Byrne, baby, Byrne

Of the dozens of influences that have snuck into my writing (and by that I mean not just the published fantasy stuff, but the unpublished sci-fi and contemporary fiction pieces) comics have to be a major part.

Those who read my sporadic blog posts will have ascertained this, from my posts on Stan Lee, Superhero movies and Bryan Talbot. There are plenty of literary comic examples which would make the comic  devotee nod with agreement: Gaiman, Moore, Morrison, Wagner, Ennis. But (bar the 2000AD writers) most of those I loved as I matured. The stand out for me as a kid was John Byrne.

I got thinking about this after two 3 star reviews for my book on Amazon US. They were fair reviews- both liked the book, but commented that it jumped about a bit and spent time on characters who didn't seem to feature much. Part of that is the fact Volume One, of which book 1 Chained is only the first half of, was written as a larger book and then divided. But, to be fair, the other reason is that's my style.

I always loved stories where minor plot lines  and characters were introduced, hinting at a larger future sub-plot, which developed later and linked in with the main plot threads. The comics author and artist John Byrne was a master of it, and my love of his work in the 70/80s has stayed with me since.
I first recall reading Byrne during his X-men run with Chris Claremont. Inked by Terry Austin his style was awesome: he defined the look of what was to become the most popular Marvel title of the decade. Such great stories then too: Dark Phoenix, Days of Future Past, Arcade, Alpha Flight, Prometheus. Stunning. I read both US and UK reprints back then, so also caught the reprints of Iron Fist, plus his Captain America work (Union Jack and Baron Blood sticks in my brain).
So when Byrne took on Fantastic Four I was really pleased- I started collecting them around the time they went into the Negative Zone, catching up the older issues as I went. To me the FF run (perhaps 60 issues) was his greatest work. I adored what he did with the characters. The sub-plots, the acknowledgment of the rich supporting characters and prior stories. He loved both the cosmic tales (Galactus especially was done well by him) and the human (Sue loosing the baby springs to mind).

It had a huge influence on me. I compared all other writers to his style, and felt few came up to scratch. His art was excellent, irrespective of the inkers, and when he wrote Alpha Flight I was hooked on that as well (though my brother bought that one). It had the same style- the sub-plots, the evolving story-lines, almost soap opera in style.
I followed Byrne for a while after FF and Alpha Flight. He was becoming a bit of a victim to his own success. West Coast Avengers was good, but he tried to screw around previous writer's work too much; Hulk didn't work for me (Hulkbusters...?). When he bounced to DC I bought a few, but I never liked re-boots and never really liked DC heroes.



My tastes in comics changed around then, becoming more interested in mature readers titles. I lost track of JB, although I saw his New Men in Forbidden Planet the other week and was tempted.
His influence is obviously double-edged. When you read his work in one go the plots work great, building over time. If you read them as isolated issues then it's frustrating. My Prism fantasy series will run to six books, and when read together all the little strands knit together. I think of a few fantasy writers who do the same: George RR Martin and Erikson are two. And to be fair, not everyone likes that style. But I enjoy it, and it seems to work for me. And I have JB's influence to thank for it.
Perhaps I need a new sub-genre, like Space Opera, but fantasy style. "Soap Fantasy" comes to mind, but that sounds a little too late-night naughty TV channel for me....any (clean) suggestions welcome.

On stretchy trousers, shark-repellent spray and ZOD

There’s a scene in the new Avengers movie where Captain America is sat feeling like a man out of time, not getting the cultural references around him. Then someone says a line about flying monkeys (as in the Wizard of Oz) and he smiles and says, “That one I get.”

It’s a scene slightly reminiscent of a great piece in the Civil War: Frontline comic where Ben Ulrich and Sally Floyd interview Cap in his cell and point out all the things about modern day America he doesn’t know about or doesn’t get. That’s an aside, as this blog isn’t about the comic (although I do love the Avengers franchise dearly)—it’s about the changing nature of superhero films.

When I came out of the Avengers last week, with my two eldest kids (9 and 8) we were buzzing about the movie. What was so special about it? My son hit the nail on the head as we drove home (as he often does). “Dad, that was awesome... it was just like the comic.”

