The Web Haunt of Ryan K Lindsay

Jonathan Hickman was just getting some Marvel gigs and I was hearing good things, so I put in an Amazon order and made it include The Nightly News. I expected some good pages, but was delivered something so much more.

The Nightly News is an insanely smart and well put together piece of literature. Hickman has a great overall premise, terrorists kill journalists to make a point about the sensationalist and devastating state of news in this new millennium. He then fills his work with some great lines, the most famous being “When killing activists, never shoot for the head, always aim for the heart.” A line he says basically sold his pitch for him.

And great little think-piece diatribes like:
“This is New York City.
It is home to over 8 million people.
And unknown to the general public, there are over 1300 active, established, mainstream indoctrination centres.
Employing almost 80,000 people, there is a certain sentiment that suggests these institutions are nothing more than a work program for adults.
This could not be further from the truth.
With an operating budget of 13 billion dollars, the undying support of the State, and the complete backing of the judicial system…
These are the best social programs money can buy.
We call them programming facilities.
You call them public school.”

It’s smart writing by a guy you can just tell is wickedly smart. He doesn’t flaunt his knowledge in your face like some smug Harvard-grad who takes classes between recess and lunch, he just puts it out there and hopes you enjoy it. I did enjoy it, immensely. I rate The Nightly News as one of the top ten best comics I have ever read. Hickman also draws this comic himself, and he’s more a graphic designer than an artist, per se, and his pages come across like propaganda posters that sequentially tell a story. Each character comes with a logo that identifies them and he loves to place graphs, info-bars, sound bites, and other slight Easter eggs around his work.

It is phenomenally well put together and I would suggest that any fan of the four colour medium check it out. Have I made that clear yet?

So, with a few other indie hits under his belt, Hickman was then signed by Marvel and put to work. Now, many writers go onto great work with Marvel after wowing the indie crowd, but they most certainly go on to do different work, most of the time. This is not an exact law, but many seem to become a little watered down, sad as it is to admit. Here are a few examples, both successful and not.

Brian Michael Bendis gained fans with his crime noir tales of criminals set in black and white worlds. He was gritty whereas now he writes the mega-crossover storylines and the Avengers stable marches to his beat, when he’s not giving us the Ultimate Spidey experience. But he did bring us the Max adult line of comics, with the fantastically brutal Alias leading the way, and he has tried to keep his super/crime title, Powers, coming to us, which Marvel was kind enough to put into their Icon imprint.

Ed Brubaker began as a very independent creator with his Lowlife cartoon. He worked some noir-ish angles at DC and was eventually brought into Marvel. With the House of Ideas, he has managed to take Daredevil through some terrible, and terribly well written, times, and craft THE Captain America story for all time over many years. He was even ballsy enough to bring back Bucky, but smart enough to do it so well that many, including myself, like Bucky as Cap better than Cap himself.. His X-Men run was mildly forgettable but when left to his own devices he shined with his initial crime-infused honesty. Marvel even gave him a slice of the Icon imprint to tell his phenomenal Criminal and Incognito tales.

Matt Fraction has written what I would possibly say is one of the smartest comics ever created, Casanova, but once he became ingrained in the Marvel blood he tried his best but his Punisher and X-Men work seem to fall a little flat, though both show moments of mastery. Generally he seems a little trapped by being beholden to Marvel. His work on Invincible Iron Man has proved a glorious exception and he will now be bringing back Casanova, which is great news to all smart comic fans everywhere.

It should also be noted that Fraction and Brubaker also collaborated to bring back pulp 70′s kung fu poster boy, the Immortal Iron Fist, and gave him a title that was smart, pulpy, fun, and Eisner nominated.

So, when Hickman came across I was slightly worried and stood back to see what would happen. It was not that I didn’t have faith in him, I just knew how it sometimes went. And what was he given? The spin-off series from the crossover of the moment, Secret Invasion. The title, Secret Warriors, even matched the over-sold crossover and I admit I was skeptical. It just seemed like editorial pushing the creator and so I stood back. But now I have read the first trade of Secret Warriors and have taken my serve of humble pie quietly. The fact he could take a spin-off and make it good was something masterful indeed.

Hickman has crafted a tale that is not really beholden to anything, especially the crossover from whence it was spawned. He has Nick Fury, he has HYDRA, and he also has these new characters who get their fare share of screen time but do not hog it. Hickman has started a tale that he seems to have a great passion for, and an even greater understanding of what he is doing and where he is going. It is a very solid read and one that doesn’t need anything else to help it read any easier.

I will admit, seeing Bendis’ name on the co-creator line made me wary. I just don’t, personally, dig on his mainstream work. I don’t buy any of it, he seems to work better, for me, in his own corner of things. Daredevil was phenomenally good, and I have bought into his Spider-Woman, but I don’t read any of his, at one time, three Avengers titles and I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I like reading about the dark corners of the Marvel U, so take that into account when thinking about my views. And Secret Warriors seems to fit into that forgotten corner, and it stands alone proudly.

I must say, when Hickman got Fantastic Four I felt nothing about the news, I had never before read the FF and I wasn’t sure I ever really would. After some reviews I picked up the first two issues. And I loved them. Hickman is smart enough to be able to write the FF, something that previous writers on the title didn’t seem like they were. They could write a big splash page but they could not bring me the characters. Hickman has finally made the Fantastic Four interesting to me, something which had never happened before. I am very much in for his long run on the title, and seeing a teaser like this one only makes me happier that I am following this very smart writer as he impresses me in a mainstream way. Have a look at the impressive teaser image he gets Dale Eaglesham to draw for the upcoming arc of his title. That is impressive. There’s all sorts of business going on in there, and I like that Hickman will keep his title busy.

Hickman has been tapped to also write a limited series called Shield. It will detail the history of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agency and how they have interacted with the world over many centuries. It sounds like a smart premise and something I will trust Hickman to deliver in typical erudite fashion. The man plans things out, he makes detailed bibles of his writing and explores all avenues of thought.

I now wonder what he could do if given other characters to play with. His Iron Man, much like Fraction’s, would be brilliant, and maybe he could even deliver a Bruce Banner worth reading? Could Hickman do a similar thing to what Fraction/Brubaker did on Iron Fist and resurrect a property and make it smarter for it? Hickman has Nick Fury, he has Reed Richards, and now he’ll have the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., of which it seems that Richards’ father will play a big part. Hickman writes smart people well, so who should he do. There are many smart characters left in the Marvel U for him to breathe life into. He could do a Peter Parker oriented arc of Spider-Man and actually show us how smart he is, not just resting on the laurels of web-shooters he made years ago. A Doctor Strange brought to us by Hickman could be a whole mess of fun. This is the man who should be writing the Illuminati.

The point is, I am happy with the way Hickman has survived taking some Marvel icons and still keeping his voice original and awesome in the process. Now they just need to honour him with an Icon creator owned title and I would be completely happy.

Posted on January 5th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under: comics