What I Want From a Superhero Team Book

With the launching of a third Avengers book on Marvel, a count of 5 (perhaps more) X-team books, as well as the continuing success of Geoff Johns's JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA for DC, it really seems that team books are the rage right now.

So why am I left wanting every time I read an issue of NEW AVENGERS? How is it that, as impressed as I am with the neat ideas with a storyline of Grant Morrison's JLA run, I still feel something more could be done with it?

Things are clearly missing from team books to me. Sure, they can have your favorite characters all in one place, they can be up to your eyes in sexual tension, and they can fight villains big enough to give all of the DC Universe's hardest hitters a run for their money.

But is that all there is?

Here's a couple concepts I think are sorely lacking from newer forays into the superhero team genre.

#1: Fighting by Strategy and Creative Team Dynamics

A rant of mine that has been going for a longtime is that fight scenes in American comics are boring. I generally hold American comics to a higher esteem than manga, but for as melodramatic, insipid, and pointlessly pornographic as manga can be, they beat Americans on all counts in portraying well-paced and action-packed fight scenes that are actually enjoyable to watch.

Open the pages of any manga, even a dumb one like DRAGON BALL Z, and you'll see that the fight scenes are invigorating. Panels show close-ups of each and every punch and kick, every block, every dodge. The sequence of the moves is enough to serve as a storyboard for a film (which is probably why the scenes in the anime adaptations are so close to the ones in the pages). Other factors, such as the angular shapes of the panels, the motion cues in the drawing, as well as the sparse details in the backgrounds and the figures, are all designed to both convey the feeling of fast movement as well as to keep your attention progressing rapidly from panel to panel.

American comics, in contrast, come across as stiff and static. The figures are often drawn in impressive, almost photorealistic detail, motion cues are often omitted to avoid the perception of being cartoony, and the pages are covered in gorgeous color gradients. All of this is screaming "Look at me!" to the reader, making us awe over the individual panels, rather than just flip through them to get the basic impressions. Movement is often implied rather than shown, giving the impression of a montage in a film.

The consequence of these American comic aesthetics is that fight scenes come across as rather dull, far less intense and fast-paced than they come off in the small black and white Japanese books.

And yet, there are still comics that still put a lot of pages into their fight scenes, despite the obvious inferiority. I recall forming some of the threads of this rant after reading an issue of MIGHTY AVENGERS from the Venom Bomb storyline, in which there are a whopping THREE double-paged spreads showing a fight involving all the Avengers members and the villains.

To me, there is nothing more insipid than a splash page or a double-page spread showing a fight scene. There is no story being conveyed - only a big image of a bunch of people hitting each other. From looking at the pages, there is no pacing, no way to tell which fighting styles are being used, no turning points in the action - actually, there's no action whatsoever.

So when I see three double-paged spreads of a big fight with no text or dialogue, that's six pages, 1/4 of a single issue, which adds up to almost a whole dollar being spent on this fight alone, all I see is a big orgy of costumed characters hitting each other. I don't see any story being told. If I had paid for the issue, I would have asked for my money back.

One strategy for dealing with fight scenes effectively in a superhero comic is just to avoid focusing on them altogether, showing one to three panels effectively summarizing the action and moving on.

PANEL 1: An image of Captain America throwing his shield.

PANEL 2: The shield is hitting some poor sob in the face.

BAM! The story's told.

Maybe if the artist is good, give us a monolithic panel that could be blown up and put on a wall, like of Superman overtaking an angel or Luke Cage kicking Elektra in the crotch.

But if you want my recommendation on how to do a longer fight scene that is compelling for the reader to watch, show a fight scene in which the characters have to win by strategy rather than brutality.

This is something I haven't seen done in a long damn time. Really, the last example I can think of is the Claremont/Byrne run of the X-Men. Sure, the artistic portrayal wasn't as detailed and the fight scenes were cluttered by hokey dialogue, but the neat thing about them was that the protagonists always had to think through their battles and work as a team in order to succeed.

When the X-Men fought the Hellfire Club, they were given a run for their money and savagely beaten by their leader, Sebastian Shaw, a man who can absorb kinetic energy and deal it back. Not knowing how his power worked, Colossus used him as a punching back for a little while, only to have all of that force absorbed and dealt back at him to near-death effect.

So how do the X-Men counter this? Not by dog-piling him. Instead, Storm realizes that while he may not be able to be beaten hand-to-hand, he's vulnerable to the cold just like everybody else. A bit of sub-zero wind chill made blankets and hot cocoa more appealing than conquest, so Shaw takes off.

Another event from the same run was when the X-Men fought against Magneto in his underground Antarctic base. Similarly, Magneto had just given them a good thrashing, using the metals of the base as well as the X-Men's two metallic teammates against them. So for round two, they needed to mix things up a bit.

Jean Grey telepathically connected everybody to Cyclops, so Cyke could actively and silently give orders to each member of the team. Like a pressured quarterback guiding a team that was down for the count with one minute to go, Cyclops quickly formulated a plan and sent them into action.

Colossus was especially vulnerable due to his metal form, so among the first orders was that he had to be flesh and blood for this. A quick change remedied his weakness, and he was good to go. Instantly, he was ordered to swing Nightcrawler around by the tail and release him. We've all heard of the fastball special, in which Colossus chucks Wolverine and lightning speed, but have you heard of the Nightcrawler shot put? What purpose would such a silly looking action serve?

On release, Nightcrawler flew at an immense speed. A neat fact about him is that whenever he teleports, he maintains the same velocity as he had before the teleportation. So, a quick teleport in front of Magneto's face gives him minimal, minimal time to react and defend himself, in this case, not enough to shield himself from Nightcrawler hitting his face and stealing his helmet.

