radically transformed, and then they have to reverse it somehow.

I think it's fairly inevitable that in another decade or so they'll be another huge revamp of Spidey & this current story will be just another bit of lamentable superhero history.


how many Spider-Man books are they selling these days?


Good question, Heidi MacDonald's blog give an answer (http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/12/26/marvel-month-to-month-sales-november-2007/).


BBCA tends to blank out overt swear words and nudity. Don't recall if Torchwood had any nudity. But as it has gone BBC-2, I suspect its overt raciness over there will be toned down a bit as well.


It's not been toned down too much but part of the deal with Roly Keating is that the general quality of the programme has to improve if it stands a chance of getting a third series, let alone get a transfer to BBC1 and the bigger budgets that would bring.


What as "Dark Jack" again? Let's see... Gwen was a complete git throughout, and I wouldn't mind at all if she were written out of series and replaced with... oh, some woman with half a brain.

RTD stated that Gwen was to be 'the audience' in the way Rose was 'the audience' in his revamped Who. the problem was that Gwen was so badly written and yes, we got the fact she was Welsh right away, we didn't need it rammed down our throats.

Still, it's a watchable enough show since the storylines were often interesting, they did get at least an appealing interaction between the characters going and most of it rides on Jack and his mysteries and Barrowman's personality and charisma anyway.

Barrowman is a huge mainstream star over here, which is why making his character (there's very little difference between Barrowman's personality & Jack's apparently) all gloomy, miserable & emo was a massive shot in the foot.

I'm told the head writer for the first series was one of Davies' pets, but his stuff unsupervised isn't good.

That'll be Chris Chibnall who is a decent telly drama writer, (his Life On Mars episodes are excellent) but a shite show-runner and script editor. From all accounts again he's been reigned in & RTD has no involvement at all in the second series script wise but is still putting forward ideas.

While Dr. Who always has a strong sense of directiont throughout a series - all the seemingly random threads in the last Dr. Who series came together amazingly well in the three part climax

That's one of the great things that Russell Davies can do & has done in his work prior to Who. The problem is that some of Davies's scripts on Who are making me forget the fact he's one of our best TV dramatists & is responsible for some utterly brilliant work.

Hey, despite its multitude of flaws it's still a very watchable series, and very popular over here...

It's popularity in the US is what saved it's arse and helped get it moved from BBC3 to BBC2. There's lots to like about the series-the fact it's got PJ Hammond writing scripts & it's set outside London are just two. The main thing it has is Barrowman & if it's going to be better in the second series then it needs to play to Barrowman's strengths.

[Charles RB]

Unfortunately, it also made the Doctor look like a complete idiot.

Oh yes, that too. Which arguably adds to the darkness - our defender against the darkness is an idiot who will get everyone around him killed for no reason, and let countless worlds die screaming because he deliberately thrust himself into a situation that he turned out not to be capable of handling & he should have known that. And afterwards, he barely seems bothered with how he fucked up and got people killed - "I was fantastic!".

The problem is, I don't think that's what Russell T Davies wanted me to think with that episode...

[bh123]

Chthon did provide me with an interesting moment a few years later, when Marvel was publishing their Darkhold series. The writer - ?... name escapes me... Marcus McLarin? - broached me at a Midnight Sons meeting (I was briefly working on Nightstalkers, but that's another story...) to tell me he was bringing back Chthon. I think I was supposed to be excited about it. It's always interesting when someone - and it's almost always meant in the spirit of homage, there's rarely anything but the best intentions attached - tells you they've dredged up one of your old characters and they're going to write it. That's the disconnect they never see: they're going to write it, not you. At which point it doesn't have anything to do with you... Steve Gerber gets that a lot, and people never understand why he's never enthusiastic to learn someone else is writing, oh, Omega, or Howard The Duck...

It was probably Chris Cooper, who was the writer on Darkhold. I thought he did a good job with the character, making him genuinely scary & imposing, as did J.M. DeMatteis, who ended up wrapping up that book's subplots in Doctor Strange a few years later (albeit with one of those "power of love conquers all" type of endings he likes to use from time to time).

