Not Quite The Avenging Angel I Was Hoping For

Today, for about three minutes, I was convinced that something amazing was going to happen. For that 180 seconds, I was so convinced of this thing that I've spent the rest of the day since I found out it wasn't going to happen trying to recover from the disappointment.

In order to explain fully, I have to back up a few days, to the release of Marvel's solicitations for June, which included this:

AGE OF ULTRON #10 (OF 10)BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W)BRANDON PETERSON, CARLOS PACHECO& JOE QUESADA (A/C)Cover by BRANDON PETERSONVariant cover by MARK BROOKSUltron Variant by ROCK-HE KIMSpoiler Variant also availableSpoiler Sketch Variant Also AvailableTHE FINALE!The biggest secret in comics will be revealed to you! An ending so confidential...even the artists of this book don’t know what lies on the final pages...! A surprise so big that comic book legend Joe Quesada himself returns to the pages of Marvel Comics to draw a sequence that people will be talking about for years.40 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99*All covers of Age Of Ultron #10 will be polybagged 

Which, you know, alright. Caleb Mozzocco has covered the more absurd aspects of this particular solicitation, and all I have to add is that I'm not particularly interested in Age of Ultron, whether its a universe changing event or not; I'm not enamored of Bryan Hitch's recent work and I'm suffering from a little bit of, and this is a clinical term, event burnout after having spent six months and way too much money on Avengers vs. X-Men.

Then, on Monday, Rich posted the following missive:

Age Of Ultron‘s surprising ending is meant to be top secret, only eight people are meant to know about it and Joe Quesada is drawing the last few pages to preserve the mystery. Nice bit of PR, certainly but it’s not true. 

Guarding the secret has been Marvel’s number one job, but it seems there more than one aspect to Age Of Ultron‘s ending that they are trying to keep confidential. Everyone seems to think I love to spoil stories but it’s just not true, when I discovered one aspect to the ending of Age Of Ultron after the Marvel Summit, they asked me not to run it, so I didn’t (even though it screams at me from this month’s solicitations- could only eight people really know this one?) 

Later, however, I was told a different aspect to the ending, which caused Marvel to properly panic when I shared with Marvel that I knew it – or at least a part of it – and I was told there were all sorts of legal implications if this story got spoiled by me. And so, again, I’m not running it, but I will give you a hint because you deserve at least that, “an unexpected guest star joining the Marvel Universe…”

Again, well, ok. I didn't see the hint, but I also didn't care enough to look particularly hard. All of that was followed up by this announcement this morning:

This summer, acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman makes his return to Marvel—and he won’t be alone!

Those of you with eyes will notice that the press release continues after that, but as soon as I saw that sentence, I put together the following things: Neil Gaiman is returning to Marvel. Age of Ultron ends with the arrival of a special guest. The special guest is a huge, shocking, presumably long awaited surprise, the acquisition of which involved some legal wrangling, and they appear in a part of the comic drawn not by Hitch but instead by Joe Quesada.

Well, that could only mean one thing, right?

Marvelman! It had to be! Gaiman was the last Marvelman writer before the series stopped publication. Quesada had even drawn the announcement poster when Marvel told the comics world it had bought the rights. I was euphoric! Here he is, three years later! Finally! After all this time!

And then I read the rest of that press release, which continues as follows:

June’s AGE OF ULTRON #10 will not only conclude the epic event, but include a special epilogue written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by the legendary Joe Quesada bringing Gaiman’s original creation Angela into the Marvel Universe. Sporting a new Quesada-designed look, Angela will have an immediate impact that carries over into GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #5 in July, written by Bendis and Gaiman.

Wait, what?

There are a couple of reasons that I find this announcement confusing, and I will keep them separate by using bullet points. First though, some background that you should feel free to skip: Marvelman is a pre-Silver Age Captain Marvel rip-off created by Englishman Mick Anglo. In 1980s, Marvelman was revived by Alan Moore as the creator's most extreme consideration of what a real superhero would be like. At some point, Moore gave his percentage of the rights to the character to Neil Gaiman, who continued the series, which ended at issue #24, with the bankruptcy of its second publisher, Eclipse Comics, which had changed the character's name to Miracleman to prevent a lawsuit from Marvel Comics.

