2011 - SUPERGODS: WHAT MASKED VIGILANTES, MIRACULOUS MUTANTS, AND A SUN GOD FROM SMALLVILLE CAN TEACH US ABOUT BEING HUMAN by Grant Morrison

So, I've decided to get the non-Hugo-nominated material I read for 2011 out of the way before jumping into the Hugos in a few weeks. This, for instance, is a book that I nominated for "related work," despite some reservations.

If you haven’t heard of Grant Morrison, he’s one of the most acclaimed comic book writers working today, despite the fact that much of his work has been in mainstream, corporate superheroes (Superman, Batman, the X-Men, etc), a field which usually gets one’s work quickly dismissed by the comic book literati, unless you’re deconstructing the genre a la Frank Miller of Alan Moore. Morrison likes to work with big science fiction concepts from comic books of the 1960s and early 70s. He even resurrected an obscure and bizarre interstellar Batman storyline (“the Batman of Zur-en-Arrh”). He’s actually the perfect mainstream “graphic story” writer for the Hugos to examine for that category, but the nominators seem not to read comics as a general practice... Oh well.

This book, his first published prose work, is a history of superhero comics that also becomes a professional biography as Morrison tracks his interest in the genre and his rise within the industry. If this sounds dry or directionless to you…it’s really not. Though there are a few rote chapters that trace the evolution of Batman on film or check off the creations of Stan Lee in the early ‘60s, most of the book presents some rather bold ideas about the concept of the superhero. While I probably disagreed with Morrison’s conclusions more often than not, I always found them fascinating food for thought.

If you’re the sort of hard-headed skeptic who doesn’t even like to hear pseudo-science, quasi-magical cosmological meanderings, you should probably avoid this book like the plague. For the rest of us, Morrison presents the sprawling fictional continuities of DC and Marvel comics as self-aware and self-perpetuating mini-universes, and he sees superheroes as Jungian archetypes of polytheistic deities who rebirthed themselves into human culture. The climax of the story has “five-dimensional beings” revealing the nature of the universe to Grant Morrison while he trips in Kathmandu in the early ‘90s.

This tends toward the risible, and it’s easy to see Morrison as a parody of counter-culture fads. He’s raised as a pacifist by socialist parents, becomes a punk in the ‘80s, then a chaos-magician to hipster stars in the ‘90s, and, of late, he’s become a sort of settled, middle-upper-class yupster who vaguely complains about the state of the world – it’s an alarmingly stereotypical evolution. There’s a fair amount of arrogance involved in the biographical sections as well – I think the fact that he believes to have learned the secret meaning of existence hints at this. His description of his own work is valedictory, even on the (relatively rare) occasions that he could have copped to a misstep (Final Crisis). His friends’ work is groundbreaking; his enemies and competitors, meanwhile, are derivative and misguided. In the final chapters, this eventually devolves into pro-DC partisanship, which is silly and tiresome.

His discussion of trends tends to over-generalize, and it’s easy to come up with counter-examples to every trend he traces. Morrison sees the ‘50s and ‘60s as heavily-influenced by science fiction writings, the ‘70s mirror the auteur movement in cinema, the ‘80s superhero comics follow Star Wars and are more corporate until a “British Invasion” led by Morrison and Alan Moore ignite a “renaissance.” Watchmen ignites a dark turn that takes us into a style-over-substance ‘90s. The ‘00s are haunted by 9/11, but turn more optimistic as Morrison evokes transhumanism and “real superheroes” to wonder if we may become the next “supergods.” Beyond being vast over-simplifications, much of this is a pretty standard narrative; the only big differences are an apparent exaggeration of his own status and influence in the late ‘80s, and the final portions. The comic book analysis can be quite pretentious as well. He calls the use of revolving narrators in Brad Meltzer’s DC-event Identity Crisis “Joycean” – the device is nicely executed in that book, but it’s nothing particularly new, and certainly not “Joycean.” That said, he keeps the narrative brisk and interesting, and he can be quite eloquent about the comics that he loves, especially some of the over-looked material like Killraven, Don MacGregor’s '70s Marvel comics sequel to War of the Worlds, which I have never read but now plan to as soon as possible.

