New "Gutter Talk" Poll: Who's Your Holmes?

With Sherlock returning to American TV tonight, I thought now would be a good time to spout off about my opinions of the most recent portrayals of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest creation, and to ask you for yours.
To cut right to the chase, I am not happy with the recent trend of portraying my favorite fictional detective as a complete asshole. 
The movie with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role is the worst offender.  I must admit that I have yet to watch the entire film.  There came a point about a third of the way through where I'd had enough and stopped the DVD.  Thus, having not seen the end of the flick, I don't know whether at some point the real Sherlock Holmes ever makes an appearance.  I can tell you that the boozing, brawling bastard played by Downey was most certainly not him.

I find the portrayal of Holmes as an ass, or a "dick," as Watson calls him in "The Reichenbach Falls," in the BBC's Sherlock to be more forgivable.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  The first and most important is Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as the title character.  He comes closest of all the latter day Holmeses to capturing the true essence of the character, and his Holmes comes across as likable despite his more unsavory qualities.   I'd like to see Cumberbatch take on the character in a more traditional Victorian turn of the 20th century setting.

The modern setting is the other reason I can tolerate Holmes being more of a jerk on Sherlock than he ever was in Doyle's stories.  The world and society are a lot different today than they were when Holmes was created.   Society is a bit less refined, ore coarse, today than it was back then.  Thus, I can how someone with Holmes' gifts coming off age in the early 21st century rather than the middle of the 19th could be far more lacking in social graces than the character was shown to be back in the original texts.
Meanwhile, Johnny Lee Miller in CBS' Elementary does a fine job of portraying a copy of a copy of Holmes.  Overall, I find the show closer in tone to Law & Order: Criminal Intent than to the Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.  Likewise, the character of Sherlock Holmes as presented on Elementary seems to be less derived from Doyle's characterization than it does from CI's Detective Robert Goren as brought to life by Vincent D'Onofrio, who has referred to Goren in interviews as  "a modern-day Sherlock Holmes."  Still, I much prefer Miller's watered down interpretation to Downey's total misinterpretation. 
To my mind, the finest filmed interpretation of Sherlock Holmes remains that of the great Jeremy Brett, who portrayed the master detective in a series of adaptations of Doyle's original stories on British television back in the 1980's.  A happy side effect of the recent resurgence of interest in the character is that my local public television station is re-airing these classic adventures.
So, those are my opinions.  As I said above, I am interested in yours.  That's why I'm running a poll asking the question: Who is your favorite new Sherlock Holmes?  The poll will be up for one week, and at the end of that time, I'll be back with my opinions about the results.  I also welcome, as always, your comments and look forward to reading them.

Hellblazer Poll Results

I guess, given a recent slight bump upward in my overall pageviews and the efforts I made to promote this poll, that I was expecting a somewhat higher turnout than I got.  I suppose the results prove, if nothing else, that the majority of Gutter Talk readers didn't read Hellblazer, and/or that not a lot of Hellblazer readers also read Gutter Talk. They may, of course, prove nothing of the sort, or, in fact nothing very much at all.  Nonetheless, the end results of my favorite Hellblazer writer poll, meager though they may be, were pretty much what one would have expected at the outset.

The final issue of Ennis' run

In the category of regular writer, Garth Ennis walked away with the majority of votes.  The remainder were split between initial writer Jamie Delano, Brian Azzarello, and Mike Carey.  

That Ennis won is not surprising, given that Hellblazer probably reached its peak of popularity during his run, and the series helped launch him into comics super-stardom.  My own vote went to Ennis, and Hellblazer remains my favorite work by him.

There was, briefly, one vote for Paul Jenkins, but it didn't show up in the final tally.  I guess someone must have changed their mind.  That's too bad, because what I've read of Jenkins' run was pretty good.  Also, from meeting him briefly at cons, he seems like a really nice guy and he's a fine musician.  Several years ago at Mid-Ohio Con I bought from him a CD by a band called Grave Goods, of which he was a member.

I suppose I might be a little surprised to see that Peter Milligan got no votes.  He's been a popular writer, especially with the Vertigo crowd, for a couple of decades now.  Furthermore, taking into account his fifty-one issues and one Annual of Hellblazer, and the eight issues of Justice League Dark  in which he essentially created the New 52 version of John Constantine, not to mention the three part story in Shade--The Changing Man in which Constantine appeared, Milligan has written more appearances of the character than any other writer.

Given that little fact, it occurs to me to wonder why he wasn't tapped to write the new Constantine title debuting next week.  Of course, I may have answered my own question.  Perhaps after writing the character for over four years, he needed a break from John Constantine.

Oops! Forgot this one--#32 by Dick Foreman

The guest writer category was flawed from the outset, as, despite my efforts to include everyone who had ever written the title in my survey, I left a couple of names off the list.  A comment on the initial post announcing this poll pointed out that I had omitted Dick Foreman, who apparently wrote issue #32, and Eddie Campbell's four issue storyline just prior to Jenkins taking over the reigns of the title also slipped my mind.  The omission of Foreman is excusable, I suppose, as I haven't read that issue and overlooked it in my research on the Comic Book Database.  However, given that I actually own copies of the issues containing Campbell's contribution, that omission is just plain stupid. 