Anyway, it could be argued that your situation is different from from Gerber's, since I expect that he probably still wants to be the one writing Howard the Duck or Omega. In your case, well, did you actually want to do anything more with Chthon by that point in time? I really cannot see him fitting into any of the hard-boiled crime stories that made up a good portion of your work in the 1990s. Unless of course you were planning a Punisher storyline where Castle, killing his way up through the ranks of a new organized crime syndicate, finally comes face-to-face with the head guy, and discovers that it is actually Chthon. That would, I guess, literally put the "god" in godfather.

Ah, well, at least Spider-Man didn't end up making a deal with Chthon to save the life of Aunt May :p

[Steven Grant]

Say what you will about Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart -- i.e. narrow-minded, bureaucratic, quick to see violence as the best solution -- at least he wasn't a dysfunctional, petulant SOB who had bi-sexual affairs with his teammates and/or aliens at the drop of a hat.

That we know of.

There may be a reason why he never married...

I think the main reason that Torchwood even half-worked in its first year was John Barrowman, who even when he had to play Jack Hakness as a much darker character, still had this suave, mischevious, charasmatic air about him which made the character so compelling.

Whasisname who plays Owen was a pretty compelling character too, all things considered, and he made a good foil for Jack. They just didn't know what to do with him. Or Ionto (sp?), who goes from keeping his cyberized ex-girlfriend in a cubby hole to being Jack's bottom, with no other implies explanation aside from that's his punishment for flouting Jack's rules, which puts Jack in a weirder light than I suspect was intended. But they really didn't know what to do with the women in the show. Suzie's just a maniac, Tosh a milkrag, Gwen blows with the wind... The most interesting women on the show the first season were the two from the '50s in the timewarp episode, trying to figure out how to adapt to the modern world...

Truthfully, I think Jack works better when he travels with the Doctor. I much more enjoyed his cheeky, humorous verbal fencing with David Tennant than watching him having to babysit a bunch of malajusted whiners on Torchwood. When he finally snapped in the last episode of the season, brutally chewing out each and every one of them for their boneheaded decisions over the past dozen episodes, I almost cheered. If I had been in his shoes, I'd have gotten to that breaking point of frustration long before then.

Given his proclivities, I can understand why he wouldn't automatically issue an injunction against having sex with aliens, but I'd think he'd at least have introduced some sort of vetting system to distinguish friendly sex buddy aliens from murdering psychopathic body-stealing aliens... But if nothing else why wouldn't he have flat out laid down the law the instant after they finished off Suzie in the first episode? I'm still wondering how Ionto managed to get a Cyberman into Torchwood without anyone knowing about it, let alone managing to keep it hidden from all the others. Torchwood HQ must be its own kind of Tardis.

I agree Jack's probably most effective in the company of the Doctor, but I approve of him not being a regular companion. I think his personality would start eating up the scripts, and he's certainly the guy they'd start going to for the physical stuff, since he's sure got the look of the classic action hero... They don't really need to put him back with the Doctor, they need to think more about how Torchwood would function as a team under his command...

Anyway, last we heard the Master had sent Torchwood off on a bogus mission to the Himalayas, so likely they'll get back to find Jack sitting there. Was he (in real time) even gone long enough for them to realize he was gone?

Anyway, if you're going to have a show built around a character like Jack Harkness, it should not be so consistently dark and downbeat, because that just does not suit him.

Hopefully he came away from saving the world yet again with a sunnier disposition. But I suspect the team controlling Torchwood felt a necessity to make it "grim'n'gritty" - whoops, I mean "more adult" - to set up a dividing line from the more kid-friendly Dr. Who. (The Sarah Jane Adventures were quite good in their purview, though...)