I think your reaction to Supergods will depend entirely on your reaction to Grant Morrison. I think his comics are often brilliant (like his New X-Men or All-Star Superman), but occasional get overwhelmed by Morrison’s voice and skewed perspective, and are also plagued by bouts of pretension. I can say pretty much the same about this book – it’s often fascinating, but Morrison’s pretensions and perspectives can also make it frustrating. It would've been an interesting entry in “related works” though, especially considering the “bastard child” place of superhero comics in science fiction history that I’ve discussed before. I mean, are superheros really that much more juvenile than zombies?

Grade: B

2009 Hugo for Dramatic Presentation, Short Form – DR HORRIBLE’S SING-A-LONG BLOG

Two genres that have a long tradition of busting budgets are superhero movies and musicals. Leave it to Joss Whedon to make a low budget, DIY superhero musical for web broadcast. There are a lot of firsts here. You don’t see superhero musicals every day, and this style of superhero comedy hasn’t really been seen in live action (outside of Ben Edlund’s The Tick, at least). This is the first musical to win a Hugo, for that matter. Super-villain protagonists are fairly rare, though I can think of a few comic and cartoon examples. And, of course, there’s the whole web-series thing. Whedon (and his brothers) went with the format during the 2008 writer’s strike. By all reports, the show made back its budget (and the crew could be paid!) and then some. At the time I saw this as something of a harbinger of things to come, but three+ years later, the division between tv and webshows seems to be more solid than ever, though Netflix and Hulu are up to some interesting things.

Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) is a supervillain auditioning to join the Evil League of Evil, a team of baddies led by Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin. At the beginning of each of three fifteen minute episodes, Horrible updates us in videoblog format. He explains that cheesy hero Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) is his arch-nemesis, and he has a crush on a girl he sees at the laundrymat named Penny (web-series maven, Felicia Day). And he tells us in verse. When a heist goes wrong, Horrible inadvertently introduces Hammer and Penny, and they hit it off, increasing his alienation and anger, and leading him to raise the stakes of his audition villainy.

The music and singing probably aren’t going to win any Tonys, but they’re strong enough, and Whedon can be quite clever with the lyrics, as he showed in his excellent musical episode of Buffy. In fact, I’m rather fond of the naturalistic, strong-but-not-quite-professional vocal performances that Whedon gets from his actors in these two musical projects, and I almost expect it to be a trend in musicals to come. It’d be preferable to the over-polished generic pop that you get out of most of the cast of Glee, at least. Its Whedon, so of course the dialog is funny, and we quickly see depth out of the main characters. The best thing about the series is Dr. Horrible’s villainous motivation – he’s clearly a confused, disenchanted person lashing out rather than a maniac (telling lyrics: Horrible boasts that he’ll have “all the cash all the fame and social change” and calls for “anarchy that I run”). A lot of mixed-up kids share his weird utopian/dystopian politics, and I think almost every American can sympathize with his odd efforts to justify his work financially and socially. Even though this is a brief comic piece, Dr. Horrible is one of the most fully realized villains I can think of.

So, it’s great fun. If you’re a Whedon fan, you’ve already seen it a million times. If you don’t like Whedon, I doubt this will win you over. If you’re on the fence though, I’d give it a shot. Also, Commentary: The Musical takes DVD-commentary tracks to a new level and probably deserves some kind of award itself.

Grade: A-

2009 Saturn Fantasy – WATCHMEN

Before Before Watchmen, there was....Watchmen!

Amazingly, this is the first review of an adaptation of a work I’ve previously reviewed. Many of the award-winning novels here have been adapted into films, including a fair number of Hugo and Saturn nominees, and many of the films have come from acclaimed sf&f novels, but this is the first time the twain have met. It’s fitting then that it’s a work that’s status as an adaptation has always been the main story.

As I said, Watchmen is the consensus pick for greatest superhero comic of all time. That alone made its adaptation controversial, and it took over a decade and a few lawsuits to get this film made. Then, writer Alan Moore asked to have his name removed from the film, more due to previous wrongs than this film in particular, but still. Finally, there’s the fact that the sprawling multimedia multigenerational superhero epic that pushed the boundaries of sequential art as a medium doesn’t particular lend itself to the feature film format… Well, add it all up, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

It’s not quite that, though I wouldn’t call it a rousing success either. It received mixed critical reviews and disappointing box office revenues. Is it any good? I’d say it depends on what you’re looking for. It you love the graphic novel and you want to see Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons's vision realized with first class special effects, you’re in luck! If you’ve never read the book, I imagine this won’t make much sense. If you’re looking for a movie that can stand on its own as a solid piece of filmmaking, I don’t think this qualifies.