Angela is a character that Gaiman created for Todd McFarlane's Spawn in the early 90s. Gaiman and McFarlane had a very, very long running spat about the ownership of the character and the distribution of associated royalties. In 1996, McFarlane purchased the rights to the Marvelman character and initiated a plan to use him in Spawn. The next year, the two creators came to an agreement: McFarlane would receive the full rights to Angela and a couple of other characters that Gaiman had created for Spawn, and Gaiman would receive the Marvelman rights. At some point, McFarlane backed out of this deal. In 2001, Gaiman founded Marvels and Miracles, LLC in order to figure out how to figure out to whom the rights belonged and in 2002, he wrote 1602 for Marvel, the profits of which went to the LLC. The publication of that series was approximately concurrent with my first major period of interest in comic books.

Then a bunch of years pass and, at San Diego Comic Con 2009, Marvel Comics announced that they had purchased the rights to Marvelman from... Mick Anglo, the character's creator. At the time, it was hoped that this meant that Marvel was going to reprint the Moore and Gaiman written material from the 80s and 90s, and the company promptly reprinted... some Mick Anglo material that, frankly, no one was interested in. Somewhere in all of this, Gaiman and McFarlane come to a deal that lets Gaiman use Angela however he wants. At some other point it also became clear that McFarlane owns the rights to some images associated with Marvelman rather than any actual rights to the character.

In hindsight, the idea that Marvel was going to reprint the Marvelman stuff that people actually wanted to read was, well, insane. Read the "Ownership" section of the Wikipedia article to see just how insane-- nobody has any idea who actually owns the rights to any of it, and I think that it might be a distinct possibility that no one ever will. That's why I was so excited about Marvelman, and so disappointed by what's actually going on.

 Ok, so here's those bullet points about why I'm confused:

• Did you read all of that? No wonder I'm confused.
• More importantly: Gaiman fought for a really long time to ensure that he owned a share of Angela. And then he wins! His agreement with McFarlane says that he can use the character however he pleases. And then he turns around and sells, gives, or trades the character to Marvel? I don't understand. 
• I also don't understand this: why would Marvel introduce Angela at all? Is there a group of fans who care enough about a peripheral Spawn character from two decades ago that it'll boost sales of Guardians of the Galaxy, a book almost guaranteed to sell well because, well, Bendis is writing it and they're making one of those movies everybody loves using those particular characters. Are they going to use Angela in the movie? Why not just create a character from scratch? It's not like Angela would sell more movie tickets than something that they came up with because, again, I don't really think that anybody cares.

With all that in mind, I think that there are three possibilities. The first is that Age of Ultron is just one, big, long, expensive jab at McFarlane. I have no idea why it would be, but the series does have covers that are foil embossed. That foil is as much a symbol of 90s comic excess as McFarlane is himself. This one seems unlikely.

The second is that Marvel wanted Gaiman for Guardians of the Galaxy, his presence will certainly increase the book's sales, even though they're likely to start and stay very high, and he told them he would do it if they would introduce Angela into the Marvel Universe. This one seems possible, although I'm still I'm not sure I see from Gaiman's point of view.

The third possibility is a lot more intriguing, and also more plausible. Keeping in mind that Marvel does completely crazy things at relatively regular intervals, it's a distinct possibility that someone from the company, probably Quesada, decided that he would like to use Angela for Guardians of the Galaxy. Again, I have no idea why Marvel would want to do that, but I don't think that its outside the realm of possibility. It's also pretty clear, and has been since 1994, that Gaiman wants to finish the Marvelman story that Eclipse's bankruptcy intervened in. At this point, Marvel has a claim to a character that's as strong as anyone's, and they have Disney's money and legal muscle to back it up. Given all this, I can't help but wonder if Quesada called up Gaiman and said "Yo, Neal, I was wondering if you would be interested in a trade..." That Rich has even suggested that Marvelman is a possibility now makes me all the more suspicious.