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

In your case, well, did you actually want to do anything more with Chthon by that point in time? Ah, well, at least Spider-Man didn't end up making a deal with Chthon to save the life of Aunt May :p

Well, that might've been kind of cool, at least from my perspective. (Not that Chthon's ideally that kind of character, but Mephisto has always bored me silly.)

But, no, I didn't have anything I wanted to do with Chthon. Given my druthers, I'd have preferred him quietly forgotten, all things considered. But for some reason guys at Marvel keep dredging up old characters of who were intended for a single specific use then meant to fade into the woodwork. (Someone even did a brief bit with three carny workers I concocted as window dressing in a Marvel Team-Up story.)

But I guess they stripmine everything, so I'm not taking it personally...

- Grant

[Dennis]

i just read One More Day and this Mephisto guy seems interesting. I think he's supposed to be God. he certainly has God-like powers. he gets a kick by getting people to think he's the devil. and if he's not god, then he should just go around telling people he's god, since the real god isn't showing himself to anyone. he deserves his own series, or at least used more.

[Steven Grant]

Well, yes, there is that.

I suddenly had a revelation that explains everything in Torchwood Season 1.

Jack purposely selected that team on the belief that they were all, as individuals, incapable of acting like responsible adults instead of hormone-ruptured TV-fed public school adolescents.

Jack's obsession the entire first series was meeting the Doctor again. So everything in the series has to be viewed as aiming toward that intended goal.

He resurrects Torchwood, knowing that the Doctor will eventually take a look.

He sets up shop at the rift, and investigates aliens, knowing that the Doctor is aware of the dangers of the Rift and suspects he'll check up on it from time to time.

He brings together a team of bald-faced ego-driven screwups in the expectation that they'll eventually, in combination with the Rift, create a situation so critical that it will take The Doctor to get them and the Earth out of it.

But when push comes to shove he's enough of an innate hero, whatever his protestations to the contrary, that his instinct (as well as his awareness that the Doctor would be critically disappointed if Jack didn't do his all to resolve the situation with or without him) kicks in and he deals with it himself.

And suddenly everything in the first series, including Jack's sullen, often sulky moodiness makes total sense...

- Grant

[king mob]

Or it could have been really half-arsed with lots of gratuitous mentions of tits, shagging & kebabs.

[dancj]

Personally I really like Torchwood and find it much more reliable than Dr Who. It doesn't quite hit the heights of episodes like Blink and that one with the gas masks, but I found every episode of Torchwood enjoyable - which is something I can't quite say for Dr Who.

The Dr Who Christmas special was cracking though - despite Kylie!

Barrowman is a huge mainstream star over here
He is? I thought Dr Who and Torchwood were the things that made him as big as he is. (plus a very successful stage career which only helps if you are part of that much more limited audience that goes to west end musicals)

But I suspect the team controlling Torchwood felt a necessity to make it "grim'n'gritty" - whoops, I mean "more adult" - to set up a dividing line from the more kid-friendly Dr. Who.
Apparently Russell T Davies has said that the amount of swearing in the first few minutes of the first episode (which seemed very forced) were deliberately put in as a message about the tone of the series.

[Spike-X]

The most interesting women on the show the first season were the two from the '50s in the timewarp episode, trying to figure out how to adapt to the modern world.

That was about the only episode in the whole series that I really enjoyed all the way through.

Oh, and it's "Ianto". Ee-ahn-toe, not ee-on-toe.

Bloody silly Welsh and their bloody silly names...

[dancj]

Oh, and it's "Ianto". Ee-ahn-toe, not ee-on-toe.
I don't think Americans distinguish between those two sounds. Certainly when they say god and dog it sounds like gahd and dahg

[bh123]

But, no, I didn't have anything I wanted to do with Chthon. Given my druthers, I'd have preferred him quietly forgotten, all things considered. But for some reason guys at Marvel keep dredging up old characters of who were intended for a single specific use then meant to fade into the woodwork. (Someone even did a brief bit with three carny workers I concocted as window dressing in a Marvel Team-Up story.)


