Last night’s Joan of Arcadia was pretty darn good, but I was disappointed with the character of Judith, Joan’s Plot Device Friend from crazy camp.

So, Plot Device Friend comes to town to teach Joan a valuable lesson. All well and good, but the show usually handles this sort of thing with a bit more inventiveness. It all carried the whiff of the “very special episode,” which must be avoided at all costs.

Also, Plot Device Friend? Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer called. She wants her shtick back. Please hand it over at your earliest convenience, and no legal action will be taken.

I love super-heroes, and I love soap operas. So why don’t I love Noble Causes? There are a few reasons.

While it borrows heavily from both genres, it doesn’t really do anything particularly new with them. Soap opera subplots have been incorporated into super-hero stories for ages, and Noble Causes doesn’t seem to be taking the overlap any farther than it’s already gone. It’s less action-driven than the average super-hero title, but it still falls back on the same conventions – the squabbling super-team, the hero as crime suspect, interpersonal tensions surfacing during a crisis. As a result, it seems more like a pastiche of genre standards than a fusion into something really unusual.

As to the soap elements, writer Jay Faerber lifts his character architecture from Dynasty. We have the alpha-male patriarch (Doc/Blake), the bitter matriarch (Alexis/Gaia), the troubled son (Steven/Rusty), the fish-out-of-water good girl (Krystle/Liz), the venomous bastard (Adam/Frost), the wild child (Fallon/Zephyr), the trampy spoiler (Sammy Jo/Celeste), the son of a rival family who fits in better with the protagonists (Jeff/Krennick), and the rival patriarch who diddles his enemy’s daughter (Cecil/Draconis). I don’t intend that as a criticism, as Faerber is hardly the first to appropriate Dyansty’s model, and it’s an excellent starting point.

The criticism comes in where he takes those archetypes which, again, is nowhere really unusual. The Nobles are more muted versions of the Aaron Spelling’s Carrington clan. Gaia focuses on image more than power. Zephyr is promiscuous, but she hasn’t much in the way of a personality beyond that, and her pregnancy seems to have sidelined her almost entirely. Doc has as much Reed Richards in his DNA as Blake, and Celeste doesn’t really have the instincts or drive to deliver any really vixenish mischief.

The character who isn’t a Spelling model is golden boy Race, but he has his own super-soap underpinnings. Race is back from the dead, a turn of events common to both genres. It’s tricky to evaluate the success of this move. On one hand, it was difficult to understand why widowed Liz would stick with her contentious in-laws. On the other, Race’s return gives her a reliable guide through the Noble weirdness, which mutes her reactions, makes her normality less disruptive, and leaves her less of a gateway character.

In a similar way, Gaia’s micro-management of the Nobles’ public image seems like a misstep. By focusing her efforts on covering for her scandal-prone clan, she somehow mutes my interest in those scandals. They lose dramatic power, coming closer to tabloid fodder than painful or defining events in the characters’ lives.

It’s hard for me to go through an issue of Noble Causes and not think of other comics where this material has been done just as well, if not better. Krennick’s kinks and the possibly related serial murders call to mind similar stories in Powers and Top Ten. As Rusty and love interest Cosmic Rae head off on a mission with ex-wife Celeste and estranged brother Frost, lots of bits from Avengers and Legion of Super-Heroes come to mind. Doc’s odd behavior in these two issues triggers any number of memories, calling up a list of standard solutions (one from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men in particular).

I’m not sure the art does the story many favors. I’m glad the title is back in color, but Fran Bueno’s illustrations aren’t really working for me. Bueno’s visuals are very reminiscent of Michael Avon Oeming, but without Oeming’s polish. Some of the faces are bizarre (even on characters who are supposed to be conventionally attractive), and that takes me out of their interpersonal drama. I wonder if this story doesn’t beg for more conventional, “realistic” art along the lines of Phil Jiminez rather than Bueno’s stylized approach.