What that means is, of course, an open question, and all of this is very, very idle speculation, but its the only way that I can make any sense of any of this, because, again, none of this makes any sense, from any perspective that I can get my mind around, anyway. If nothing else, its an important reminder that the people that pay other people to make the things that I love don't always make decisions I understand. 

I am, however, always glad to read Gaiman's work, and so this is welcome news even if I don't understand it. I would also very much like to see a nice reprinted edition of Marvelman, with the long awaited conclusion to Gaiman's story in it. If this is a step in that direction, well, who cares how we got there?

Dream's Lost Years

If you don't want to watch the above video, which you should, but if you don't have four and a half minutes and haven't already heard I'll cut to the chase: Neil Gaiman has written an as yet untitled, J.H. Williams III drawn, Sandman mini-series, out in November.

Williams drew a preview image:

There's a lot of reasons to be excited about this. For one, Gaiman has spent his time since Sandman ended doing all sorts of things, and that added variety to his experience that has almost certainly turned an already wide, almost limitless, imagination into a kind of force. American Gods, although already ten years old, took some ideas Gaiman had been working on since the very beginning of Sandman and transformed them, and I have nothing but the utmost confidence that the writer, returning to the particular character that embodied all of that, will produce something of good quality, that he will tell a story worth telling. For another, J.H. Williams III is doing the art. If there's a more perfect artist for the things that Gaiman can dream up, I have no idea who it is. Williams's work on Batwoman sort of subtly revolutionized what was possible in terms of layout and design in comic books, and we now have consistently more interesting, that is, better, panel layouts and general design.

Of course, there are a lot of reasons to be wary of this, too. I have some of the same concerns that I have with Before Watchmen. Obviously, there's no moral issue here, since Dream is Gaiman's character, and he's doing the writing. Instead, I'm worried about the impulse to tell a new story in an old universe. I get that Gaiman is filling a hole, giving us something he had only hinted at before, even if maybe it was fully or partially conceived back in the Eighties. That's good-- it means he had to keep the old stuff in mind as he was putting together this new bit. But if it he feels he had to tell, why didn't he tell it in the eighties? If it was important to Sandman, important to what Gaiman was building twenty-five years ago, why didn't he tell the story then? Why does he feel the need to go put that piece, never really missing, back into the puzzle?

I'm sure there's a good reason. Maybe he wasn't ready to tell that bit then and he is now. Maybe he was constrained by editorial. Maybe this, maybe that. Unless Gaiman comes out and says why he's writing Dream again, after so long, we'll never know. And, doubtlessly, this new mini will be good, even great. I certainly hope that its as good as Sandman ever be. But it does concern me when someone, anyone, a writer, an editor, feels the need to explain everything, or when a fan wants everything explained. I'm sure I'm going to read it when it comes out, and I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one. But, as a reader, I'm going to lose a little bit of the wonder of those first issues of Sandman. I'm going to stop imagining the why, because I know it.

And I just wonder if I want that or not.

Update: It comes out November 2013, which Gaiman pretty clearly says. My bad.

Limited Risk

Tom Brevoort, Senior Vice-President of Publishing & Executive Editor at Marvel Comics (@tombrevoort), wrote this on his Formspring account, in answer to "re: Destroyers: Is Marvel now preemptively cancelling yet-to-be-solicited books based on anticipated sales?":

"Not exactly. We've been saying for months now that we're going to be putting out fewer limited series, and instead focusing on our core monthly titles in response to where the marketplace seems to be right now. That's what we're doing. And that means that some projects that were initiated earlier are going to fall by the wayside. But at least among the best of those in terms of ideas, there's nothing saying that we can't revisit them later if conditions change." (His account is here at formspring.com/tombrevoort)

Not sure this bodes well for much of anything... Is he doing a bit of damage control on the several cancelled minis of late? Is he presenting us a 'new economy' policy? Both?

