Inspired by Ed Cunard and Shane Bailey, I’m throwing my hat into the “five questions” ring. No subject off limits, though I reserve the right to lie if I suspect an honest answer would make me look stupid or creepy. (Insert “more than usual?” retort here.)

Have at it.

There’s a very interesting interview with Greg Rucka over at Newsarama. Rucka addresses some of the criticisms of his run on Wonder Woman so far and shares his thinking on the character.

I’ve never viewed the pace of the book as a problem. Plenty happens in the average issue, and there’s a fair amount of variety to it all. I do think that Rucka’s central antagonist, Veronica Cale, is dull, and her beef with Diana amounts to jealousy. Rucka disagrees:

“Veronica Cale looks at Diana and sees her as a fraud. Diana is a liar. She thinks that Diana is selling the world a bill of goods. She looks at Wonder Woman and sees a six foot-tow, drop dead gorgeous woman – who flies and bounces bullets off of her bracelets – and her answer is that everyone should just be nice to each other.

“For Veronica, that’s total bullshit. It all comes easy for Diana, but what about the people who have to scratch and tear and bleed and fight and work for everything that they get? What about the people who weren’t molded out of clay and blessed by gods? What about the people who have to work sucky, nine-to-five jobs, workout twice a day, and still can’t get rid of fifteen pounds? People can be just like Diana if they just want to be? For Veronica, that’s just bullshit.”

I don’t recall Veronica articulating it quite that way in the comics, aside from her assertion that Diana is a fraud. And that reference came in context of Veronica remembering her first encounter with Diana — showing up at a party where Diana was the center of attention.

Beyond that, it doesn’t seem like Veronica is paying much attention to what Diana’s message is. It’s never been her suggestion that people can be like her; she just thinks everyone is capable of elevating their own circumstances and improving the lives of people around them. (Veronica, having resorted to blackmail to fund her education, can certainly understand the concept of aggressively upgrading circumstances.)

So, I guess I’m still not buying Veronica as principled opposition, in part because she seems to base her view on a fairly juvenile misunderstanding of what Diana’s about. She seems to have created this image in her mind of Diana as the pretty princess who had it too damned easy, and if that’s not jealousy, I’m not sure what is.

I do like Rucka’s take on mythology, and his great way of summarizing mythical stories:

“The reasoning behind why Athena did what she did was that Poseidon and Medousa were meeting for their liaisons in Athena’s temple, after all of Athena’s clergy had taken vows of celibacy. So Athena’s a little pissed off, because Poseidon is thumbing his nose at her and her clergy while he uses her temple as his personal love shack.”

An interesting read, and another entry in the “writers defend their work” sweepstakes.

Boy, chaos sure makes Earth’s Mightiest talk salty, doesn’t it?

(The following contains spoilers.)

The death in Avengers #502 probably won’t be popular, but it certainly is smart.

If you’re trying to transition the Avengers from What They Are to Something Else, and a body count is part of your formula, Hawkeye is an ideal candidate. With one possible exception, he leads the pack of emblematic Avengers who aren’t the Big Three (Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor). He’s been around for most of the big events, and the bulk of his own big events have been confined to the Avengers titles. Taking him out of play is a decisive way of breaking from the past.

That dramatic function spares Hawkeye’s death from the “shock value” brand (though there are more than enough examples of that kind of passing in evidence, too). It can also support the argument that This Matters. It’s almost, for lack of a better term, ballsy.

I think many fans identified Hawkeye as the gateway character: the average guy who, through persistence, got to hang out with the big guns and be treated as an equal. With the exception of an ill-advised period as Goliath, he relied on skill to hold his own. No serums or mutant genes, no magic hammers or suits of armor, just a guy who worked really hard to be the best with a bow and some arrows. It’s an interesting, atypical example of super-heroic wish fulfillment, at least for Marvel. (DC seems to have more of these types.)

It might also explain why many identify themselves as follows: “I’m not much of an Avengers fan, but I’m a huge Hawkeye fan.” (This is the reason the clerk at the store was so grumpy yesterday, beyond the usual new book madness.) Even though he’s never been able to sustain a solo title, he’s the sentimental favorite.

Of course, he’s the sentimental favorite at least in part because he’s such an effective foil in a team book. Blunt, impulsive, and smart-alecky, he’s great counterpoint to the stalwart (Cap, Thor) and the spooky (Vision, the Scarlet Witch). Taken out of a group setting, he loses that value, and I’d guess that’s why readers who love to see him in a line-up are less enthusiastic when he goes off on his own.

(As a side note, I’m not sure how well the actual death sequence works in #502. The event is consistent with the day’s chaotic (we get it) quality, but the whole thing seems strangely… malnourished. Effective in principle, but less successful in terms of execution.)