I do want to like Noble Causes. I think its premise – down-time interpersonal drama – is an appealing one, but I don’t think Faerber has fully realized it. Too much standard super-heroism is in evidence, and the characters aren’t developed much beyond stock types. As it stands, there’s nothing here that can’t be found in a dozen other titles. The book needs to carve out a more specific niche for itself.

As I mentioned previously, I purchased Wizard #157 the other day. I’m sorry, but I have to do something to get my money’s worth, and if I have to drag you all down with me to do it, so be it.

I’m kidding, of course. I love you too much for that. Please feel free to click “Back” on your browsers if you like. I’ll wait.

Just the diehards left? Okay, then.

Page 23: The Heat Index says that Powers has the “[f]unniest damn letters page in comics.” This should have been my cue to put the magazine down and walk away. (And, yes, I shouldn’t have needed that cue in the first place.)

Pages 38-44: Normally, I would greet a detailed article on the pending return of Hal Jordan with complete disinterest, but one quote did jump out at me from writer Geoff Johns:

“`The tone of Rebirth is basically the opposite of Identity Crisis,’ says Johns, adding that he’ll be paying respect to the past while giving fans a side of GL and his world they’ve never seen before. ‘We’re bringing somebody back and trying to do a very uplifting story about heroism, what it means and what you have to overcome in order to be a hero.’”

Those are perfectly fine sentiments, and it’s nice to see some counter-programming to the terribly depressing IC. But Johns certainly is playing both sides, isn’t he? He’s got a three-part IC tie-in in Flash, and readers are to be treated to Sue Dibny’s autopsy in JSA. (Anyone want to start a pool on how much her liver weighs?) And as things to overcome go, a record as a mass murderer is certainly right up there.

Page 50: As bad as you might suspect a Wizard Q&A with Frank Cho about his upcoming Shanna the She-Devil mini-series might be, I respectfully suggest you lower the bar. I’m stunned that nobody saw fit to work in a “pencil-d*#k” joke.

Page 52: Hey, kids! Listen to Mark Millar when he says that pouring whiskey into your eyes is a bad idea! The desire is understandable, particularly if you just read the Shanna interview, but resist!

Page 56: Millar incorrectly identifies Wolverine’s early-2000s look as “gay, disco bunny Wolverine” when it was clearly “gay, leather daddy Wolverine.” Do your research, man.

Page 58: Ooh, spoilers from Millar’s upcoming Wolverine run: the Hand will be killing super-heroes and resurrecting them as super-villains. Zombie, ninja super-heroes. That sound you hear almost has to be something collapsing in on itself, but I’m not sure what.

Page 60: The “Enemy of the State” arc is going to have crossovers! And its own logo! And probably many of the crossover titles will have “Young Guns” logos, too! So, basically, these covers will look kind of like the ticker at the bottom of Headline News.

Page 64: Rachel Weisz is a lovely and versatile actress. She must have a terrible, terrible agent. I hope she conducted this interview by phone.

Page 94: I’m always game for more Julian McMahon, but it seems a waste to cast him as Doctor Doom in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. He’s purty.

Page 102: There’s an encouraging quote from Jim Lee in this piece on DC’s new CMX manga line:

“`We want to make sure we capture the original vision of the creator,’ Lee
added, ‘and maintain the highest level of quality possible.’”

Since I think the creator’s vision is at the heart of manga’s appeal, I find that comment cause for optimism.

Pages 110-116: The Picks section almost makes me never want to touch another comic book again as long as I live. That can’t be the intention, can it?

Page 168: One of the 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Brad Meltzer is that Identity Crisis almost didn’t happen. “Almost” only counts in horseshoes, Wizard.

There. I feel cleansed. Thank you for your forbearance. I promise not to do this to you (or myself) for a while.

Special thanks to Jon at Mae Mai for the terrific and informative links about manga and other international comics. I’m particularly taken with matt-thorn.com. Thorn’s introduction is enough to set my mouse a-clicking:

“I’m Matt Thorn, a cultural anthropologist who studies, teaches and writes about comics and other forms of popular culture. I live and work in Japan, where I’m an Associate Professor in the School of Cartoon & Comic Art at Kyoto Seika University. I also professionally translated Japanese comics, known as manga, from 1990 to 1999.”