Limited series, mini-series, maxi-series, whatever you want to call them are the place where larger companies like Marvel (@MARVEL) experiment. As such, it's where the next great series comes from. "Luke Cage: Noir" was four issues that made it to my '2oo9 Best of the Year' list. "Marvel 1602", although not a favorite of mine, has made the company a lot of dough and brought a lot of fans of Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) to the Marvel corporate characters in a sideways manner.

Minis are a very good thing. Less of them is potentially a very bad thing. But, as always, if it's really a matter of saving absolutely required green to keep the company moving to keep bringing out more comics later... then I'm for it.

~ @JonGorga

Seeing SuperMen and Women As They Were

So the new DC Universe has launched. The first month of new series and newly re-launched series has passed and the shared fictional universe inhabited by the DC superheroes 'will never be the same'. Sorta-kinda-not-really.

[Josh has already reviewed two of the re-launching books "Justice League" #1 and "Wonder Woman" #1, and I intend to review at least one of them myself, but here I'm trying to take a big-picture outlook on this relaunch and the superhero characters at its center. This is a snapshot, a time-capsule, of the moment before long-time superhero reader Jon Gorga has read a single one of DC's New 52 issues.]

The truth is that this is far from the first time these characters have been reinvented. (1986's "Crisis on Infinite Earths", most notably.) The highest-profile retro-fitting maybe. Mentioned in newspapers. Advertised on TV. But still. As I've written before, these long-running pop culture characters have to be treated like rubber bands. Stretch! Stretch who these characters can be! Make Ray Palmer, the superheroic, super-shrinking Atom, a widower to a crazy serial killer. (That was done back in 2oo5 in the near-universally-revered mini-series "Identity Crisis".) Make Batman and Superman aging neo-fascists. (Frank Miller seemed to have no fear in pushing that concept in his works "The Dark Knight Returns" and "The Dark Knight Strikes Again".) Place Superman's famous crash-landing in the corn fields of the USSR instead of the US circa 1938. ("Red Son", Mark Millar's alternate take on the DC mythos is also a popular one.)

Over these past weeks of reading and rereading, I've (re)encountered:

4 versions of Wonder Woman
9 versions of Superman
and
25 versions of Batman...

plus:

3 versions of the Martian Manhunter

2 versions of the Flash

2 versions of Green Arrow

3 versions of the Question

And so on...

I finished reading all the non-continuity Elseworlds stuff sitting around my house from Frank Miller's goddamn Batman to J.M. DeMatteis' Realworlds TV producer Batman to Warren Ellis' interpretation of Adam West's Batman to Brian Azzarello's First Wave Batman to the kiddie Batman from "Batman: Brave and the Bold".

Then I moved onto the origins of these fantastic characters: "Batman: Year One", "Superman For All Seasons", "Superman: Earth One" (which I reviewed when it came out last year), "Superman: Secret Origin", "DC: The New Frontier".

I followed this with two issues of "Justice League of America" circa late 1973 I've had sitting around for a very long time. #107 and #108, which make-up "Crisis on Earth-X!" specifically. And I chose to finish in entirely unfamiliar territory: a copy of Jack Kirby's "OMAC" #6.

The result? A whole mess of Batmen, actually. I realized that my first childhood favorite was still my favorite among the DC pantheon and the amount of his appearances among my reading material from the company belied this.

But in that, I discovered something about all these different interpretations of the character: they are all completely different but they all have something in common. Something that makes them all still qualify as Batman.

From Warren Ellis' original pitch for the one-shot "Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth":

"The Batman sees how to end it -- and tells Blank how to see the world. What worked for him when he's teetered on the edge. How to perceive the world." Batman, the man who "tries to make the world make sense by thinking about it..." (Batman/Planetary Deluxe Edition, p. 50)

From the script to the same:

"[Elijah] SNOW; YOU'RE NOT A COP ARE YOU?

SNOW; I DON'T THINK VIGILANTE IS THE RIGHT WORD, EITHER.

...

BATMAN; DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR PARENTS?

BLACK; YES.

...

BATMAN; DO YOU REMEMBER TIMES WHEN THEY MADE YOU FEEL SAFE?

BLACK; YES.

...

BATMAN; THAT'S WHAT YOU HOLD ON TO.