The first problem is that it’s just too damn literal as a remake. For all the hubbub about whether the film would do service to the classic graphic novel – it does, to a fault. Director Zack Snyder made a name for himself with a very literal adaptation of Frank Miller’s Battle of Thermopylae graphic novel, 300, and he brings the same ethic to this work, directly borrowing almost all of his visuals from Dave Gibbons’ panels and almost all of his dialogue from Alan Moore’s word balloons. The mid-1980s setting, contemporary when the book originally came out, must have been fairly alienating for a lot of the young people who’d make up the majority of the potential audience for a superhero blockbuster. I’m not saying that I want to replace fifth term Nixon with third term Dubya and the USSR with China or Al Qaeda, but the book is very much of its time; the film is not. More importantly, the book is paced brilliantly as a twelve part monthly series, not as a three hour film, but that’s the pacing that Snyder ends up with by default. The film does manage to convey some of the rich history of the comics, but it never builds any momentum. The film’s pacing would better fit a tv mini-series.

The second problem is the acting. Jackie Earle Haley is fantastic as Rorschach, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan is perfect as the Comedian. It’s all downhill from there. Patrick Wilson and Malin Ackerman are likable performers, and they do fine as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, though they don’t seem as damaged as the characters in the comic. Billy Crudup isn’t particularly convincing as Dr. Manhattan, and Matthew Goode is just plain terrible as Adrian Veidt. Those two characters play a crucial role in the story, and the actors’ wooden performances really damage the climax. Watchmen is a character-driven story, and this mixed bag of acting undermines it in some significant ways.

It’s not all bad though. By sticking so closely to the original story, Snyder doesn’t lose any of Moore’s fascinating world-building, and the opening credits that track four decades of superhero history are a highpoint (though "the opening credits are a highpoint" really isn't a great sign). Most of the visuals are very well-realized. A direct translation of Gibbons's panels may not have been  the best choice, but that doesn’t make it easy, and I think Snyder has accomplished something very interesting here. Again, as a supplement to the book, it’s not bad at all. But that’s pretty faint praise for such an ambitious sf film.

Grade: C+

2008 Saturn SF – IRON MAN

Superhero films have dominated that Saturn fantasy awards for most of the decade, but Iron Man bounces back to sf, which makes sense.  This film is about as science fictiony as superhero movies get; not that it’s rigorous, hard sf, but it is much more interested in technology, and the implications thereof, than most entries in the genre. And, it wouldn’t be surprising if creators Stan Lee et al were heavily influenced by Starship Troopers, which came out just a couple of years before Iron Man’s first appearance.

Billionaire playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) inherited his father’s arms-manufacturing corporation. He’s a mechanical genius himself, but he spends most of his time partying. His faithful personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) struggles to keep his life together. After a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, Stark is kidnapped by terrorists and asked to make them weapons, instead he makes a chest implant to protect him from a possibly-fatal wound and a suit of powered armor that he uses to escape. Upon his return, he refines the suit and uses it to fight some of the wrongs caused by his company’s weapons. His business associate, Obadiah Stane (an uncharacteristically evil Jeff Bridges), wants Stark Eterprises, and he builds his own suit it get rid of Tony.

Stan Lee made a few innovations to superhero comics in the 1960s that served to make Marvel the leading comic company. One of the most important was the idea that all of his heroes had to have a flaw. Iron Man was one of his weakest inventions, I think. Stark’s flaw was that he needed the suit to live due to injuries to his chest. There are some interesting implications there, but they never get explored, and it really just became a cheap device to keep the hero down for a bit, a la kryptonite. Later writers developed new flaws for Stark, womanizing and alcoholism, that made him much more interesting, and highlighted the contrast with his steel exterior. The film does a great job of capturing that take on the character.