I'm actually surprised to hear that... well, okay, maybe not, since I just realized that those Avengers issues were published, um, 1980, I think (I first read those issues in a TPB printed a few years ago). Back then, I guess writers could reasonably presume that most supporting characters they created had little to no chance of ever popping up again, and would quietly fade into obscurity.

Of course, in the last twenty years, pretty much any and every super-obscure character from the back catalogue of Marvel and DC characters has inevitably gotten pulled out of the closet & dusted off. So if you had created Cthton in the late 1980s or afterwards, even if you personally intended him to be a one-off deal, by that point I imagine you would have reasonably acknowledged that at some point in the future someone would get around to bringing him back.

Anyway, as you say, Mephisto is usually really dull (from overuse, in my opinion) so at least Cthton gives writers some other dark uber-powerful godlike entity to utilize from time to time. All things considered, Cthton has been used pretty sparingly. At least he isn't endlessly trotted out as a cosmic-powered Big Bad as has been done with Thanos. Now there is a character who's sell by date has long since passed by.

[bartl]

I don't think Americans distinguish between those two sounds. Certainly when they say god and dog it sounds like gahd and dahg
Depends on the American. In New York, we say, "gahd" and "dawg". I guess that means we speak of canines with a certain amount of awe. One of the more divisive pronunciations is "aunt", where some people say "ant", and others say "ahnt" (as my father was an "ahnt" sayer, and my mother was an "ant" sayer, whether they are ants or ahnts in my family depends on whose side they are on).

Which means that, to a certain section of the country, the joke of what if Aunt May had access to Henry Pym's technology gets lost.

[bartl]

Anyway, as you say, Mephisto is usually really dull (from overuse, in my opinion) so at least Cthton gives writers some other dark uber-powerful godlike entity to utilize from time to time. All things considered, Cthton has been used pretty sparingly. At least he isn't endlessly trotted out as a cosmic-powered Big Bad as has been done with Thanos. Now there is a character who's sell by date has long since passed by.
The problem with Mephisto is that he is too straightforward. A character like that needs to have plans within plans within plans, so you never quite know whether he has succeeded or failed.

There was a science fiction story (later expanded into a novel) back in the early 60's called "Second Game", which involved a game expert who always played two games, betting that he will win the second game, and always losing the first (the idea being that he would use the first game to analyze the other player's style and determine his/her weaknesses). Applying that principle to Mephisto, a fairly simple example would be Mephisto trying to get a hero's soul, and failing, but then make us wonder if his real goal was to plant seeds of hubris and overconfidence into the hero by allowing himself to be defeated too easily. I've seen this sort of thing retconned (notably with "The Friend" in Ghost Rider), but it would be more interesting planned out in advance.

[bh123]

Applying that principle to Mephisto, a fairly simple example would be Mephisto trying to get a hero's soul, and failing, but then make us wonder if his real goal was to plant seeds of hubris and overconfidence into the hero by allowing himself to be defeated too easily.

Peter David had Mephisto do just that to the Hulk at Rick & Marlo's wedding. One of the better uses of the character, I thought, because it made the character appear genuinely sinister and manipulative.

Anyway, I thought the best take on Mephisto was Ann Nocenti's in Daredevil, where she took the time to explore actual questions of faith and sin and human nature, looking at the possible roles the devil could play in the cosmological scheme of things.

[Steven Grant]

Or it could have been really half-arsed with lots of gratuitous mentions of tits, shagging & kebabs.

You're just determined to be a rational killjoy, aincha?

Yeah, of course the first season of Torchwood was a bloody, ill-conceived mess. Managed to be fairly entertaining despite that, though. I'm just trying to put a wig on the pig is all...

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

I don't think Americans distinguish between those two sounds. Certainly when they say god and dog it sounds like gahd and dahg

Americans don't pronounce the vowel sounds "god" and "dog" the same way, for the most part. They're usually pronounced. They're usually pronounced "gahd" and "dawg." Obviously there will be a few dialects (since there are hundreds in America) that do not adhere... "god" is occasionally pronounced "gawd" when being especially emphasized, as when Brooklynites, Bronx or Jerseyites say, "Oh. My." (Usually pronounced more like "moy" in these circumstances.") "Gawwwd." (See: THE NANNY.) But even among those groups that's relatively rare pronunciation.