I learned a lot from Thorn’s article on what shojo manga is and is not, and I’ve already filled out his questionnaire on how people read manga. This one goes right in the sidebar, as I’ll be visiting often.

Ah, the body blows to shared-universe storytelling just keep on coming! (It’s this year’s little black dress of super-hero comics.) This time, J. Michael Straczynski has apparently dug up Gwen Stacy just long enough for her to get her freak on, and the reaction isn’t unexpected. Jeff Lester at Savage Critic takes a point-by-point look at Amazing Spider-Man #512, and he doesn’t really like what he sees. A thread on Usenet wonders if the book doesn’t claim the title of “most disgusting comic of the year.”

(Because I have a cold, black heart, I’m eagerly awaiting the story arc that tells us why Bucky Barnes really jumped on that bomb. I’m guessing it involves Baron Zemo and “bad touches.” They can call it “O Captain! My Captain!”)

In comments at Cognitive Dissonance, George (Grattan, I’m guessing) offers the following theory on where all this is coming from:

“[Johanna asks] “What is wrong with big-name comic superhero writers these days?” I think part of it may be a fairly common response among artists in all fields, especially those who hold some doubt about the relative merit of their talents vis a vis their forerunners: Oedipal Pissiness, a.k.a. Kill the Father Syndrome. That is, folks like JMS, Johns, Meltzer, Smith, Winick, and others cut their creative eyeteeth on the great deconstructive superhero works of the 1970s and 1980s by Miller, Moore, Starlin, Gaiman, Morrison, Veitch and others, a genre which itself quickly slipped into the often uintentionally self-parodic “Grim and Gritty” works of the 1990s. Now, they’re left with the understandable impulse to “one up” both those deconstructive works, but also to indulge their (and readers’) nostalgia for the pre-deconstructed works of the Silver and Bronze Ages. That’s an impossible task.”

James Schee at Reading Along has an interesting theory of his own on the last issue of Green Lantern. I’m not really inclined to give DC even that much credit, but it would sure be interesting if it happened that way.

Not much in the way of purchases this week, so I thought I’d do a quick run-down:

Adam Strange #1: This book was great fun. I’ve never been crazy about Adam Strange for his own sake, but I’ve always found him to be a welcome guest in other titles. Writer Andy Diggle takes various aspects of the character in some interesting new directions, and the results are alternately funny, moving, and intriguing. Pascal Ferry’s art is gorgeous, too, from grungy city streets to the planet Rann. It’s a really promising beginning for this mini-series.

Daredevil #65: This anniversary issue looks at a fair stretch of recent issues through the eyes of other characters in the Marvel Universe — Spider-Man, the Punisher, Nick Fury, etc. — with varying degrees of success. It’s an awfully nice idea, though, and it gives some interesting dimension to what’s been going on in the title. Some of the art works for me (Phil Hester in particular), some of it doesn’t (the Greg Horn sequence). But did Matt actually say “This I will do” at one point? Um… you go right ahead, Yoda.

Losers #16: Y’know, I’m starting to see why the Losers are in their current circumstances. For a black-ops unit, they’re kind of dewey-eyed. That’s not an inherently bad thing, since they’re the protagonists and there are plenty of titles out there about totally ruthless bastards. Anyway, if you haven’t been reading this book, this is a perfectly good jumping-on point. It’s a flashback to the events that helped put the Losers on the run and looking to clear themselves. The regular artist is back, too. More nice work from Diggle.

Outsiders #16: The last issue didn’t work for me at all, what with the cheap yuks all around, but Winnick actually gets down to business here. He directly addresses a lot of the questions raised by his central premise, shows his characters responding logically to those questions, and even throws in a very welcome addition to the cast. I still wonder about Winnick’s characterization of Nightwing, but now at least I’m convinced he might be going somewhere interesting with it. Not bad at all, really, even with the testoster-off thrown in. And the humor was more character-based. I’m still not on board with the sight gags from Shift, and I’m pretty sure Plastic Man wants his shtick back. (The kids sure love those Dennis Franz jokes! Har!)