I remember that before this film came out in the spring of 2008, there was a sense that the Renaissance in superhero movies was coming to an end. In the two previous summers, there’d been a string of failures, maybe even embarrassments like X-Men 3, Spider-man 3, Fantastic Four 2, Ghost Rider, and Superman Returns (though they were still making money). On top of that, Iron Man was not a big-name character, and it seemed to some like Marvel was scraping the bottom of their intellectual property barrel. But, this film made a surprising amount of money and garnered a lot of critical praise. Jeff Bridges later reported that director Jon Favreau shot most of the movie without a script, and that may be a big part of its success. The film rides on Downey’s charisma and charm, and his ad libs work brilliantly. It’s a fairly simple formula – take a charming and talented star, give him a fun character with some intriguing flaws to work with, and surround it all with some solid effects and action, and you get a very entertaining superhero flick. I think it’s a lesson that more superhero movies, and science fiction movies in general, might profit from following.

Of course, a couple of months later, another superhero movie came out that took the exact opposite approach, The Dark Knight Returns. It’s a better movie, and one of the most thrilling I’ve seen. It got a Saturn Action award (I’m not adding another category, and I don’t have much to say about it that hasn’t been said). Both it and Iron Man were nominated for the Hugo, but neither won (nor should they have, but more on that in a couple of weeks).

Grade: A-

2005 Hugo for Dramatic Presentation, Long Form – THE INCREDIBLES

The Incredibles is the first Pixar movie (and the first Disney movie) to win the Hugo (through three of their five previous had been nominated), the first fully animated film, and the first superhero film. The rise of computer animation over the past decade is so obvious that it’s hardly worth mentioning, and we’ve already discussed superheroic domination of the summer blockbuster. The Hugos have sort of resisted these trends in their winners, but I guess the combination proved undeniable.

Mr. Incredible, one of America’s greatest superheroes, has a series of misadventures on his way to a wedding with another superhero, Elastigirl. He saves the day, but along the way he alienates the president of his fan club by denying him a sidekick role, and he wracks up a couple of lawsuits from a prevented suicide and a train crash. This opens a pandora’s box of superhero liability, and eventually the government steps in to pay legal fees in exchange for the superhero community going into collective retirement. Years later, Incredible and Elastigirl have settled into typical suburban lives. Their daughter can turn invisible and their son is superfast, but they try to prevent their children from using their powers in order to keep their cover. Mr. Incredible is restless though, and he jumps at a chance to do a special job fighting a robot on an isolated island. He gets back into the game, commissioning a new costume, but then uncovers a supervillain’s plot that draws his whole super-family into action.

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon or a contrarian, I don’t like this movie as much as everyone else I know. Let me be clear, I like it. I like it a lot. I just don’t love it. It’s closer to the bottom of my personal Pixar rankings…which still puts it above most movies out there. I have two big problems of varying degrees of nitpickiness. Nitpickiest first: there’s a big part of me that wishes this were a Fantastic Four movie. The powers, and a lot of the set up, are straight out of the epic, genius sixties superhero-family comics of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The similarities are numerous enough to bother me (and the FF movies are awful – so unfair), but I know I should just get over this. My second problem, which I think is a more legitimate issue, is that the political message is really weird. Writer/director Brad Bird is claiming that society forces exceptional people to hide their talents, which feels a lot like a straw man to me. I don’t really see this problem in the world. The villain’s grudge is that he doesn’t have powers, and one of his threats is that he’ll distribute his magnificent inventions to the people to put them on par with people with superpowers. The inventions themselves seem to negate his grudge and keeping technology from the masses just so powered people can feel their full specialness just seems petty. I really don’t get it. I’m probably thinking about it a lot harder than I’m supposed to.

While I’m complaining about a universally beloved film, I’ll go all in and add that the animation is showing its age a bit. It looks fantastic, but the limits if the character animation and the static nature of some of the backgrounds go a long way to showing how quickly computer animation advances. It’s still dazzling and gorgeous, but more recent Pixar pics are even moreso.

Okay, now that I’ve got all that off my chest, I will say this is a very fun movie, and one of the best superhero films of all time. It does look great, despite being long-in-the-tooth in computer animation terms, and the character dynamics are interesting and rich. I would say that Eternal Sunshine should have won, and I also prefer Prisoner of Azkaban and Spider-Man 2. But these are four great films (the fifth nominee Sky Captain…not so much), so I’m not really complaining.

