Flex Mentallo deluxe edition coming this fall

This is great news!

From iFanboy:

With few details and no art, Vertigo has announced that the long out-of-print and disputed Flex Mentallo will come to shelves in deluxe hardcover form this fall.  The 4 issue mini-series, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely, was published in 1996, as a spin-off from the character's appearance in Doom Patrol. 

The core of the conflict had to do with Mentallo's similarity to Charles Atlas, the sand-kicking workout hero from classic comic book ads.  The Charles Atlas company filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed, but DC still haven't reprinted the series. Until now.

Does DC see controversy as more profitable than diversity?

If you've read the DC solicitations for January, then you know there's a Steel one-shot coming up. For all intents and purposes, when it was first announced, this seemed like a somewhat unimportant book, written by DC newcomer Steve Lyons, featuring a character who isn't appearing in any other books these days, and not tying into any bigger event. But it seems now that most of the info in the original solicitation has changed.

Back in November, DC announced an upcoming event called The Reign of Doomsday, which kickstarts with the Steel one-shot and will continue in the pages of Outsiders, JLA, Superboy and beyond. The villain changed from Metallo to Doomsday, and the artist changed from Sean Chen to Ed Benes.

In an interview at Newsarama last week, Lyons explains that he'd originally pitched the story as a stand-alone issue, but that editorial later decided to change the villain and tie it into a larger event. Sean T. Collins at Robot 6 wrote an interesting piece about the interview and the status of the character in the DC Universe.

Steel is one of the most undervalued characters and designs in DC’s pantheon. Iron Man’s powers, Thor’s hammer, Superman’s cape, and an African-American folk hero’s name? That’s pure gold. And seriously, what a great design: The Alex Garner cover to the issue — itself part of DC’s genuinely awesome iconic-cover line-up for the month of January — is practically payoff enough. Plus, in a genre often (and accurately) decried for its lack of strong non-white heroes, John Henry Irons is an armor-clad, hammer-wielding, ‘S’-shield-wearing super-genius whose role in Metropolis’s scientific and business community is basically “the anti-Lex.” Tough to top that.

Okay. But Sean and others have also picked up on the rather ominous way in which Lyons avoids talking about the future of the character after the one-shot. From the interview at Newsarama:

Nrama: Will Steel's role in the story continue into the other issues involved in the story? Or is he pretty much relegated to this one issue?

Lyons: Um. that would be telling, I think.

DC has a long-standing tradition of starting big events by killing off a character, to show how serious they are. (Ugh!) The death of Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) launched Infinite Crisis, the death of Metron launched Final Crisis, and most recently the death of Ryan Choi (Atom) launched the new direction of Titans. So I wouldn't put it past them to pull something like this off again. But considering how much controversy there's been this past year about the whitewashing of the DC Universe and the death of minority characters, could they really be planning to kill yet another one of their increasingly rare non-white heroes?

I realize this is a lot of speculation based on what is essentially a writer refusing to tell us how his story ends. But on the other hand, considering the precedents, it's not entirely crazy to jump to that conclusion. I just find it difficult to believe that after all the criticism DC could still be so stubbornly unwilling to admit that there is in fact a staggering lack of diversity in their books to the point that they would continue to make it worse, instead of doing even the slightest effort to remedy the problem.

At this point, killing off another non-white hero could only be interpreted as a provocation. The cynic in me is even tempted to suggest that the line from the interview may have been deliberately planted to stir up exactly this kind of speculation and discussion about the title, to generate interest and (presumably) drive up sales. I'll confess that I wasn't all that interested in the one-shot when it was first solicited. Not because I dislike the character or don't support books featuring non-white heroes, but mostly because I'm not familiar with the writer's previous work and lately I haven't had much luck with one-shots from DC. But now my curiosity has definitely been piqued. I don't know if it'll be enough to get me to buy the book, but I'm definitely paying more attention than I was before.

We'll have to wait and see, of course. Maybe this time it really is a tempest in a teapot.

The Steel one-shot hits stores January 5.

Apple censorship updates - part 2

Check out this interview with Rob Berry, co-creator of the Ulysses "Seen" comic, about dealing with Apple's censorship on the iPad. As I noted in my previous post, Apple has reversed its decision to censor the comic for nudity.

Apple censorship updates

A couple of noteworthy developments following the widely reported cases of Apple censoring comics on the iPad/iPhone, which I mentioned earlier this month.