And there you have it. The reasons it’s so good is that it was just like the comic. From the dialogue, to the plot, to the action, to the depiction of the Hulk. It was spot on. Now that’s no great surprise—Joss Whedon, amongst many things, wrote for Marvel (The Runaways was excellent, and his run on X-men was OK). But he carries something more to it... an understanding of how to translate what looks good on the comic page into something that doesn’t look like CGI cheese on the screen. It’s not simply a matter of special effects- Transformers 2 proved that. It’s the actors and the plot not coming across as too daft that makes it work.

Of course Avengers can’t claim to be the first to achieve that. There have been some amazing superhero movies over the years—but it made me think, when did they really start to reflect the comics? As I supped a glass of red wine I pondered the question, with the world becoming as fuzzy as a James T Kirk love scene

I grew up (well got chronologically older) in the seventies and eighties. It was an era where special effects really came into being, and marked the boom in sci-fi films and series (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Alien, Buck Rogers etc). There were attempts at fantasy films that hit or missed (Hawk the Slayer, Excalibur, Sword and Sorcerer, Conan, Krull... a rather mixed bag). And there were superhero films.

 I adored the sixties Batman re-runs as a kid, and indeed the film, which was shown fairly regularly in the pre-VCR days. Ironically it reflected the comic at the time it was made, but by the time I watched it Batman the comic was undergoing a re-birth with darker stories and grittier characters. And I was never a big DC fan. Then the big screen played host to Superman, and the little screen to the Hulk and Spiderman.

They just weren’t right. Superman was a great film, as was Superman 2, and I got the duvet cover, the posters, the bubblegum cards, and so forth. Superman 2 had the super-villians (kneel before Zod!) but it still didn’t feel like the comic, which was far more cosmic and on a different power scale. Similarly the Hulk series gave us great lines about not making me angry, and the eternal debate about stretchable trousers, but it was a different kettle of (green) fish to clashing with The Leader, The Abomination, Doc Samson, The U-Foes etc. And Spiderman? Loved the wall crawling, could cope with chunky white bracelets, but here was a dude with the best roster of villains ever in comics. And he spent most episodes battling hoods with pistols. Sigh.

The effects, the costumes, the stories just couldn’t match the comics. When did that change? I’m tempted to say with Batman, in the late Eighties. Yet even with the wonder of Tim Burton, and I do love those first two films, there is a vibe of underlying campness to it, a sort of silliness, that didn’t reflect what we were reading at the time (Batman in late eighties had seminal works like The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One).

It was Spiderman who saved it for me. The X-men was close, and in retrospect probably turned the tide, but Sam Raimi’s trilogy was perfect. I’d loved Raimi’s Evil Dead films as a student, mainly for the brilliant Evil Dead 2, which has the best lines ever in a horror film... and a chainsaw grafted to a stump of an arm. With Spiderman he got it perfect—the effects, the story, the acting. The sense of pity you had for Peter Parker that pervaded the comics from day one was captured, as was the menace of the Green Goblin and the tragedy that follows. Spiderman 2 was even better—I can watch and re-watch the scene in the bank where he pulls Aunt May down as the vault door hurtles overhead.

And they’ve gone from strength to strength. The X-men trilogy was well done, as were the two prequels. The two Iron Man films were also great, and I loved Thor. Less certain about the two Hulk ones, Daredevil and Elektra and I’ve never been a big Batman fan so the Dark Knight style films have left me feeling a bit despondent. The prospect of a Spiderman re-boot isn’t thrilling me, I’ll admit, perhaps because I’m sick of re-boots and liked the previous films so much.

Of course, other (non superhero) comics have had the big screen flourish. They are a mixed bag too: Alan Moore’s have struggled notably, sadly as he’s probably the best comics writer alive (Watchmen was OK, as was V for Vendetta, but League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contravened the Geneva convention); 300 was cool, Wanted I’ve not even seen (although the comic was a let down). Kick Ass is on my to be watched list (the comic pushed the taste boundary for me too).

Now they’ve got it right, from a comics fan perspective, I hope they stay on track. The worst thing in the world would be to get carried away and let shite stories slip in. I’m hoping for an awesome Avengers 2, and given the popularity of the current film I’m certain they’ll do one. And despite all I’ve written, I loved those superhero movies/series when I was a kid because it was still a buzz seeing characters you love coming to life on the screen—even if they weren’t quite right.

Which would lead perfectly into talking about The Hobbit....

But that’s a blog for another day....

A funny Spiderman clip to finish with... Kenny Everett's take on the Web slinger...