Grade: B+

2003 Saturn – X2

Singer’s X-Men managed to make superhero films a legitimate blockbuster sub-genre for the ‘00s.  His sequel, called X2 because X-Men 2 is just too damned long apparently, raises the stakes in a number of ways.  The budget is clearly larger, meaning that we get more big mutant power action sequences (and a much stronger third act as a result).  This includes a fantastic opening bit in which the blue, acrobatic, tail-possessing teleporter Nightcrawler assaults the White House, and a fun dogfight.  The movie also delves deeper into the central metaphor of mutants.  The first film gave us mutant-on-mutant violence, but in this one, humanity is the real threat.  There’s the clear possibility, only hinted at in the first film, that Magneto is right, and that mutants might be the victims of genocide.

The villain is a mutant-hating general named William Stryker.  He has the ability to control mutants, and he uses some, like Nightcrawler, to manufacture mutant incidents that he can use as justification to round up American mutants.  He kidnaps Xavier, and, in a very well-executed sequence, raids the School to round up the mutant children.  The X-Men have to rally around Magneto (who escapes from a plastic prison in another great scene) to fight back against Stryker.  There are some nice little character moments along the way: we see Nightcrawler as a mutant unable to hide his differences who leans on Christian faith, we get more of Wolverine’s origin (really all we need, despite a whole terrible movie about the topic in 2010), and we see Jean Grey’s problems dealing with the escalation of her powers (a very important storyline from the comics that will be mangled in the next movie installment).  A new character, Pyro, was clearly created for the sole purpose of switching sides, but his arc is still a nice addition to a series that takes much of its strength from an antagonist with a credible philosophy.  The best of these character moments is when Bobby “Iceman” Drake comes out as a mutant to his family.  Sir Ian McKellen, meanwhile, chews through the scenery with abandon, and I think he even manages to steal scenes that he’s not even in.  It’s like he’s taking a victory lap for the Oscar that he should have won for Fellowship of the Ring, and it’s very fun to watch.

The film’s storyline draws heavily from a Chris Claremont graphic novel called God Loves, Man Kills.  Published as a standalone graphic novel in 1982, it was aimed at a more adult audience, and it’s probably more mature than this film.  It’s a decent starting point for anyone interested in the comics, though Claremont’s narration-heavy style hasn’t aged all that well.  Again, he is one of the most underrated influences of modern sf.

Compared to X-Men, the action scenes are better, the effects more impressive, the dialogue is more clever (even the jokes are funnier), and the thematic issues more apparent and interesting.  It’s a far better film than the first, and one of the best superhero films all around.

Grade: A-

2000 Saturn SF – X-MEN

Comic books are science fiction’s bastard child. Pulp comics grew alongside golden age pulp science fiction, and it’s clear that both genres have influenced each other from the ‘40s on. And yet, a graphic fiction category wasn’t created for the Hugos until 2009, and Watchmen was the only sequential work to get recognition before then.

Most sf fans in their thirties and forties, from Joss Whedon to yours truly, would tell you that writer Chris Claremont’s X-Men was one of their formative sf experiences. If you’d asked twelve-year-old me if I wanted to see a live-action X-Men film, I probably would have said “YES!” followed shortly thereafter by “oh no, I’m sure it will be terrible.” There are a lot conceits of superhero comics that just don’t translate to the big screen: the brightly colored costumes, the soap operatic deaths and resurrections, the wanton genre-mashing, and the larger-than-life supervillains. As a result, most superhero movies before this one are awful. Even the good ones, Donner’s Superman and Burton’s Batman and…that’s about it, have their embarrassing moments. And, well, so does this film. But, director Bryan Singer does manager to take one of the most over-the-top superhero properties and translate it to a mostly successful film.

One of the keys to his success is that Singer approaches this as a science fiction movie rather than a comic book movie. The point of the X-Men is that they are mutants, people with genetic differences that give them superhuman abilities. All you naysayers are probably complaining right now that a genetic mutation is unlikely to allow someone to manipulate magnetic fields, read minds, or shoot lasers out of their eyes, but there’s a perfectly good psuedo-sciencey explanation in the comics involving space gods called Celestials. Obviously, the movie isn’t going to go there, so let’s move on.

