DISNEY announced that through its subsidiary it has purchased the liquidated assets of CROSS GEN Comics. The bankrupt company CrossGen placed its assets up for auction in response to Bankruptcy and attempts to address massive debt, both to creative talents and towards lenders. The resulting sale of assets for one million dollars was a small step towards paying off outstanding debt. Disney claims to be a world leader in comic book sales, and focuses upon its success world wide with its library of characters. That it has not made a larger impact in the US market of comic books is one reason for the move. Also, numerous Cross Gen properties already optioned for movies stand ready to still be made into feature films and television programs, earning Disney more money yet. And, should those options fail, it is still a possibility for Disney to make tv or film projects of said properties for its own television or film production units.

Disney announced the intent to bring back the books RUSE and MERIDIAN in comic form, and, the intent to bring back the critically acclaimed series ABADAZAD as a series of illustrated books for young adult readers. That series was notable among the assets of CG as being a title partially owned by the creative staff of JM DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. Both stand to now benefit from the agreement with Disney, and it looks as if that portion of CG’s output as well as RUSE and MERIDIAN will be continued for fans and newcomers alike.

With all that said we need to ask if this acquisition is a good thing for comic book fans, whether it might now be a financial success and what happensto the remaining properties.

I suspect that similar changes might affect the CG properties now being considered for rerelease by Disney. No I do not know what degree of change if any might occur, but no creative staffs have been announced and no promises of the same level of quality or same outlook for the books have been made. Fans might enjoy the works in fashion they did before, might not, and might have to read new versions of the characters, leaving nothing nearly like the previous incarnations.

What happens to the properties that were good but were not mentioned by Disney in there manifesto regarding the relaunch of former CG books? At one time I heard that Chuck Dixon undoubtedly own a portion of the projects and titles he was working on at CG. I doubt it, because neither Disney nor Dixon has made any sort of announcing regarding any of the excellent works done by Dixon in his time at CG. Beyond those wonderful works are ROUTE 666, SOJOURN and more. See now CG for all its failings did actually create some good comics. People seem to think that a company that failed did so because it sucked. But that is really not the case at CG. So I hope for all the promise of CG that went away with the bankruptcy that something like a mini or major return of their best works comes about. But I am not holding my breath.

After seeming dozens of attempts at Marvel to interpret or reinterpret a flagship character the news there is that with CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting there is a wonderful chance that this character will now be written in an intelligent, apt fashion, while drawn with great flair. Beyond simply a good read, which it was, the problems of Marvel in publishing this character might be fading upon the success of this run. Joe Quesada himself has said that Cap is a difficult character to interpret for modern audiences, as patriotism and nationalism at a time of war makes the response one of absolute love or hate. That makes any writer’s task difficult... not because he needs to make everyone happy, but the fine line is to make the work such that both sides of an issue think about the issue and not about how it is personified by the character. I applaud Marvel for continuing to consider the character as being worthy of the continued attempts at refining for a modern readership. The character has existed for over 60 years but has had a spotty publishing history at Marvel. Despite the fact that the character is a favorite of many readers, the political climate in existence throughout the US has determined the level of success of any venture. And I encourage you to pick up Captain Americas from the 1970s, read the letter pages, he has been a lightning rod for scorn as well as pride. Some have argued that Superman (DC) and Captain America are parallels at each publisher, but while Superman does represent all the highest ideals of people, he is not the living symbol of the country. The difference is important. One is a great man with great ideals. The other represents the ideals of 280 million people and he reflects the love for the country but also suffers from the scorn hefted towards that country. In other words, while one is iconic, the other is an icon.

Brubaker’s writing succeeds because it understands that Cap is a character that people see without seeing the man under the cowl. In order to make him less of an icon and less of a lightning rod, we need to see the man behind the uniform/costume. Humanizing Captain America while retaining his raison d’etre might just allow readers to enjoy the title without polarizing the readership. That seems to be the best way to approach the character. The art is even better than the writing. It retains a great deal of action and pin up shots, but frankly tells the human story wonderfully well. Again, almost any artist can depict action well due to the sexiness of doing that. People drawing comic characters or pages for the first time rarely depict a talking head scene. Epting does all that he does enormously well and the sincerity of his work means that there is little to do but let it work. I have great hopes for this and I look forward to future issues.