First, it seems that the accusations of Steve Jobs calling Pullizer Prize-winner Mike Fiore a liar were based on a partial transcript of the interview. Now a full transcript is available, and it's clear that he wasn't referring to him at all when he talked about people lying to the press.

Second, it seems that Apple has reversed its decision to censor the much-publicized adaptations of Oscar Wild and James Joyce's works. They say they "made a mistake" and are allowing the creators to resubmit their apps uncensored. Good news for them, of course, though I have to wonder if Apple would consider these "mistakes" had it not been for all the bad press they got as a result of the rejections.

Apple censorship on the iPhone and iPad

I've read a few stories in recent months about Apple's new self-appointed role as a censor and preserver of morality. Apparently Steve Jobs believes they have a "moral responsibility" to keep porn off the iPhone, which in itself is pretty fucked up, but gets even more problematic when you take a look at the type of apps that are being rejected because of "objectionable content."

First, there's Mark Fiore's political cartoons. Following Apple's rejection of his app on grounds that it "ridicules public figures," Fiore went on to win a Pulitzer, which brought some well-deserved attention to the issue. Steve Job's attempt at damage control, instead of apologizing for the unfair rejection, was to call Fiore a liar.

Last week, Brigid Alverson at Robot 6 pointed out several rather questionable decisions by Apple about which comics to distribute. Of particular concern to me is the way that the rules seem to be stricter when it comes to gay content.

Tom Bouden's adaptaton of The Importance of Being Earnest was rejected from the app store on the basis of half a dozen images, all showing two men kissing or embracing but not having sex, and none depicting full frontal nudity. Apple finally allowed the comic with big black rectangles over the "offending" images.

Alverson concludes that Apple's double standard may have more to do with large publisher vs. small press than with homophobia, but that doesn't really reassure me.

Yesterday, she reported on another case of Apple censorship, this time involving an app for the webcomic Ulysses "Seen," an adaptation of James Joyce's novel. This time, the objectionable content was the visual depiction of a flaccid penis. Here, the creators of the comic managed to get around Apple's content restrictions by altering the offending image, giving us a close-up of the character that moves the objectionable body part off-panel. They reason that users can click on links to the website where the unaltered image is still available.

I guess this seems like a good compromise when you're a struggling artist trying to get your work distributed on a popular platform and you need all the exposure you can get. But to me this is even sadder than the Oscar Wilde comic, because by altering their comic they've hidden more than a penis – they've also hidden Apple's censorship. I would opt instead for drawing attention to it: put a big black box over panel with a note: "This comic has been censored by Apple. The device you purchased doesn't allow you to view original art as it was intended to be seen."

People are quick to point out that you can still access porn or these comics on the iPad by simply opening the websites in the internet browser, but that's completely besides the point. The way people access content is changing and Apple's app store is an important player in these changes. People say it's a sound business decision for them to want to control which apps are available on their hardware, because it helps them control their brand's image, but when you start talking about the "moral implications" of porn, censoring nudity, and discriminating against gay content, it's no longer just a business issue. It's political.

And it's dangerous, especially because not enough people are aware of it. Americans are obsessed with the idea of free speech and defending the First Amendment. And yet this kind of sneaky censorship is considered business as usual. That's the double standard that I can't wrap my mind around.

UPDATE: See also this post by Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool.

Sometimes it's hard to understand how DC operates

DC just announced that J.T. Krul, the man responsible for what is almost unanimously being called the worst comic book ever, is going to be the new writer on Teen Titans, a book that has been receiving nothing but terrible reviews lately.

I don't get it. Justice League, Cry for Justice, Green Arrow, Rise of Arsenal, Teen Titans and Titans all seem to be locked in this perpetual state of inter-related mediocrity. While fans and critics alike continue to complain about how awful the storylines in these books have been in recent months, DC keeps pushing them in the same direction, apparently convinced that they are onto something great and all this "controversy" and "fans getting upset" means they are doing something right.

The idea that making fans angry for publishing crappy books featuring characters they love is actually a good marketing strategy is baffling to me, but that was pretty much Dan DiDio's statement following the negative reactions to Cry for Justice.

The only positive thing I can say about all this is that DC (and other publishers) have enough good books out there that it's pretty easy for me to ignore all this crap and spend my money on things that I actually want to read. Still, I can't help but follow the reactions online, and I have to say it blows my mind a little.