I know that I'm behind the curve on this one, but what kind of internet dork would I be without discussing the monkey sex issue of Powers?No sort of internet dork at all, no sort at all.
There was a time when this issue lit up the internet. By "lit up the internet" I mean "caused a lot of negative posts that were featured on blogs with absolutely horrid design." But for those of you who either missed out or don't catalogue old comics in your brain, a quick summary:
This issue was the first part of a story arc that traced the origins of Detective Walker and some asshole. Apparently they go back to monkey days when there was a red monkey and a white monkey. Guess which monkey was the bad one! Anyway, we get the monkey story about these two battling, which I guess is all there is for monkeys to do before the invention of a tire hanging from a rope and the motion picture Dunstin Checks In. The next issue is a Conan-esque story, and so on through history, and in each one we get a version of what is clearly Walker fighting the same villain, both of whom seem to forget their identities over time, clash again, and then forget once more.
Clearly, most readers were not blown away by an issue of Powers without dialogue or a real plot. I can't say I blame them.
The issue does set up the foundation for a larger story, however, and one that pays off pretty nicely as we finally get an explanation of how Walker lost his powers. But it does bring up two very important issues in comics today, possibly more important than the classic debate of Me vs. My Brother and who owns Maximum Carnage issue #3.
The first is the idea of decompressed storytelling. Me, I don't mind a story that's a little slower. But I think that has a lot to do with the fact that my comic reading is exclusively done with trade paperbacks. I don't get an issue of Powers, read no words besides "Grunk" and then have to wait a month (if you're goddamn lucky) before starting to see how this would kind of, sort of pay off.
Reading trade paperbacks is sort of like watching television series on DVD. To go along with the example, if I watched an episode of NYPD Blue and Ice-T was a monkey...actually, let's not go there. If Ice-T was transformed into an elephant, it's possible that there would be a storyline that justified it, but if I had to wait a week to get it, I wouldn't be too happy. However, if I'm watching an NYPD Blue Marathon, Back-to-Back Blue (only on CBS) because I had already purchased and watched EVERY other show on DVD, I guess, then it wouldn't be so bad. I'd get my answer and move on.
My question with a book like this: Why don't they just publish it in trade format to begin with? If you're telling a decompressed story that could exist outside the normal Powers storyline, why does it need to be part of the monthly stuff? And so many books end up behind schedule, why not publish the entire arc all at once?
Take the Scott Pilgrim model. 6 books, all of satisfactory size. They didn't come out with 100% regularity, but it was c
lose enough, and when you've got a full hour of reading ahead of you it's easy to ignore a couple months of lateness. Although you look like kind of an obsessed weirdo when you have "Scott Pilgrim!!!" on your calendar, circled in red on three different dates.Writers should just make a decision. If you're going the decompressed route, fine, but publish bigger chunks. Format counts, people.
Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, it's time to discuss a little werewolf named Captain America.
When we were kids, my brother and I would subscribe to comics every year. They were usually picked at random, and my brother had the great misfortune of picking up Captain America for the period when he was infected with werewolfism. It couldn't have lasted more than 4 or 5 months, but that 4 or 5 months felt like pretty much forever.
I appreciate when somebody tries to do something new with a character. I do. But use some goddamn sense. A black, alien costume works for Spider-Man. But a Spider-Man car doesn't because it kind of defeats the point of Spider-Man when he sits in NYC traffic in a dune buggy. I'm not a guy who minds change, and I feel very sad that DC was bullied into bringing back Hal Jordan because who gives a fuck? But you need to justify your changes and they need to have some effect that justifies their existence. It's not impossible to do a police procedural with a monkey issue, but it's tough, and you have to watch your ass.
Overall, I'm cool with the monkey issue. It was worth it in the end. But goddamn, I would have been pretty pissed off to get it as a single issue.
