The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

I have this crazy way of thinking now, where I analyse any title I’m reading and I wonder what I would do if put in charge of it. I look at writers who crack the comic writing business and suddenly are put in front of a blank screen and asked to churn out a Merry Marvel page and I see mixed success. Most writers do not start at Marvel (and I’ll use Marvel as my example because DC is still not my strongest suit), most writers work the trenches of indie publishing, or Image, which is not indie at all, and then Marvel gives them the big call up, which they always take. And who wouldn’t take that call? But I wonder…there are only a few Marvel characters that I think I could write well, and there are heaps where I admit, right at this minute of typing, I’d be a little lost to create. I’ve scripted a massive Daredevil story that shows what happens to him after he retires, even hits a super retirement home, but then is attacked and has to come back to sort out someone’s grudge against him. I’ve plotted a Black Tarantula story that fits into his current place within The Hand. I could write Iron Fist, I believe, quite well, but I don’t think I could write Captain America. I am not certain that I have a Spider-Man story in me, but I think I could nail a character like Cannonball or Beast or Maria Hill. I don’t think I’d ever step into Marvel and own the flagship titles, I’d be more likely to toil away in the background on little characters that can be played with.

Instead of conjecture about me, I’d like to look at how the pros fare in the Marvel U:

Jonathan Hickman – Fantastic Four, Secret Warriors, Shield

Hickman admits to having not read Fantastic Four before he was given the series. He did some research, came up with some ideas, then opened with a three issue arc that wowed pretty much all that read it. Before FF he was given Secret Warriors, which is all new characters, and Nick Fury, and he has owned that as well, from nearly all accounts. He’s just been given the cards to spread out how S.H.I.E.L.D. was formed over millenia of human/alien struggle and he’s only just getting started. He’s had great success in bringing his indie cred, and wickedly smart mind, to the Marvel scene.

Brian Michael Bendis – the entire Marvel U

He started with black and white crime stories, now he’s written pretty much every character, including Uatu the Watcher and Howard the Duck (kinda). He’s masterminded a few of the Marvel-wide crossover events, defined Daredevil again, brought The Avengers back to the top and he gets to do pretty much whatever he wants.

Ed Brubaker – Captain America, Daredevil, The Marvels Project

He started on a self-drawn title about what a crappy guy he used to be and then did some great DC work with his own characters, or lost and borrowed ones. Now he’s written possibly the greatest Captain America story ever, he’s wrapped up a Daredevil run that would make many wannabes cry and he’s also penned the history of the Marvel U from way back in the 40′s. He also gets to house a pet project, Eisner award winning project, Criminal and Incognito, in the Icon imprint of Marvel.

These guys are success stories, but for every one of them there always seem to be a few that haven’t made it. Two major writers, who I respect immensely and one whom I absolutely worship, just haven’t been suited to Marvel at all.

Robert Kirkman

He’s changed the indie (again, Image isn’t really indie, but it certainly isn’t Marvel) scene with some ground-breaking titles that actually warrant the title ground breaking. The Walking Dead is one of the finest pieces of zombie entertainment ever, and I don’t care what anyone else says. It’s over 60 issues in and still holds the same appeal that it did right from the start. He also has Invincible which is one of the first straight up superhero stories to ever survive out in the rain and away from the umbrellas of the Big Two publishers. He’s a smart guy with a wicked ear for dialogue and the balls to commit to stories and do whatever to the characters seems necessary or organic. Yet, at Marvel he kind of screwed the pooch.

They gave Kirkman Captain America and The Falcon and it wasn’t anything special. They gave him Ultimate X-Men and I’ll never care because I loathe the Ultimate line. He just didn’t seem to fit into the Marvel U. But, he was able to create his own niches in two very special places. He wrote Marvel Zombies, and its sequel, and they were pretty darn good. I liked those books and stand by them now, they’re fun for what they are. But this was Kirkman outside the Marvel U. Then they got him to invent a new Ant-Man, but not one to replace the one we have, just another one who would be different and boy did Kirkman make him different. The Irredeemable Ant-Man, Eric O’Grady was a sleaze ball and a perv and one damn fine character. The title got shitcanned after a year, but man it was one hell of a year. The character lives on now, via The Initiative and then the Thunderbolts, so that’s good, but it was another instance of Kirkman working where he didn’t really have to work with anyone else. He was given his own corner and he dominated. Eventually he would leave, to become a partner at Image, so that makes sense, but it also makes sense that Kirkman simply works better without a defined universe. He creates his stories from the soiled zombie trodden earth upwards to the planets out there.

Brian K Vaughan

Then there’s Brian K Vaughan. A man that I would put into my list of greatest writers to have ever lived. The man is a genius and I don’t mind standing behind that statement. But the proof of this is rarely found in his Marvel work. BKV was put onto the Ultimate X-Men line (why do they keep doing this?) and again I may never know what he did there but I have never read anything that was enough to get me to go there. He’s written a Logan mini series that hit a few grand notes but overall just didn’t redefine anything for me. He did hit one into the stands with his mini Doctor Strange The Oath, and I’ll constantly thank him for that one, and I personally liked The Hood: Blood From Stones, but it seems that The Hood now grates on people like Chris Tucker’s voice in The Fifth Element. BKV just doesn’t seem to flourish in the Marvel U, and hasn’t really been given all that much room, yet you put him into his own worlds, like Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina and he dominates like Affleck at the poker tables (because who doesn’t want an Affleck simile? No answers in the comments, it was rhetorical people…). BKV works magic on the screen with LOST, a mildly established environment but somewhere where he can still represent in his own way. He writes Pride of Baghdad and people are crying, that thing is art, man, pure and simple.

These are two very good writers, but they just don’t make it when it comes to writing in the Marvel U. Something doesn’t click and that makes me wonder what I would really do if given a Marvel character to stretch with. Matt Fraction once said he wouldn’t be able to write Thor, just flat out didn’t get the character, but not a year later he turned out a few of the best Thor issues I have ever read. Maybe it’s just a matter of time and luck, or maybe it’s more, or less. But I wonder, what would happen? Are some writers built to progress a legacy character (legacy for the writer, not necessarily the title of the character) and are some only comfortable and safe within the confines of their own world where all is controlled and anything can be done?

And most importantly, which camp will I fall into?

Posted on November 26th, 2009 by ryan
Filed under: Uncategorized