The best part is that all the copy and pasted Cap pictures are already owned by Marvel and going into Marvel products they also own. The only hang up is the backgrounds are from Atomic Robo. Wait. Gimme a second.

Brian Clevinger, do you give you, Brian Clevinger, permission to use your own IP?

Yup!

Score!

All right, so, things are a little hectic around here. I’m juggling something between five and a million writing gigs.

One of them is Captain America: The Fighting Avenger and in some ways it’s the most daunting. There’s just so much history and material to draw from. And everyone wants to see their favorite early Cap moments. Or at least have them alluded to. But there’s only so many pages in an issue, and who knows how many of those we’ll get to do and — ARGH — it’s just a ton of pressure.

Now, here’s the thing. In this industry, artists get paid a ton more than writers. Like several tons more. It’s crazy. I mean, okay, they earn it. The poor bastards can only draw so many pages in a day, generally one, while jackasses like me can just write script after script consisting of giant splash pages that take all of ten seconds to figure out and ten hours for some other idiot to draw. But, all the same, fuck that noise, GIMME DAT ARTIST MONEY!

Well, luckily, I’m a genius so I figured out how to get in on that action by using my years of experience as a sprite comic artiste! I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but check out this exclusive preview of Captain America: The Fighting Avenger #1.

Pretty amazing, right?

The best part is I can do like three or four of these pages every day. I’m callin’ up Quesada in the morning with this. Gonna start doing the art on New Avengers or an X-Men or something.

I finished the fourth and final issue of The Avengers and the Infinity Gauntlet last week. SPOILER: Spider-Man and Dr. Doom get all the best lines. The first three issues are already available for pre-order. If you’re into that sorta thing.

And I kinda hope you are!

Also wrapped up some outlines for next year’s Captain America: The Fighting Avenger. You can get an idea of what that’ll look like if you pick up World War Hulks: Captain America vs. Wolverine* #1 and #2. Gurihiru, the ultimate art science squad, and I have a ten page backup story in each of those issues, and we’ll continue our team up with Cap.

And I’m far enough ahead on Volume 5 of Atomic Robo that I’ve got the next two months clear to help write a fancy big time video game for your X-boxes and your PS3s. OH DEAR GOD WHAT IF I SCREW IT UP AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGH!!!

I’m fine. Really. Just need tons of coffee all day so I can stay alert and active, and then tons of vodka at night so I can sleep.

*c’mon, guys, let’s try to make a long title next time, huh?

We’re comin’ at’cha this week with all the bonus comics found in Volume 4: Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness available later in August. The first one was posted ages ago, but between moving, working, traveling, and PC to laptop to Mac switches it was only this afternoon I was finally able to get my hands on some Photoshop action to get them online for you fine folks. I wasn’t happy with posting them page-by-page as we’ve done in the past, so instead we’ll drop full four page payloads with every update. Like this one!

The new DC Universe Online trailer looks pretty cool. But their Superman really bugs me.

It’s not that they went with Dickhead Superman from the third movie to show, I guess, how the rigors of endless conflict with Luthor has dragged him off his moral high ground. Okay, it’s not just that, but it’s a good place to start I guess.

Then there’s the implication that there’s all this war, all this senseless destruction and death, and Superman is just kinda chillin’ out in space? It’s clear that he’s not unaware of what’s going on down on Earth (and elsewhere, but we’ll get to that in a minute) because he can hear Wonder Woman scream. So, he’s probably heard the screams of everyone else who died while he was up there.

I mean, you can try to sneak in a line about “self-imposed exile” all you want, but that doesn’t make it internally consistent with the character. This is Superman we’re talking about. He doesn’t do self-imposed exile when the fighting gets rough. He’s too injured to go on? Good thing it’s Superman then, ’cause he fights harder. Even if he knows it’ll kill him. That’s what he does, that’s what makes him Superman.

What he does not do is brood out in space growing a grimdark five o’clock shadow while a global war kills billions of people due to his inaction. In fact, if dictionaries worked this way, that’d be the dictionary definition of what Superman does not do.

But it doesn’t stop there! Superman’s final breath is spent telling Luthor he’s already lost everything. And then it’s revealed: Brainiac’s been waiting all this time to invade Earth and lol @ Luthor for wiping out all the super heroes so he can sweep in and steal the planet out from under him.

Okay, so now Superman not only takes a beard break from the war, but he’s plainly been aware of Brainiac’s machinations for who-knows-how-long and never made the slightest effort to stop it? Superman just let the Earth fall? Twice? In one afternoon? C’mon.

I know all this sounds like a lot of fanboyish nerdrage. And, hell, maybe it is. But what galls me about all this is how easy it would’ve been to do right by Superman without changing the plot. Because, really, when they were plotting out this video they had to ask “Why doesn’t Superman just stop this from happening?” And their answer was “Self-imposed exile.” That’s a terrible and clunky answer. They could’ve had their cake an eaten it too. Here’s how: Superman was already dead.

Have Luthor wearing Superman’s dirty and ripped up cape as his own cape or belt or flag. The implication is clear: Superman is dead and he has been for a long time. Though the kryptonite spear bit is pretty brutal, leaving it up to the viewer’s imagination is always going to be more brutal. The apocalyptic cityscape and subsequent invasion from Brainiac are no longer what Superman selfishly lets happen; they’re the tragic consequences of his death. The horrible future is still Luthor’s fault, he’d still want to go back, and holy shit, Supes’ ruined cape would be a hell of a selling point to the Heroes of the Past.

The only thing you lose with this version is seeing Superman in action. And, granted, they had some fantastic minimalist realizations of Superman’s powers in that video. But c’mon. You’re telling me they couldn’t have had Flash moving faster? Couldn’t have shown Black Adam being stronger?

I dunno. I’m just a big ol’ softie for Superman, and it’s always a disappointment when the focus is on how powerful he is as a plot device instead of how powerful he is as a character.