Since We’ve Been Gone

Hey, everybody.

Despite all appearances, the Fortress Keeper is still alive and kicking.

However, your humble host is quite busy these days. Thanks to the nation’s friendly neighborhood recession, freelance work has all but dried up and our hours at Borders have been slashed.

Rather than setting aside free time to blog about comics, these days your enterprising Keeper is hustling extra hard to earn a little scratch. Happily, we’ve uncovered some excellent prospects.

But - ahhhh, you knew there would be a “but,” right? - there is a downside. The situation demands a bit of fiscal prudence on the Keeper’s part, which translates to no comic-book purchases for quite some time to come.

It’s not as bad as it sounds.

With George Perez due to leave Brave & The Bold and The Order approaching its final issue, our pull list from the Big Two (Three, if you count Image) has already shrunk to just about nothing. Since manga volumes offer a bit more bang for the buck (especially with a 33 percent employee discount), we’ll continue to pick up such faves as Gunsmith Cats, Mermaid Saga and Dr. Slump from time to time.

Tight finances coupled with the Fortress’ recent two-year blogoversary has also prompted a bit of introspection on our part. Mostly, we’ve pondered whether or not the world actually needs a Fortress of Fortitude.

After all, we’ve always enjoyed a bit of fun at Joe Quesada and Dan DiDio’s expense but it hardly seems fair to castigate the dumb-namic duo if the Keeper isn’t sampling their product.

The Keeper has also made it crystal clear that modern super-hero comics often leave us cold (let’s give a shout out to Countdown and One More Day), as do note-for-note “cover versions” of 30-year-old tales (i.e. the new, “old” Legion of Superheroes seen in JLA & Superman and - surprise, surprise - Brand New Day).

Perhaps, dear Fortress Fan, you wonder what the Keeper does like if neither nostalgia nor warmed-over Tarantino (*cough* Bendis *cough*) or Bruckheimer (*hack* Millar *hack*) floats our boat.

Well, for one thing, consistent characterization - which is NOT the same thing as continuity - counts for quite a bit at the Fortress. If, for example, Spider-Man is conceived as a likable schmuck who does the right thing no matter how much it F’s up his life, then don’t transform the poor guy into an angst-ridden Arachno-God™ who nearly suffocates policemen to prove how bad-@$$ he’s become.

Super-hero comics aren’t fit settings for Kafkaesque melodramas. The characters exist to solve problems with their fists, providing cathartic entertainment for those who wish to be transported from the rigors of the daily grind. (Which is essentially, everybody.)

Bad-@$$ Spider-Man - or for that matter, psycho-paranoid Batman, brooding Thor and mewling Superman - doesn’t provide any satisfaction, which is why recent movie adaptations tend to steer clear of modern comic book mythology.

Only contemporary comic-book creators and fans seem to believe that folkloric characters who once headlined children’s tales are fit vehicles for violent and ugly tales that mistake cynicism and moral uncertainty for maturity and sophistication.

It’s like writing a story where Paul Bunyan dry-humps Babe the Blue Ox. The Q Continuum or the DiDio Paradigm may find such ideas edgy, but the rest of us consider the entire mess childish and silly.

We know what you’re thinking, Fortress Fan. You probably know better than to send Spider-Man: Reign our way next Christmas. But what about Brand New Day, you may ask. There’s a good, old-fashioned Spider-Man tale!

Well, yeah. But that’s a little too old-fashioned.

Although the Keeper has admired many of Dan Slott’s stories, the opening arc of the all-new Spider-Man reads too much like an issue of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man from the Al Milgrom era. Lighter tone, new villains and girl problems up the Wazoo - been there, done that.

One reason the Waid/Perez Brave & The Bold works so well is that both creators find ways to portray classic characters in a classic manner without sacrificing freshness and originality.

Merging Batman with the Fatal Five’s Tharok sure sounds like something that would have occurred in the age of Haney, but to the best of our knowledge it never happened until Mark Waid pulled the scenario out of his hat for one of the best super-hero cliff-hangers in recent memory.

As an added bonus, the ensuing cross-over with the Legion of Super-Heroes comprised neither the Dark Knight nor the futuristic dickwads heroes. All acted exactly as you’d expect, yet the interaction still contained its share of surprises.

(Such as Batman pilfering Brainy’s flight ring … classic.)

So, to sum up, we would like to see old favorites portrayed in a manner consistent with their histories and placed in new and exciting backdrops that build upon - rather than copy or dismantle - past adventures.

Simple, right?

When done correctly (we would add Immortal Iron Fist, Agents of Atlas, Darwyn Cooke’s Spirit, Empowered, Dynamo 5 and the sadly canceled The Order to the honor roll), it certainly seems that way.

Looking back on the past 104 weeks of posts, most of what we’ve written affirms the above points in one form or another. So let’s be honest here. Does the Keeper really need to repeat the message ad nauseum?

To quote a certain, Oscar-winning rabbit, “Mmmmmmmm, could be!”

Despite all the kvetching on the Internet over comics, the medium - and blogging, for that matter - are still hobbies that should be above all else fun. Our disenchantment with modern comics - which, for the most part, aren’t good enough to warrant a $2.99 or above price tag - doesn’t mean we no longer love super-heroes or the greater art form itself.

After all, we still own 2,000 + comics books to draw upon for source material. Does the Keeper really need to troll about Newsarama for inspiration? For that matter, why not write about our other trivial pursuits - such as The Prisoner or our apparently insatiable appetite for Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac?

Let’s set the sky as our limit, and cast aside concerns over whether DC or Marvel are superior to one another. (To be honest, we never quite bought into that mindset anyway. Why don’t more bloggers write about Marvel comics, or other companies for that matter?)

So, with all that in mind, things will be a bit different at the Fortress from now on. We may get a bit more retro, a lot more obscure and certainly a lot less relevant. (Not that we were very relevant to begin with, but you understand the point … ) Daily posting is almost certainly a thing of the past.

But, until the time the Fortress does shut down for good (which, for all we know, could be two days, two months or two years from now), let’s just concentrate on enjoying ourselves for as long as the ride lasts.

After all, life’s too short to think otherwise. Right?