So, good for Bendis for coming up with a death that doesn’t seem quite so rote or inconsequential. I’ll be interested to see how he explains the next Big Twist, if it’s what I think it is. With Hawkeye (and Vision, I guess) out of the way, that leaves the Scarlet Witch, pin-up girl for the Old Guard, to address. If Bendis is going in the direction I suspect, I hope he has something smart up his sleeve, because there are any number of ways it could go badly off the rails.

But, that’s something to think about next month.

How can DC best thank its loyal readers for making Identity Crisis a smash hit? Why, they can re-release the first issue with an obscured version of the ugly cover! Read all about it at Newsarama.

I think Rags Morales is a very talented penciler, and all the luck in the world to him, glad he has a hit on his hands, etc., but he’s got to stop saying things like this:

“…the miniseries’ success shows how intelligent our audience and retailers are — literature really works in comics!”

It’s not an adaptation of Atonement or Proof or The Life of Pi. It’s not “the little indie book that could.” It’s DC’s summer blockbuster. Leave Literature out of it. You’re making it cry.

So, John Byrne… I wouldn’t know where to begin without rupturing something, but I will happily point you to this elegant summary at Postmodern Barney. Well said, Dorian.

One thing to add: I know it’s pretty much time for me to go home when someone accuses their critics of being politically correct. It’s not impossible for the term to be used as a legitimate criticism, but, in my on-line experience, that rarely happens. Usually, it translates to mean that, “Oh, damn, someone was actually paying attention to my bullshit, so I’d better try and deflect their attention from indications of racism/homophobia/sexism/etc., because I probably didn’t really mean it but fear I’d look stupider by just retracting it.” Or, worse still, “I totally did mean to come off as racist/homophobic/sexist/etc., but I think I can avoid copping to that by claiming that my critics are stifling my freedom of expression instead of just correctly identifying me as a total dick.”

Okay, moving on. Pardon my language.

At Highway 62, Matt offers a timely warning:

“Reading interviews with your favorite creators may indeed be hazardous to thin skins and the fan base’s sense of entitlement. Be cautious when consuming said interviews.”

At The Low Road, Ed Cunard looks at the other side of the equation, i.e. the gossamer epidermis of the creator:

“Any valid criticism leveled at [a creator] was waived away with two stock answers: ‘Keep buying it – it will all make sense after a few issues’ (translation: you aren’t smart enough to decipher my brilliance), and ‘You just aren’t giving it a chance because [insert excuse]’ (translation: you obviously don’t like this sort of thing, so why should I explain it to you?).”

One shares space with Dormammu. One shares a name with my favorite cruise line. Don’t make me choose!

I’m really not used to having an evening where I actually look forward to two television programs. Don’t get me wrong. Lightning would strike me if I tried to play the “I don’t watch much TV” card. I just don’t have much in the way of “destination television.” But last night was one of those cases.

Gilmore Girls: That’s a side of Rory I don’t need to see very often. While it’s probably past time that the Perfect Pretty Princess Crown got knocked off her head, she really is being startlingly unpleasant. On the other hand, I don’t think anyone writes for Lorelai as well as series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. Lorelai gets to be charming and witty and mature. Dean was really creeping me out during the episode, and I think it’s repulsive of him to treat his wife like crap because he’s changed his mind. Luke is a treasure.

As a side note, now that those standbys from Sex and the City and Frasier are out of the Emmy running, maybe some of this show’s cast members will finally get the nominations they deserve. Lauren Graham, Kelly Bishop, Liza Weil, and Scott Patterson should surely have earned bids by now, and Bishop and Weil each should have one at least once.

The Amazing Race: That was a tremendously satisfying conclusion. While Chip and Kim may not be the best racers in the show’s history, they are one of the most functional teams I’ve ever seen. It’s very gratifying to see a mature, supportive, loving couple come out on top. An added bonus was the fact that Chip and Kim enjoyed the race throughout. Nothing bothers me more as a viewer than when a contestant on one of these shows, who actively applied to be there and was not kidnapped and tossed in the back of a van by television producers, grinds on about how hard it all is to see the world and possibly win a million dollars. None of that from this year’s winners. It almost makes up for Flo.

I have to concede the rightness of Colin and Christie making it as far as they did, even if I find them really unpleasant to watch. Their racing skills were top-notch, despite their horrible sense of entitlement. Listening to them carp about how they were Yielded was terribly annoying, because a) it was perfectly legitimate game play, b) nobody is obliged to let them win, c) it ultimately didn’t have any effect. Use of the Yield didn’t result in their elimination, and even if it had, the race designers created it to be used. Chip and Kim made good, strategic use of it, and they had every right to do so. Also, considering the points subsequent to that when the teams were bunched up and a level playing field was re-established, Colin and Christie lost because they didn’t get to the finish line first, not because Chip and Kim stalled them.