BATMAN; THAT'S WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

BATMAN; YOU CAN GIVE THEM SAFETY. YOU CAN SHOW THEM THEY'RE NOT ALONE.

PAGE FORTY-SIX

Pic 1;

A half-page portrait of the Batman, head and shoulders -- THIS is the reason he does what he does. This is the lost core of the man.

BATMAN; THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE THE WORLD MAKE SENSE.

BATMAN; AND IF YOU CAN DO THAT --

BATMAN; -- YOU CAN STOP THE WORLD FROM MAKING MORE PEOPLE LIKE US." (Batman/Planetary Deluxe Edition, pgs. 91-94)

This got my wheels spinning... Batman changes his point-of-view through sheer willpower and that altered POV is absolutely required to do "what he does"? If Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) says it, it must be true!

Same sentiment said faster, perhaps, by Brian Azzarello (@brianazzarello) in "Batman/Doc Savage: Bronze Night" one-shot:

"I know I can make the world better. ... Hell, from before I could think for myself, that's all I thought to do." (Batman/Doc Savage Special, pgs. 4-5)

I don't talk much about Realworlds: "Return of the Justice League" in this article. You should read it anyway.

In "The Dark Knight Strikes Again", on his return to Earth after a very long sojourn, at Batman's request, Hal Jordan the Green Lantern thinks:

"How strange that it would be you. The mean one. The cruel one. The one with the darkest soul. ... How strange that you, of all of us, would prove to be the most hopeful."

(The Dark Knight Strikes Again Deluxe Edition, p. 202)

"The Dark Knight Strikes Again" really should be titled something like "The Justice League Returns" as it's more of an ensemble piece than the name suggests.

Furthermore, a careful reading of Neil Gaiman's (@neilhimself) "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" brings us a parallel as the supposedly dead Batman speaks to his long-dead mother Martha Wayne:

"You don't get heaven, or hell. Do you know the only reward you get for being Batman? You get to be Batman." (Detective Comics #853, p. 19)

Perhaps a better selection from that work, that comes closer to the meat of the answer I want, is:

"I've learned... that it doesn't matter what the story is, some things never change.

...

The Batman doesn't compromise. I keep this city safe..." (Detective Comics #853, p. 12)

Batman is the man who makes the world a better place by altering his point of view.

But what about those other two heroes of DC's holy trinity?

Superman seems so simple on the surface that most discount him entirely. 'Superman isn't brave, he's invulnerable', I've heard people say. This is a mistake.

Superman is vulnerable in that he is too emotional, too nice. Too perfect.

Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Strikes Again" presents Superman as a man broken by the yoke of his own fears. A superhuman so afraid of any loss of human life, he allows for a complete destruction of the quality of all life.

The sequel to "The Dark Knight" quadrology from 1986 is almost universally reviled among comics-fans. It's a tremendously dark and depressing portrayal of the DC Comics superhero characters. In the end, Superman is convinced by the daughter he has had with Wonder Woman as well as Miller's fascist Bruce Wayne that the remaining superheroes ARE categorically different, ontologically different, and unquestionably better than petty, average, normal human beings. So why NOT rule over them and force them to live better lives? Millar's Emperor Superman from his "Red Son" comes to the exact same conclusion: be the alien overlord, force the peons to be good.

In the movie "Kill Bill:Vol. 2", David Carradine gives a soliloquy on the nature of Superman in the middle of a fight scene with Uma Thurman. Quentin Tarantino very smartly cribbed from Jules Feiffer's famous essay "The Great Comic Book Heroes" when he had the character of Bill say:

"Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume." ("Kill Bill: Vol. 2", 2oo4)

So:

Superman is the secret identity.

Clark Kent is the disguise.

But:

Clark Kent is the everyman.
And Superman is like no man.

Emotionally and psychologically very human but ontologically alien. Biologically Kryptonian. Somewhere in-between is the real person, Kal-El. The Superman, the Ubermench, the In-Between Man. He may not be the everyman, but he is of every person who's ever lived.

Somebody wise once wrote: Batman is a man trying to be a god, Superman is a god trying to be a man.