Still, despite the omissions, the contest in this category could have been expected to come down to a race between super-stars Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison.  That's pretty much just what happened, with Morrison winning out for his two parter in issues #25 and #26.

So, that closes the books on yet another Gutter Talk  poll. 

Announcing the Gutter Talk "Hellblazer" Poll!

Y'know what I haven't done for awhile? (And the answer is not "showered"--though I should get to the dishes before too much longer.) 

I haven't polled my readers; asked you a question designed to elicit your opinion on a matter of vital importance to the survival of mankind.  

With the recent conclusion of the long running Vertigo horror series Hellblazer, I thought I'd gauge my readers' thoughts on the various talents who've been tasked over the last quarter century with chronicling the life and times of "working class mage" John Constantine by giving them a chance to vote for their favorite Hellblazer writer.
(By the way, the review of the final storyline is still forthcoming.  Having now acquired a copy of the last issue, I actually have to find time to read it.)

For this poll, I've decided to do things a little differently than I have in the past.  In fact, I'm actually running two polls. 

The first is for the series' regular writer; those who wrote an extended run of issues.  

But there's also an impressive list of fill-in writers throughout the course of the series who came on for just one issue or one storyline, giving the regular writer a short break, or filling in until the next regular writer takes over.

The writers in the first category are:

• Jamie Delano
• Garth Ennis
• Paul Jenkins
• Warren Ellis
• Brian Azzarello
• Mike Carey
• Denise Mina
• Andy Diggle
• Peter Milligan 

And the guest writer field consists of:

• Grant Morrison
• Neil Gaiman
• John Smith
• Jason Aaron
• Dave Gibbons
• China Mieville

My apologies to Alan Moore fans who may prefer his version of John Constantine to anyone else's.   Moore didn't make the cut for this poll, since, despite creating the character, he never actually wrote an issue of Constantine's solo series.

As always, the poll will be open for one week, so vote early.  I'll have some sort of half-assed analysis of the results after the poll closes.

Green Arrow Poll Results: Everybody Loves Denny!

I'm going to close the latest edition of Gutter Talk's "Green Arrow Month" with a quick review of the results of our latest poll.  This time I asked you to vote for your favorite chronicler of Green Arrow's adventures.  Unlike previous polls, you were allowed--nay, encouraged, even--to vote for multiple candidates.  

For the most part, the results were no surprise.  Due to the nature of the question this time, I expected fewer responses, as Green Arrow fans are a small subset of comics readers, and Green Arrow fans who read this blog an even smaller clique.  Thus, I wasn't too disappointed to get only about a third of the number of participants this time out as I did in my last poll about movie Supermen.  

I also expected Dennis O'Neil to be at or near the top of the results when all the votes were in.  What did surprise me, however, is the decisiveness of his victory.   O'Neil ended up with 100% of the vote.  Due to the fact that multiple votes were allowed, a few other candidates, including Bob Haney, Mike W. Barr, Mike Grell and Kevin Smith, got a smattering of votes, but everyone, no matter if they voted for several candidates or just one, registered their affection for O'Neil's version of the Emerald Archer.

I guess this isn't much of a surprise after all.  O'Neil did write the fondly remembered Green Lantern/Green Arrow series of the early 70's.

To some today, those stories seem dated and I've even read comments by some people saying that the only reason to read those stories anymore is for Neal Adams art.  Adams art is stunning, and it is true that those stories, like any work of art, are very much of their time, and they are not without flaws.  They tend to be somewhat heavy handed and often preachy, and Green Lantern often comes off seeming not just hopelessly naive, but just plain stupid.  It seems as if O'Neil didn't really like Hal Jordan and he appears uncomfortable with the space opera aspect of the character, which he plays down, keeping the stories, for the most part, literally down to Earth.  

It's clear, to me at least, that O'Neil was much more interested in writing Green Arrow.  Oliver is the real star of the series during O'Neil's tenure, no matter what the indicia may have stated, and the real reason, in my mind, that these stories continue to be worth reading.  Yet, O'Neil didn't make Ollie perfect.  Witness his reaction to his ward's drug use.  First, he slaps Roy around a little, then throws the kid out on the street, and convinces himself that he, as the boy's parent, was in no way responsible for his adopted child's problems, despite having pretty much abandoned him to travel around the country "looking for America."  Still, Ollie somehow manages to retain our sympathy in that story.   What emerges in O'Neil's stories is a flawed, but still heroic and likable character.  

For my part, while I may have first seen Green Arrow on SuperFriends, it was O'Neil's GL/GA stories that began my life long love for the character.

To put it simply, O'Neil defined the modern version of Green Arrow.  All who've followed him, from Elliot S! Maggin to Mike Grell to Kevin Smith, and even J.T. Krul, have merely been building on the foundation that Dennis O'Neil established. 

That's it for the 2011 version of  "Green Arrow Month."  There was, by the way, one more Green Arrow post I was planning, comparing GA to Daredevil, but it never quite gelled when I sat down to write it.  Perhaps if I can make it work, I'll present it at a later date.  If I have enough ideas for more posts on GA, I might just do yet another "Green Arrow Month."