Wonder Woman #208: It’s a solid issue, and a great relief to see Veronica “I can’t believe they picked Wonder Woman to be class treasurer instead of me!” Cale take a back seat to some actually menacing, well-motivated adversaries. The political complications were interesting, and there was a nice balance between character moments and action. (Quibble: Veronica doesn’t want the President turned to stone because she’s a patriot, but she’s okay with soldiers and secret service agents being slaughtered? And the Silver Swan stuff makes me wonder how she hoped to prove Diana is a fraud by torturing and brainwashing an emotionally disturbed young woman. Veronica, seriously, you suck at this. You wish you were WW’s Luthor.)

And, from the “David’s Secret Shame” category, I must admit that, no, I haven’t been reading New Frontier. And, yes, as with Superman: Secret Identity, I now realize the errors of my ways, and, yes, I will buy the trade. (Not the half-trade. I’ll wait for the whole trade. If there is one.) Secret Shame Item 2: Why do I periodically buy issues of Wizard expecting a different outcome? It’s nothing but heartache.

Back with the politics again. Sorry, but the U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on the prospect of a Federal Marriage Amendment today. If you think this amendment is a terrible, divisive, discriminatory idea, please take a moment to let your Representative know.

Here’s the Human Rights Campaign’s Action Alert on the issue. Or, if you’d rather take a more direct approach, here’s the site for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thanks!

So another Apprentice has been dinged for acting like a reality show contestant instead of a job applicant. And that’s appropriate and right and just, because fame-whoring and drama queenery aren’t very good predictors for executive success.

But…

If Donald Trump and his minions are going to find fault with this in contestants, they might share the same criticism with the people who cast the show, because that fiefdom of the Trump empire clearly did not get the memo. At least in the case of the women apprentices, they cast for conflict, which is the default setting for reality programming. (It’s unclear as to whether that played a role with the men, and if it did, the casting directors don’t have as good an eye for volatile, pernicious men as they do for volatile, pernicious women.) And while it’s a default setting, it only serves to make the Apprentice less interesting, because the fame-whores (male or female) are destined to be picked off long before they can do any serious damage.

While Trump has no difficulty looking like an idiot, or at least amusingly ridiculous, even he seems to have his limits. And those limits clearly include the following guiding principle: Do not go on national television and appear to approve the actions of a scheming fame-whore who’s clutching for camera time by allowing them within miles of a responsible executive position.

And I just have to add… these women! I… words simply fail me. There are maybe two (Pamela, who fled the women’s team and never looked back, and blond Jennifer, who’s trying to rise above the fray of her wallowing colleagues, but rising above it isn’t doing anything to improve it, so no medals being handed out here) who do not fulfill every sexist, stereotypical criticism thrown at women in the workplace. These nightmares are alternately too emotional, too unfocused, they over-personalize everything, they stab each other in the back, they can’t balance details with the big picture… Hundreds of thousands of people applied to be on this show! Did merit have nothing to do with it?

I would be fascinated to hear what successful businesswomen (aside from Carolyn, as she’s been darn unambiguous in her response) have to say about these contestants. I would also be fascinated to know what message they think the show is sending about women in the workplace, or women with ambition, or whatever. Because, even though it’s only a reality show, it does seem to specifically reinforce negative images. It’s just… ICK.

Reading The Basement Tapes at Comic Book Resources can be a one-step-forward, two-steps-back experience for me. It’s always pretty entertaining, but for every illuminating bit I take away from it, there’s something frustrating waiting around the corner. This week, Joe Casey and Matt Fraction talk about manga.

The frustration kicks in early, with the introduction, in fact:

“Inescapable, unavoidable, and impossible to ignore, the manga explosion is either going to go away-which is bad, as so many mass-market bookstores seem to be bulking up their comics supply based on manga’s lead-or manga will continue to grow-also bad, as the direct market scrambles to keep up.”