I probably would have preferred to see Linda and Karen in the final three over Brandon and Nicole, just because Linda and Karen raced harder. Brandon and Nicole seemed to drift from mishap to mishap, surviving to race again despite their hopeless lack of skill. Linda and Karen, after a shaky start, developed appreciably better racing technique. Brandon and Nicole pretty much finished where they started.

As a side note, I’m no theologian, but I’m guessing that no self-respecting supreme being cares who wins a contest on a reality show. They also probably don’t care who wins a Grammy, an Emmy, a Video Music Award, etc. Actually, the Greek Pantheon probably would have cared a great deal, but look where that attitude got them. They’ve been reduced to guest spots in Wonder Woman and Teen Titans.

As for future viewing, I hope tonight’s Lost lives up to its hype. I also hope that Sunday’s Desperate Housewives is smart, trashy fun.

Having granted DC column inches to pimp its summer blockbuster, the New York Times goes all fair and balanced. Brian Michael Bendis has a cartoon in the Small Business special section. I’m not sure what the point is, and I don’t know if that’s an accepted spelling of “sweetie”, but there you go.

Newsarama has previews pages from Novembers Avengers Finale, and Bendis gamely puts on his “sad” face:

“This is the emotional ending to a very tragic story. This is the very special last episode.”

Rumors indicate that the issue will conclude with the surviving heroes in a group hug, singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” as they stumble through the rubble of the mansion.

Actually, I’m feeling a lot better about this whole affair. If Bendis is allowed to blithely resurrect a character who’s been “dead” since 1967, without explanation and in a relatively underdramatized manner, what are the chances of anything in Disassembled sticking? Ah, Marvel… where the graves all have trampolines at the bottom.

With that out of the way, on to this week’s comics:

Wow! That was quick turn-around on the collection of the Avengers-Thunderbolts mini-series. Mystique starts a new story arc with #19. Runaways ends its first volume with #18. A six-issue Black Widow mini-series kicks off with art by Bill Sienkiewicz. And Astonishing X-Men #5 is one of many, many mutant titles pelted at innocent consumers. (It’s a good one, at least.)

I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the first issue of Noble Causes, but I’ll pick up the second because I’m a sucker for super-hero soap opera. I liked the first issue of DC’s new Manhunter, so I’ll be giving that title another try. And, because it’s comic blog law, I’m duty bound to remind you that Ex Machina #4 and Sleeper Season Two #4 come out tomorrow and both stand every chance of being very entertaining, based on past experience. (Even if I weren’t duty bound, I would probably have reminded you anyways.)

I know, I know, nobody’s ever going to confuse Dan Brown’s body of work (Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code) with great literature. But I read them and thought they were entertaining enough for the cost of a paperback. So, when I heard that there was another art-history puzzle book out, The Rule of Four, I thought, “That might be fun.”

How terribly, terribly wrong I was.

Here are a dozen things that I learned from The Rule of Four:

1. People are trustworthy in inverse proportion to their financial means. Poor people are saints. Rich people range from disaffected to dishonest to just plain evil.
2. Old people are untrustworthy altogether. Either they Just Don’t Understand, or they’re desperately jealous of the rich promise of youth, or they’re bitter, craven failures.
3. Scholarly rigor is entirely the province of undergraduates.
4. Scholarly rigor dramatically limits one’s chances at a happy personal life.
5. Women instinctively perceive scholarly rigor as “the other woman” and become unreasonably jealous. (Whether the inverse of this is true remains unclear, as none of the women portrayed seem concerned with their own scholarly pursuits.)
6. Princeton doesn’t take enough reasonable steps to keep its students out of life-threatening situations.
7. The reasonable steps Princeton does take to ensure the safety and security of its student body are best viewed as inconveniences to be sidestepped.
8. Undergraduate senior projects are sufficient motives for theft and murder, not just binge drinking, poor personal hygiene, and procrastination.
9. Just because a big word is available doesn’t mean its use is desirable or particularly effective.
10. There is no plot twist so novel that it can’t have the crap kicked out of it by pretentious writing.
11. I hate first-person present-tense narration.

But the most important thing I’ve learned from The Rule of Four?

12. Future books by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason are to be avoided at all costs.

(On the subject of decoding ancient works, my partner was telling me about something he saw on PBS about a series of unusual circumstances that led a Russian to decipher the Mayan alphabet. Does anyone know of any good accounts of this story? I’d love to read about it.)

So another issue of Uncanny X-Men is coming out this week (#449).

