Tag Archives: Straczynski

As comic book readers age, they tend to get more interested in the creators of the book than the characters themselves.  I’m sure there are exceptions, like people who only read Spider-Man comics, but even they prefer certain storylines and appreciate the people behind them.  Everyone’s got their favorites, and some that they hate.  Then there are people that you just don’t get.  There are plenty of people for me that fit into these three categories.  I love Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, and Steve McNiven.  I can’t stand Dan Slott, Chuck Austen, and I’ve read more Robert Kirkman stories I haven’t liked than liked.  In the middle are guys like Matt Fraction, Geoff Johns, and Grant Morrison – I’m not a huge fan, but I definitely don’t hate them.

And then there’s Joseph Michael Straczynski a.k.a JMS.  I’ve got a real love hate thing going with this guy.  The first work of his that I had any contact with was the excellent Rising Stars.  It’s all available in three trade paperbacks and makes for a good read.  It’s about a group of 113 people whose birth coincides with a meteorite crashing to Earth.  They all have different powers, but they are all tied together.  It’s a pretty cool read, even though the art sees a steady decline.

Having enjoyed that I figured I might as well give Babylon 5 a shot.  But first, some background – I’m a huge trekkie.  To the point where I had a cardboard Enterprise-D dangling over my bed.  (And if you know which one the Enterprise-D is, congratulations. You too are a trekkie.)  I’ve watched pretty much every episode of every Trek series other than Enterprise.  When Deep Space Nine was starting there was an outcry that it was just a copy of Babylon 5.  And there are definitely some similarities (http://www.firstones.com/wiki/Similarities_between_Babylon_5_and_Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine). But, after hearing from die hard B5 fans how superior it was to DS9, I finally got a chance to see for myself.  I did four seasons of watching.  Four seasons that I’ll never get back.

This is the series that gave JMS the cred in the geek community that he has.  This.  It is terribly acted, the sets are atrocious, and the highly touted computer graphics look dated and ugly.  And JMS wrote almost every episode.  He set a record for it!  So, pretty much everything that ended up on the screen was his brainchild.  Having said that, I’m pretty sure I slept through most of the first season.  It was the only way I could get through it!  It picked up in season 3 and 4, but that’s not saying much.

Having slogged through that, I kind of figured that would be it for me and JMS.  But then, I guy I worked with started buying his Thor run.  I was pretty skeptical, but he insisted that it was really good.  He wore me down, and I started reading his back issues.  I was blown away!  Thor is resurrected and he recreates Asgard as a floating city in Oklahoma.  Eventually, I picked up the Marvel Omnibus of his run and it stands as one of my favorite Marvel storylines.  It certainly doesn’t hurt that Olivier Coipel does some of his best work on the series.  The only problem with the run is that it was cut short because Marvel had other plans for the character.  It’s a real shame because I really would have liked to see where JMS was going.

Before that, he did a really long run on Amazing Spider-Man.  I haven’t read much of it, but he did something in it that alienated every Spidey fan on the internet.  Peter Parker finds out that Gwen Stacy, his first real girlfriend, went to Paris and had twins with Norman Osborn.  Then, she came back, was killed by Norman in his Green Goblin guise.  The children aged much faster than normal because of the Green Goblin serum in their blood, and they go on the hunt for Spider-Man because Osborn says that he’s their father.  It’s all very bizarre and tarnishes the character of Gwen in a way that doesn’t really make sense given what was established about her previously.

So, to sum up, I just don’t know what to think about JMS.  He’s the one writer whose work I truly either love or hate.

Graham Becksted did get Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition after all (thanks Sonali and Jesse).  He is the author of Graham’s Grumbles the second blog by that name that is listed in Google results when you search for Graham’s Grumbles.  If you would like to be his 57^th follower (thank you, bots), he can be followed on Twitter @GrahamBecksted.