One mutant, a Holocaust survivor named Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen), fears that humans will destroy the mutants and takes a more militant line. Another, Charles Xavier (Sir Patrick Stewart), has created a school for the “Gifted” to teach mutants to use their powers safely. He takes a more assimilationist line, and he’s trained a group of mutants to fight Magneto that he calls the X-Men. A Canadian with a healing factor and claws named Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) picks up a young woman who can absorb people’s lifeforce named Rogue (Anna Paquin), and they end up with Xavier, but Magento tries to kidnap her as part of a sinister plot. Also, Halle Berry, Famke Jansen, and Rebbeca Romjin are around.

The cast is very strong (Picard versus Gandalf!), and says a lot about how seriously the filmmakers took the subject matter. Along with the sleek metal sets and not-as-corny-as-they-could-be leather uniforms, this keeps the film out of embarrassment territory for most of its run time. In fact, the first act is quite strong, as it efficiently raises the key issues, introduces the characters, and all around looks good. The film goes a bit downhill from there though. Magneto’s sinister plot is far too elaborate, the dialogue takes a turn for the cheesy, and the ending feels rushed and decidedly un-epic. However, the film does deserve a lot of credit for making the franchise, and really the whole genre, credible.

This film kicked off a trend, still ongoing, of blockbuster superhero movies. From here, they come to dominate the Saturn Fantasy category (it does make sense to me that Singer’s X-Men are “sf” to Saturn while Spider-man, Superman and Batman are “fantasy,” though I’m not sure I could justify it all that well). I can’t say that I’ll cover many of these Saturn fantasy winners (anything not to have to watch Superman Returns again), but Raimi’s first two Spider-man movies and Nolan’s Batman movies are quite good.

Grade: B

1988 "Other Forms" Hugo - Watchmen

I hesitated whether to review this one, not because it was a special one-off award (the fact that Hugo created such an award for this book says a lot), but because so much has already been said about Watchmen that I have little to add. It's the Star Wars/Raiders problem yet again (and it'll happen again on Friday too).

To summarize: Watchmen is a revolutionary 12-part comic with story by Alan Moore and art by Dave Gibbons that told a very dark superhero story in which good and evil, right and wrong, are all subjective and the issue of power is explored. Because these people are superior in certain ways, do they have the right to act as vigilantes? Are they above the law? What about their own flaws? It's the 1980s, Richard Nixon is still President (because he won Vietnam with the use of superheroes), superheroes are outlawed, and a violent vigilante named Rorshach is investigating a series of murders that involve superheroes. We also get a series of flashbacks to the '60s that show just how flawed the old "silver age" superheroes were in their private lives. It's all quite intricate and brilliant.

Still, the real genius of Watchmen is not the plot (which gets a bit too intricate - and weird - by the end), it's the use of the medium. For instance, check out this panel-by-panel analysis. There's also a great intercutting of a pirate/horror comic called the "Black Freighter" (In a world with superheroes, other genres dominate the comic racks), which comments on the main story. Most people seem to have missed this point, and the result has been a decades-long imitation of the wrong parts of Watchmen. The ill-advised film adapatation obviously didn't get the message, nor did the non-stop rush of "dark" superheroes that dominated the industry through the '90s and make almost all of the comics from that decade next to unreadable. Watchmen is actually a good example of how a great book can be a bad influence.

Finally, I don't think Watchmen is even close to being Alan Moore's best work. Many fans would cite his earlier run on Swamp Thing or his original work on V for Vendetta, both of which are great. My personal favorite Moore projects came in the late '90s early '00s in two ambitious projects: From Hell is a retelling of Jack the Ripper's murders that is wonderfully researched, features brilliant writing, and has the perfect artist in Eddie Campbell. On the other end, Moore's retro/neo-superhero comics from America's Best really capture his brilliance and what makes the medium of comics so great. Tom Strong was his take on pulp heroes like Doc Savage and the silver age Fantastic Four of Jack Kirby; Promethea is kind of a take on Wonder Woman with elements of Moore's own magical belief system and gorgeous art by J.H. Williams III; Top Ten is a hilarious comic about cops in a city of superheroes; Tomorrow Stories is Moore's take on the old anthology books and shows what a great chameleon he can be; and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a steampunk pastiche of Victorian fantasy and horror characters as a superhero team. It was an amazing line of books, all of which are worth a look.