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Of course, in the last twenty years, pretty much any and every super-obscure character from the back catalogue of Marvel and DC characters has inevitably gotten pulled out of the closet & dusted off. So if you had created Cthton in the late 1980s or afterwards, even if you personally intended him to be a one-off deal, by that point I imagine you would have reasonably acknowledged that at some point in the future someone would get around to bringing him back.

Oddly, though, they never bring back the characters I would like to see brought back... (I notice my favorite character of the era, a manipulative femme fatale named Vienna, returned in the first issue of the new HEROES FOR HIRE and they even sort of got her right, even if they had to drag her completely out of her milieu. I'd love to do a series with her just manipulating the hell out of every situation she comes across. She was a character I created so I'd have someone regular to work with across various inventory stories I did, and she appeared three times, in a MASTER OF KUNG FU and two issues of HEROES FOR HIRE. The first, which I did as a riff on an Ultravox song before deciding to bring her back, was the epitomal Vienna story: she's out to steal, apparently on a freelance gig for the Chinese, a CIA code book entrusted to British Intelligence. She manages to pull it off, and Shang-Chi goes after her to recover it before she can sell it to the Chinese. He does, everyone's happy, but he senses something's not right about the whole situation, investigates more, and learns he's right; Vienna has really been working the whole time for the CIA, which needed to get the code book back without going through MI-6 to do it because the code book MI-6 was supposed to have originally gotten was a fake, and by accident/sloppiness they supplied the British with the real one, so they had to hire Vienna to get it back, and she concocted this scheme where she steals it, sells to the Chinese the fake that was originally supposed to have been sent, and leaves breadcrumbs so MI-6 can recover the fake and never realize it's not the same book they originally possessed. And the CIA gets the original back. That was her motif: she sells her services to any government willing to pay the price - absolute reputation for keeping her mouth shut, too - and then manipulates whoever's available to pull off her plans, so that they (and the reader) always think one thing is going on when something entirely different is going on.)

Anyway, as you say, Mephisto is usually really dull (from overuse, in my opinion) so at least Cthton gives writers some other dark uber-powerful godlike entity to utilize from time to time. All things considered, Cthton has been used pretty sparingly. At least he isn't endlessly trotted out as a cosmic-powered Big Bad as has been done with Thanos. Now there is a character who's sell by date has long since passed by.

It's the Dr. Doom problem: it's hard to maintain a rep as a really badass supervillain when your evil schemes keep going tits up... Villains can only lose so many times before they just look like losers.

- Grant

[bartl]

It's the Dr. Doom problem: it's hard to maintain a rep as a really badass supervillain when your evil schemes keep going tits up... Villains can only lose so many times before they just look like losers.

Interesting that you mention this in conjunction with the Vienna plot, because that's the sort of thing I was talking about Mephisto doing; making it look like he's doing one thing, to manipulate the good guys into doing exactly what he wants them to do. Or at least make it appear that way; maybe he really did lose, but doesn't want the heroes to know. Which would probably make Mephisto's natural arch-nemesis Doc Samson (another Marvel character who is rarely written to his potential).

Perhaps someday Marvel will team up Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Beast, Henry Pym and Doc Samson, and they can spend the entire issue debating the best way to change a lightbulb...

[Steven Grant]

Interesting that you mention this in conjunction with the Vienna plot, because that's the sort of thing I was talking about Mephisto doing; making it look like he's doing one thing, to manipulate the good guys into doing exactly what he wants them to do. Or at least make it appear that way; maybe he really did lose, but doesn't want the heroes to know. Which would probably make Mephisto's natural arch-nemesis Doc Samson (another Marvel character who is rarely written to his potential).