With his helmet off, more than just his gray, old man hair was exposed - he was vulnerable to psychic attacks. A psy bolt from Jean Grey incapacitates him enough to prevent him from using his powers long enough for a now metal-form Colossus and adamantium coated Wolverine to hand his own ass to him. And then there were hurrahs all about, with a giant cooler of Gatorade being dumped on Cyclops by his jovial teammates amidst the glow of victory.

What was so fun and refreshing about the fights from this era was that they had to think through all of their battles, which is something that I firmly believe is much more identifiable and inviting to the reader than a series of panels of heroes dog-piling their enemies or seeing an orgy of superpowers lighting up the pages. Furthermore, seeing a team fight by strategy illustrates a team dynamic, showing them work together and producing a whole greater than the sum of its parts, showing why the team, and perhaps more importantly, why the book matters.

I want to see more of this kind of action again. I want to be right there with the heroes, thinking through the battle and seeing how they can get through a battle despite being outgunned. I don't want to see pages of the New Avengers squaring off in one on one matches against their opponents or a last-chance save by a you-thought-he-was-dead-but-you-thought-wrong Wolverine.

#2: Subplots

I have a big problem with subplots in modern comics.

Mainly, that there just don't seem to be any.

A while ago, there was this great Alan Moore interview in which he described his thought process for TOP 10. In particular, his inspiration stemmed from his thoughts that team books in superhero comics just didn't seem to work.

Wait, they don't work? Like, at all?

But there have been something like 40 years of stories of the Avengers, the Justice League, 60 years of the Justice Society, not to mention fan-favorite teams like the Legion of Superheroes, the Teen Titans, and the Defenders.

I'm sorry, Mr. Moore, but you are just coming across as a pompous ass when you say that. As pompous as you did when editor Len Wein told you that the alien attack ending in issue #12 of WATCHMEN should be omitted and something to the extent of "You ripped it off of an Outer Limits episode. It's already been done." and your response was merely "But I haven't done it."

...But then Moore elaborated on how the stories that he thought best exemplified the team dynamic were cop shows like Hill Street Blues or NYPD: Blue. 2 and 2 came together as naturally as they usually do for him, and the idea of a superhero police precinct was conceived.

In the pages of the book, we're shown a police unit where characters are dispatched to different parts of the city to investigate different crimes. Two veteran partners go here, another pair of partners go there, the new member is comically paired with one of the most difficult members of the team and sent on a seemingly innocuous beat that turns out to be more harmful, etc. etc. Characters and plots are constantly coming and going. While some of the plots tie together, they often do not, so one case being closed does not end or affect the others. All of these elements combine to give the feeling of a living, breathing, police department that is operating 24-7 in its war on crime.

So my big question is - Why isn't the same approach taken when writing the Justice League or the Avengers? Having been an active reader of superhero comics, I still have no idea how the Avengers synchronize their schedules and balance their solo duties with their team efforts, or how the Justice League designates a threat important enough for them to intervene as a team.

Instead - both of the books seemed to have followed the same paradigm for as long as I have read them.

A really big monster/threat/powerful supervillain appears, and the team members dogpile or combine their powers to stop them.

I don't mean to suggest that there weren't interesting stories to read along the way, but I mean, c'mon - aren't there other ways to tell these stories?

Personally, I think one of the most effective ways to freshen up the popular Marvel and DC team books and make them feel like they're really operating as a team is to have multiple subplots running that concern different characters. The Justice League and the Avengers are teams that have to tackle large threats that require the cooperation of multiple heroes. Surely, these events aren't just discretely happening one at a time, much to the convenience of the team.

Rather, it would be wise to assume, even in an unrealistic universe with superpowers abound, that these kinds of events would be popping up all over the place. Teams would have to make decisions, delegate which events require the attention of whom, split up and cover more ground. I want to see Green Lantern and Hawkman sent to investigate a giant spider landing in the Midwest, Green Arrow and Aquaman dispatched to handle pirates off the coast of Africa, Wonder Woman and Superman fighting a giant robot from the former Soviet Union unleashing havoc on the countryside in Russia, all while the Martian Manhunter is observing the events on monitor duty while simultaneously hearing Batman doing his best Danny Glover impersonation and grumbling about being too old for this shit. The characters would be finishing and starting their plots all at different times, making the JLA Watchtower/Hall of Justice a place full of comings and goings of different heroes as they're all delivered to their missions around the world or returning, weary from combat. On occasion, large-scale villains like Darkseid would require the cooperation of the entire team, and members would have to decide to either forfeit or continue the battles in their immediate attention. The book would be so dense and busy that watching the varied action scenes alone would exhaust you.

Seriously... Wouldn't that be awesome?

Even when something like this is touched upon remotely, it produces interesting results. Brad Meltzer's JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #12 was a neat little one-shot called "Monitor Duty", which just showed 24 hours of rotations as various heroes, through enthusiasm or total reluctance, take the task of monitoring dangerous events in the world and allocating JLA resources to combat them should they be important. The issue was an amazing read, and alone it proved to be far more enjoyable than the entire first seven issues comprising The Tornado's Path turned out to be.

- - - -

Alright, I've decided.

I'm laying down an ultimatum.

Marvel and DC, hand me your team books for me to write and revamp, or face the continued wrath of my blog rants!

I need a new title

Part of the reason I haven't been posting much lately is because I found out there's a comic blog out there older than mine called "Yet Another Comics Blog."

While I would be perfectly content to thumb wrestle them over the rights to the name, I think it would probably be better to pick a new, more distinctive name.

Anybody have any ideas?