Grade: A-

2010 Hugo nominee: Graphic Fiction: Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk (Marvel)

British writer Paul Cornell is probably best known for his work on the revived Dr. Who. He wrote three episodes, and all received Hugo nominations. Cornell has also done a lot of work at the fringes of the Marvel Universe. He's done several miniseries, but his best received work dealt with Marvel's British superheroes. He started with a miniseries on mutant Pete Wisdom from Marvel's adult imprint that emphasized the British Isles as a place of magic and fairies. He placed the mutant paranormal investigator in MI:13, a fiction British agency that deals with the weird. He then returned to MI:13 and the same themes with a new series starring Captain Britain (a superhero defined by comics legends Alan Moore and Chris Claremont). Joining Wisdom and Moore were the Black Knight, World War II heroine Spitfire, vampire hunter Blade, and a new character, Dr. Faiza Hussain. The series was an immense hit with critics and had many vocal fans, but sales were abysmally low throughout its run, and the book was cancelled after 15 issues and an annual.

This volume contains the third and final story: "Vampire State." Dracula (yes, he's a character in the Marvel Universe) decides to invade Britain to capture its magical resources, and he prepares a massive vampire army on the moon to do so. The MI: 13 team is ambushed, but they quickly put together a series of elaborate counter-measures. The battle involves a lot of twists and turns, betrayals and double crosses, and magical one-upmanship.

It's a very fun story, though it's not without its problems. Cornell seems willing to sacrifice the overall flow of the story in favor of dramatic issue-ending cliffhangers. One fake-out in particular seems just a bit too elaborate, and won't make any sense if you haven't read the previous storyline. Cornell's not afraid to delve into obscure continuity, and I'm not really sure if that's a flaw or a virtue. A lot of the story hangs on the obscure 1970s villain Baron Blood. My biggest complaint is with the art. Regular artist Leonard Kirk is fantastic, but he seems to have been running behind. Much of this volume is drawn by other artists, and these clearly inferior fill-in pages appear randomly.

The story begins with Dracula and Dr Doom meeting on the moon to discuss a possible alliance. If that sounds cool to you, you will probably enjoy this series. If not, it may not be for you, as it really relies on an understanding of superhero tropes and Marvel continuity. Personally, I don't think the series ever had time to hit its stride, so I'm not sure this is Hugo-worthy. I really do hope to see a lot more comics work from Paul Cornell though.

2010 Hugo nominee: Graphic Fiction: Batman: "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert (DC Comics)

I hope you’re sitting down for this. Ready? In 2009, Batman died. He bit the big one. No more Bruce Wayne.

You okay?

Well, this being superhero comics, he didn’t actually, really, die. He just kind of died. Last I checked, Bruce Wayne was trapped in prehistoric time, and Dick Grayson, the original Robin, was Batman. And he’s coming back soon. So, Batman didn’t really die, but DC let Neil Gaiman write a send-off for him anyway, following in the footsteps of Alan Moore’s farewell to the Silver Age Superman, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" (a classic from the late ‘80s). These comics are great because they get to do the one thing that superhero comics almost never get to do: end.

Gaiman sets the story at a surreal back alley funeral for Batman, attended by his allies and enemies. Different characters tell widely different versions of his life and death. The best, by far, comes from his trusted butler Alfred. As we know, Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed, and he started to dress up as a bat and beat up criminals. Alfred’s twist is that the colorful supervillains that Batman fights are Alfred’s friends, who commit kooky crimes to keep Batman busy and out of real trouble. Alfred himself plays Batman’s arch-enemy, the Joker. It’s such a perfect little twist on the mythos.

In the second half of the story (it was originally published as two issues – Batman #686 and Detective Comics #853), we learn exactly what is going on, and it does actually make some sense before Gaiman speeds us to a very appropriate and actually somewhat moving finale. This is a very thoughtful meditation on the nature of Batman’s mythology of the sort you would expect from Neil Gaiman. It is, however, short and rather abstract. It’s really a meditation to the exclusion of telling a single story. Also, the artist, Adam Kubert, is not my favorite.

So, it's a mixed bag, but I'd say it's worthwhile for Gaiman fans and essential for Batman fans.