The real problem with an allegorical character like Mephisto is: what the hell does he really want? He may think it's cool to make people suffer - but what does he get out of it? If he's got so much power he can snap his fingers and lord knows how many years of history get removed and replaced by something else, if he can bring people back from the dead effortlessly, what's he wasting that kind of power on piddly minutiae for? That really makes him feel like a loser, like the mad scientist supervillains who create fantastic technology they could become ridiculously wealthy from within six months of introducing it into the market, but instead they go rob jewelry stores...

Q: In the Marvel universe, what's the best way to change a lightbulb?

A: Does it matter? However you put the lightbulb in, the Hulk will just break it again...

- Grant

[Paul McEnery]

The real problem with an allegorical character like Mephisto is: what the hell does he really want? He may think it's cool to make people suffer - but what does he get out of it? If he's got so much power he can snap his fingers and lord knows how many years of history get removed and replaced by something else, if he can bring people back from the dead effortlessly, what's he wasting that kind of power on piddly minutiae for? That really makes him feel like a loser, like the mad scientist supervillains who create fantastic technology they could become ridiculously wealthy from within six months of introducing it into the market, but instead they go rob jewelry stores...

Q: In the Marvel universe, what's the best way to change a lightbulb?

A: Does it matter? However you put the lightbulb in, the Hulk will just break it again...

- Grant

Bored child picking the wings off flies.

[Steven Grant]

Bored child picking the wings off flies.

If you're talking about Mephisto, I agree, but that's the worst kind of villain motivation because it just makes the heroes look like wimps when they sucker out for it.

If you're talking about my Marvel lightbulb joke, I agree again...

- Grant

[zuludelta]

Anyway, I thought the best take on Mephisto was Ann Nocenti's in Daredevil, where she took the time to explore actual questions of faith and sin and human nature, looking at the possible roles the devil could play in the cosmological scheme of things.

That's some of my favourite Daredevil stories of all time. Coupled with some excellent John Romita, Jr. art, I might add (I remember being disturbed as a kid by the visual of Mephisto having 20-foot long nipples). What's Ann Nocenti up to these days, by the way? Last I heard she was allegedly an editor for High Times, and that was from a few years ago.

[Steven Grant]

Last I heard, Annie was an editor at SCRIPT magazine... That also was some time ago...

- Grant

[dancj]

Americans don't pronounce the vowel sounds "god" and "dog" the same way, for the most part. They're usually pronounced. They're usually pronounced "gahd" and "dawg."
I never noticed that. I thought it was gahd and dahg - but then I guess that wouldn't account for Deputy Dawg.

[bh123]

I suddenly had a revelation that explains everything in Torchwood Season 1.

Jack purposely selected that team on the belief that they were all, as individuals, incapable of acting like responsible adults instead of hormone-ruptured TV-fed public school adolescents.

Jack's obsession the entire first series was meeting the Doctor again. So everything in the series has to be viewed as aiming toward that intended goal.

Perhaps you ought to pitch a story idea to the BBC for a Torchwood episode that deals with that. I mean, you are an established author, so that would get your foot in the door, at least. I don't know if they would go for your interpretation of the characters, but you never know.

Besides, you can definitely do dark, gritty and hard-boiled much better than some of the passes at it we saw in series one. If I want to see a gloomy, twisted examination of the capacity for violence & cruelty that resides in the souls of humanity, well, I'd much rather read Mortal Souls again than have to sit through "Countrycide" a second time.

[king mob]

I'd much rather read Mortal Souls again than have to sit through "Countrycide" a second time.

'Did you ever cummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm so hard'


Urgh, it's just rubbish, how does Chris Chibnall sleep at night knowing he wrote Countrycide.

[bh123]

Uh oh... looking over my last post, I suddenly realized that by stating I would rather re-read Mortal Souls again than re-watch "Countrycide" sounds like I'm damning Mortal Souls with faint praise. Not what I intended. So, to clarify...

Mortal Souls = good
Countrycide = not good

There you go. Hope that straightens out things!