Who, precisely, is manga’s continued growth bad for, aside from the direct market? Is it bad for consumers, who have more choices? Is it bad for smart retailers, who can expand and diversify their customer base through the sensible incorporation of manga into their inventory? Is it even bad for the direct market, felt by many to need repeated and decisive kicks in the pants?

Casey gets on my nerves at first:

“I think what’s daunting about manga for most readers who are more comfortable with English language comic books (I don’t want to go so far as to say “superhero fans,” but you and I both know that’s what I’m talking about) is that there’s suddenly so much of it available. And such a wide variety of subject matter. Maybe too much for comic book readers who are used to limited choices. But if that’s the case, they’re certainly missing the point.”

Then he redeems himself in my eyes:

“I guess my general feeling is this: if manga is indeed still considered somewhat “alien” to mainstream American readers… it could only be labeled so because it’s getting it right.”

Fraction follows up with a delightful snapshot of the Promised Land, Japan:

“Giant stores with nothing but fat book after fat book, jammed elbow to elbow with readers of all stripes. Every single convenient store or subway stand sells twenty, thirty titles. People read them constantly, everywhere. Our inkling of manga, as an industry and economic presence, only scratches the surface of its penetration on its home turf.”

But I don’t know what to make of Fraction’s assessment of shojo:

“Shojo is like a smart bomb aimed at nervous, insecure girls. They’re some of the most emotionally exploitative, target-marketed, and demographically lethal things I’ve ever seen—[Chris] Claremont WISHES he could twist his little girls in knots like Mayu Shinjo can.
“The strange thing is that they seem so utterly without guile. The books don’t feel like the product of a committee, but if you’re an insecure girl with body and confidence issues, she’s got you dead to rights. If they weren’t so sweetly naive, they’d be cruelly manipulative.”

I’m not familiar with Mayu Shinjo’s work, but I have read some shojo, and I don’t think that’s a fair description of the genre (of some of it, probably; of all of it, no). It’s also a pretty insulting (and narrow) assessment of its audience. Let’s take a look at how Viz defines shojo:

“1. Manga appealing to both female and male readers.”

Well, that might be more of a marketing mission than a universal reality, but I’m positive that females aren’t the only ones reading shojo.

“2. Exciting stories with true-to-life characters and the thrill of exotic locales.”

That matches a bit better with my experience than Fraction’s take.

“3. Connecting the heart and mind through real human relationships.”

Again, accurate in my experience, and, if I were in a cruel mood, I’d suggest it’s probably a nakedly terrifying concept to a certain percentage of the western comic producing community. But I’m not, so I won’t. Moving on.
Towards the end, Fraction asks some very interesting questions:

“Manga has such diverse readership— it’s targeting the emotional and visceral subtexts of people outside of the 14-24 male demographic. There’s the question for the comics mainstream as it gnashes its teeth over the manga invasion: whom are you serving? What are you trying to resonate with inside your audience?”

I’d love to see Casey and Fraction tackle some of those issues in the future.

Usually, my “Buy this book/CD/whatever” marching orders seem to come from NPR’s Fresh Air, but the latest issue of Newsweek jumps into that niche.

First is the review of the new book by Alexander McCall Smith, who writes the very appealing No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. McCall Smith has finished the first installment of a new series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, starring ethics journal editor Isabel Dalhousie. One of my favorite aspects of the No. 1 series is its depiction of Botswana. Isabel does her meddling in Edinburgh, offering me more armchair travel.

Next is a new CD of old standards by Dana Owens, better known as Queen Latifah, imaginatively titled the Dana Owens Album. Many might think that Chicago was her first step away from rap and into crooning, but the six or seven of us who’ve seen Living Out Loud know better. In Living, Latifah gives a sharp, appealing performance as a lounge singer who torches with the best of them. The movie itself is an undervalued gem, with Holly Hunter as a woman of a certain age (by Hollywood standards, obviously) trying to carve out a new life for herself after her husband leaves her. You can hear bits of her Living numbers, like “Lush Life,” here.

Of course, Newsweek can’t seem to get through a piece of twaddle on Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett without a typo, and Brittany Spears rears her empty head, so my gratitude is conditional.