I think that's the truth. Just not the whole truth. They are both men and both gods, both effect change in a positive way, but from different sources of energy.

-Superman is 'good' striving forward, positively
-Batman is 'bad' striving forward, positively.

That's why Batman appeals to people who find the Superman character repulsively simple, while Superman fans rarely fail to be Batman fans also. Batman took negative energy, used it, and spun it positively. Parents murdered in front of him at an early age. So he struggles to fight so that none may have to experience what he did. Superman took positive energy and spread it exponentially. He was shown kindness by his adopted planet from day one, despite his great loss in never knowing his birth parents, his birth home. He struck out to make others feel as welcomed and safe as he was.

So then...

Is Wonder Woman just a female clone of Superman? Just more good vibrations? A god trying to be a woman? It's been suggested that as she is the enemy of Ares, and thus the enemy of War, she is the peace-maker of the DC pantheon. ("Super Heroes United!: The Complete Justice League History", Justice League: The New Frontier DVD, 2oo8) Yes, but they are all peace-makers! I think Wonder Woman might be among the clearest examples of what all mythic characters are at their core: ideas striving to be alive. Womanhood. Strength in femininity. Fortitude in the face of social-bondage.

And what of these other men and women with remarkable abilities?

The Flash has been portrayed as a man running away from his past and/or toward solutions. The Martian Manhunter feels like an old soldier brought into a new fight. Green Arrow is the superhuman social conscience. Black Canary is the superheroic working woman. Green Lantern is a bureaucratic superhero, a space-cop who has to answer to the intergalactic Guardians. The Question is the spiritual warrior.

They each serve a purpose, fill a role. All evolved from very simple to complex characters, and all have their own personal struggles. All reflect something different back at us, the reader.

I believe, now, what I've always believed: superheroes are an intrinsic part of the human psyche exploded and clarified, expanded into colorful representations of our desires, our needs, our hopes, and our dreams. DC was there first and, in some ways at least, did it best. And I suspect no re-boot, re-launch or re-imagining will change that.

~ @JonGorga

NOTE, a full Flickr set exists that tracks my adventures in reading this stuff...

P.S. ~ I'm looking forward to reading some non-DC comics for the first time in roughly two months...

Quote of the Week 12/16/10

"The characters were not Kirby characters- he famously grumbled about getting the Losers assignment, as he told stories about winners- and in most of the stories our heroes are barely distinguishable from each other: Captain Storm is more monocular, Gunner is younger, Sarge is tougher and Johnny Cloud is, well, marginally more Navajo.

But it doesn't matter. They became four everymen, standing in for all of us. And it's rarely about them."

-Neil Gaiman, from his introduction to the Jack Kirby Losers omnibus.

A "Devil" You Probably Don't Know

"Devil Inside" - ToddStashwick.com

Just this month a new webcomic premiered from two mainstream industry talents. But that's two different industries.

Writer/actor Todd Stashwick and comics artist Dennis Calero have joined forces to create a new webcomic on Stashwick's website.

(Calero himself told me about this new venture at a Midtown Comics signing a few weeks ago.)

Calero's art is professional and surprisingly well inked and colored considering that there is no credit for either, which probably means he's doing it all himself.

Honestly three strips is too early to tell what we have on our hands here, but so far I like it! Reminds me of Neil Gaiman's novel "American Gods" so far. The inventive manner in which the title is worked into each strip [Look at that above!] is worth the price of admission, which is of course... free.

The comic updates weekly.

~ @JonGorga

Literature/Fantasy Gumbo Comics

I've noticed that we at The Long and Shortbox Of It! have become a little mainstream superheroes-happy lately. You know. More than usual. Pretty much every post for the past month or so has been about superheroes. So, here's a little editorial on a different topic...

Recently, one of the cashier girls at St. Mark's Comics in the Village, said to me: "I really liked BLANK. I don't think there's more like that."

Then the next week an old friend of mine from college I hadn't seen in months expressed a somewhat mournful: "I really liked BLANK. Why aren't there more comics like that?"