Have you ever been channel surfing and you pause on PBS because there’s a concert on? And you think, “That sure is a honking bad (fill in the blank) tribute band.” And you watch for a few more minutes until you realize, “Oh, man, that’s not a tribute band. That’s (fill in the blank). Damn.”

That’s pretty much how I feel when I read Uncanny X-Men. If I weren’t biologically compelled to buy anything drawn by Alan Davis, I probably wouldn’t bother. As for the fill-in artist for the current arc, it’s nice to see the continued improvement of Olivier Coipel’s pencils. (I thought his work on Legion was grotesque and impossible to follow but found he’d improved a lot by the time he took over Avengers. The ridiculous Viper costume aside, his pencils on Uncanny show continued growth.)

But, seriously, as Paul O’Brien noted, Chris Claremont set up a perfectly interesting scenario for Uncanny. Why has he set it aside in favor of a tinny greatest-hits collection?

“The Widow” concludes in Daredevil #64, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if one of the closing sequences left readers scratching their heads.

To summarize the arc, the Black Widow is in trouble. The Bulgarian government wants to trade her for Madame Hydra, who has been captured by the Avengers and taken into Bulgarian custody. The Widow’s SHIELD supervisor Nick Fury tipped her off, and she opted to hide in plain sight with former lover Matt Murdock, Daredevil. A former SHIELD operative is sent to kill her, but he’s apprehended, neutralizing American bureaucrats’ attempts to turn her over to Bulgaria.

In a brief epilogue, Natasha is shown apprehending the architect behind the proposed trade. It’s her husband, Alexi, formerly the Soviet super-soldier known as the Red Guardian. Alexi, who was presumed dead (for the second time) has apparently been building a power base in Bulgaria and used his newfound influence to punish his former wife. He tips his hand when he orders the release of Madame Hydra, allowing Natasha, SHIELD, and the Avengers to track him.

Quick Black Widow back story: Back in the days of the USSR, Natasha Romanov was informed that her husband, Alexi, had died. She had believed him to be a cosmonaut, but the KGB informed her that her “late” husband had actually been the Soviet equivalent of Captain America, a super-soldier government agent. Natasha vowed to pick up where he left off and joined her homeland’s espionage effort as the Black Widow.

This brought her into conflict with American heroes such as Iron Man and his industrialist alter-ego Tony Stark. She acquired a henchman, Hawkeye, who abandoned crime to become an Avenger. Inspired by his example, she reformed as well. Unfortunately, she was brainwashed and kidnapped by her former superiors. During this incident, she learned that her husband, the Red Guardian, wasn’t dead after all. He would be soon, sacrificing his life to save the Black Widow from her Soviet captors.

After recovering from injuries sustained in that incident, Natasha made some failed bids for Avengers membership, then retired, then threw in her lot with SHIELD, using her skills in the service of the American government. She eventually joined the Avengers, even serving a fairly lengthy term as that group’s leader. Her service to SHIELD has been ongoing, either as an active agent or as an ally.

Very little of this is referenced in “The Widow,” at least until the epilogue with Alexi. In fact, Natasha’s history as a Soviet agent only briefly mentioned in a throwaway line buried in her monologue to Matt in #63. In lengthy discussions with Matt about his crumbling marriage, Natasha never brings up her own history with the institution. In dense narration, Matt describes her heartbeat and her hair dye but says nothing detailed about her history. There’s even less on Alexi, aside from the fact that everyone believed him to be dead and he was once called the Red Guardian, mentioned after the character appears on-panel.

And this is too bad, because the outline of this arc is perfectly sound. (It’s perfectly sound without the Alexi reveal, too, actually.) This is the kind of story that works very well for someone with Natasha’s background, but I think it could have worked better with some additional detail. (It’s odd that Brian Michael Bendis, who never skimps on narration or dialogue, would omit such potentially useful factoids.)

My best guess is that the Alexi bit was included to try and create some thematic resonance. As Matt’s marriage crumbles, Natasha faces the ghost of her own failed relationship, built as it was on false pretenses and damaged by circumstances. But since that relationship crops up virtually out of nowhere, without any context or clarity, it just seems like an artificial twist.

It didn’t really need to be. There were ample opportunities in the four-issue arc to introduce these events to give them narrative power later. (Each issue has a page-long summary of what’s gone before, beyond the story itself.) I don’t think such references would have sacrificed any of the surprise of the ending, either. (Alexi’s been fairly unequivocally dead since somewhere around Avengers Vol. 1 #33.)

This is a strange case to me, where continuity plays a role in a story and isn’t actually detrimental, but it isn’t adequately integrated to the story to make it really effective. And, talky as Daredevil can be, it isn’t as though the information couldn’t have been organically introduced.