[Steven Grant]

Don't worry, I took it as high praise.

And my next horror comic (which is just starting up, but of this no more can yet be said) will make MORTAL SOULS look like SUGAR AND SPIKE...

- Grant

[Steven Grant]

Don't worry, I took it as high praise.

And my next horror comic (which is just starting up, but of this no more can yet be said) will make MORTAL SOULS look like SUGAR AND SPIKE...

- Grant

[KiplingKat]

If Neal had any notions that Magneto and Quicksilver were related, he never mentioned it to me or anyone I know.
- Grant

But are you going to duke it out with John Byrne, who also claimed to have came up with the idea for Pietro and Wanda being Magnus' kids back in 1997?

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/FAQ/listing.asp?ID=2&T1=Q#14

Oh the joys, of comic book politics.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

Don't worry, I took it as high praise.

And my next horror comic (which is just starting up, but of this no more can yet be said) will make MORTAL SOULS look like SUGAR AND SPIKE...

- Grant

Nah, do better - I want to see some real trash talk as you throw your hat over the wall!

Will it be grosser and more messed up than Strange Kiss/Stranger Kisses?
Will I rather watch Anatomy For Beginners whilst eating sausages than read this book with any food in my stomach?
Will meeting the girlfriends parents seem like a pleasure after the horrors with in these pages?

Get the buzz going now!

[bartl]

Don't worry, I took it as high praise.

And my next horror comic (which is just starting up, but of this no more can yet be said) will make MORTAL SOULS look like SUGAR AND SPIKE...

And this comes from a person who knows the difference between horror and suspense.

[Perry Holley]

And my next horror comic (which is just starting up, but of this no more can yet be said) will make MORTAL SOULS look like SUGAR AND SPIKE...Oh, this should be fun...!

[Steven Grant]

Will it be grosser and more messed up than Strange Kiss/Stranger Kisses?
Will I rather watch Anatomy For Beginners whilst eating sausages than read this book with any food in my stomach?
Will meeting the girlfriends parents seem like a pleasure after the horrors with in these pages?

Pretty much, yeah, on all three. And this is without a sign of a demon, devil, Elder god, angel or any other supernatural being anywhere within the pages...

- Grant

[bartl]

Pretty much, yeah, on all three. And this is without a sign of a demon, devil, Elder god, angel or any other supernatural being anywhere within the pages...
Well, Steven King, in an attempt to write a horror novel involving only the natural, wrote CUJO. Of course, that was suspense and not horror...

[badMike]

Well, Steven King, in an attempt to write a horror novel involving only the natural, wrote CUJO. Of course, that was suspense and not horror...He's written a bunch like that. MISERY comes to mind. I think LISEY'S STORY is suspense, but I haven't read it. Same goes for DOLORES CLAIBORNE, but lots of short stories, particularly the one about the castaway who has to eat himself to survive.

[Steven Grant]

Well, Steven King, in an attempt to write a horror novel involving only the natural, wrote CUJO. Of course, that was suspense and not horror...

I don't know if I'd call this story a horror novel (or whatever format it ends up as) exactly... it is pretty sickening, though...

- Grant

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I don't know if I'd call this story a horror novel (or whatever format it ends up as) exactly... it is pretty sickening, though...

- Grant

More unflinching violence than From Hell?
More bizarre sex acts than Preacher?
More disturbing than that kids head in the box in Scars?

Pretty much, yeah, on all three. And this is without a sign of a demon, devil, Elder god, angel or any other supernatural being anywhere within the pages...

- Grant

Jeez, I dunno man, you'll have to stick to logic and 'real-world' stuff if you write yourself into a corner.
Could be tricky!

[Steven Grant]

More unflinching violence than From Hell?
More bizarre sex acts than Preacher?
More disturbing than that kids head in the box in Scars?

Probably won't be much violence at all. Depends on what you call a sex act, I think. (I didn't think most in Preacher were all that bizarre.) Kid's head in a box? Kid stuff...

- Grant