The odd thing is that the one was talking about Neil Gaiman's old classic "The Sandman" (of which I have read very little) and the other was talking about Mike Carey's new series "The Unwritten" (of which I have read very little). Now despite the fact that I have read very little of both of these series I do know that both incorporate old literary and mythological characters, places, and situations into a new story of the author's creation, both have strong fantasy elements, and both tow a delicate line between darkness and humor.

"Sandman" has the famous biblical brothers Cain and Abel portrayed as servants of Morpheus, the King of Dreams. However, the pair are immortal and poor Abel is constantly being 'killed' over and over again by Cain. And from what I'm told a plethora of fantasy, literary, and historical characters make appearances over the course of the series including William Shakespeare's Oberon and Titania from "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Not to mention the spin-offs that focus directly on those characters like: "Lucifer".

"The Unwritten"'s main character Tommy Taylor is a clear analogue of Harry Potter. The series' main conceit is Harry Potter ended his last book by coming to life and found himself as a real thirty-something person, a poor-substitute to the lovable boy wizard the world knows and loves. However, the latest story in the series has Tommy Taylor transported back to WWII Germany and facing a different kind of storyteller: Joseph Goebbels.

Furthermore the series I have been reading most recently (I had the collected Volume 1 in my shoulder-bag during both conversations) is Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" another story with literary characters recombined and mashed-up like in a dark semi-fantasy gumbo. (Or maybe more like in slash-fiction...) Captain Nemo. The Artful Dodger. Mr. Toad. Professor Moriarty. Sweeney Todd's razors and the hook that replaced the hand of Peter Pan's nemesis appear in the backgrounds, in the team's headquarters in the locked wing of the British Museum. I think I see a stuffed Babar in there too, which makes me want to cry.

[To the right is the cover of Vol. 1 #2 which shows "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" victorian trading cards (with the package of cigarettes they 'came with' in the middle) which depict many of the characters in Kevin O'Neill's interpretation of them at the time of their original source stories. (Except for Campion Bond, he was an original character intended to be the grandfather of James Bond.)]

And a few weeks ago I was reading the last comics that came out in Greg Weisman's "Gargoyles" series (continuing the stories he began with the original "Gargoyles" Disney TV show in the 90s) which finally revealed another layer of the secretive Illuminati society's ranks as being the immortal knights that surrounded the legendary English King Arthur. That's Sir Percival in the image at left, designation: "One" (this code designates position in the society and goes up to "Thirty-Six"), still alive after thousands of years. Probably thanks to drinking from the Holy Grail, the mythological cup of Christ he was charged with guarding in some versions of the Arthur myth. And in the final part of the story concerning the Stone of Destiny (which is revealed to be EVERY famous or mythological stone in one) Percival declares he must call a meeting of the "Upper Echelons" implying that there is still another layer of the society. How will Weisman top the Knights of the Round Table!?

Not to mention "Planetary" the series that ended this past year after a decade of slow publication! Josh brilliantly reviewed the final issue in this post. It too makes use of pop culture from all mediums to 'tell the story of the Twentieth Century'.

Are all of these series different? Well yeah, they do vary pretty widely in tone, in the type of borrowed characters to be found within, and in visual-art styles, and color schemes, but I maintain there's a common thread here. Let's call it: Literature/Fantasy Gumbo comics. (Or, if you're in a more academic mood: Culturally Inter-Textual Sequential Art.)

Plus I can recommend all five of the series mentioned above as being of damn high quality. So there's THAT.

Well, this is all just my roundabout way of saying two things:

One: There are comics authors (quite a few in prose and film as well) that use Literature and Mythology as a kind of field from which to harvest characters and many of the resulting works are absolutely wonderful when they're done well.

Two: THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT COMICS OUT THERE. Assume you will find one that you will like and do a little research and with a little luck, you'll find another one that you'll like! All art is adaptable in the EXTREME. You may need to think of more than just one thing you like about a work and explore from there.

There ARE good comics like the ones you've already enjoyed and you WILL like SOME of them. I guarantee it.

So go find some good comics, whatever they are!