Green Arrow Month Poll

Over to the right, at the top of the sidebar, is a rather lengthy list of names of writers who have contributed to the legend of Green Arrow from the Silver Age to today.  The latest Gutter Talk poll asks you to vote for your favorite--or favorites.  Yes, we're doing things a little differently this time out, and allowing you to vote for more than one option this time.  So, you don't have to lie awake tonight agonizing over whether you really prefer Dennis O'Neil's characterization of the Emerald Archer to Mike Grell's.    You can vote for both.  

Let's take a look at the choices available:

1. Ed "France" Herron--main writer of Green Arrow's Silver Age adventures
2. Bob Haney--wrote the Emerald Archer's meetings with Batman and other  heroes in The Brave and the Bold and his solo adventures in World's Finest Comics
3. Dennis O'Neil--defined the modern interpretation of Green Arrow in the award winning Green Lantern/Green Arrow series  
4. Elliot S! Maggin--wrote several years worth of GA's adventures in Action Comics  
5. Mike W. Barr--wrote Green Arrow's first mini-series
6. Joey Cavalieri--wrote the Green Arrow series in Detective Comics
7. Mike Grell--writer of  Green Arrow's first ongoing monthly series
8. Kevin Smith--brought Oliver Queen back from the dead in the "Quiver" story line
9. Brad Meltzer--followed Smith's run with "The Archer's Quest"
10. Judd Winick--wrote most of the remainder of Green Arrow's second series and its follow-up Green Arrow/Black Canary
11. J. T. Krul--writer of Green Arrow's current adventures
12. Other-- many other talented writers, from Gerry Conway to Alan Moore, have tried their hand at Green Arrow stories over the years, and you may prefer one of them to any of the choices I've listed.  If you chose this option, be sure to leave a comment and let me know who you were thinking of.

As usual, the poll will  be open for seven days and I'll discuss the results here afterward.  

(Also as usual, those reading this on Open Salon, click here to vote.)    

Superman Poll Results

Voting closed yesterday on the latest Gutter Talk poll which asked readers to pick their favorite from among the various actors who've portrayed Superman in movies and TV shows over the past six decades.  I'd like to thank everyone who participated and especially those who shared their opinions in the comments.  A few more people took part this time than in my previous poll, which asked for readers' favorite comic by Mike Grell.  Since my readership numbers have been pretty constant for the past few months, I'm guessing the increase is due to people being more familiar with Superman, at least in movies and television, than they are with Grell's work.  I did have one person tell me, while the previous poll was in progress, that his favorite Grell comic was one Grell didn't do, meaning that he obviously wasn't a fan.  

Among comments on the current poll was this one:

"Part of the consideration should be how each actor played the dual identity of both Superman and Clark Kent. George Reeves made for a fine Superman, but his Clark seemed a little underdeveloped. Therefore, for me, the choice would be a race between Kirk Alyn and Christopher Reeve."

On a purely objective level, I would concede that Christopher Reeve was the best at portraying the dual role of Clark Kent/Superman.   Still, perhaps due to his version being the one I was exposed to first, my vote went to George Reeves.  I just love the exasperated expression on his face whenever crooks would shoot at him, as if he were thinking, "Don't they ever learn?"  Plus, I actually like the way he played Clark Kent, which, due to budget constraints, he did a lot more than he played Superman.  Rather than an inept bumbler, Reeves portrayed Kent as a smart, competent and even tough reporter who was more than able to hold his own in the constant verbal jousting with Lois Lane.

Michael N. left this comment:

"George Reeves, but with (needless to say) better scripts."

I certainly agree with you there, Michael.  Although the first two seasons, especially the first year under producer Robert Maxwell, were much better than the last four.  Two things happened with the third season that effected the quality of the series.  Whitney Ellsworth, who took over from Robert Maxwell in the second year, and the powers that be at DC, decided that the show should be more of a kiddie show, so the violence and darker tone of Maxwell's episodes was abandoned in favor of a more comedic flavor.  Secondly, in order to ensure the show's future success in syndication, the producers decided to shoot in color.  This was an expensive proposition back in the early days of TV and ate up most of the budget, leaving little for special effects or better writers. 
I might add that Christopher Reeve could have benefited from better scripts in his last two outings as the Man of Steel, and they didn't have those excuses.  After all, they could afford to hire Richard Pryor.

Now for the results.  The winner isn't much of a surprise.  As I predicted at the beginning, it was for the most part a two man race between George Reeves of the 1950's Adventures of Superman TV show and Christopher Reeve of the 1970's and 80's film franchise.  Between them they garnered nearly 80% of the total votes.  In the end, Christopher Reeve came out on top with a plurality of 46%.

It was nice to see that at least one person remembered Kirk Alyn, the first screen Superman.  Alyn set a standard for all who've followed him to live up to.  I was a little surprised at the complete lack of love, and votes, for Dean Cain of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.   In my opinion, he was a pretty good Superman, and the series, especially in the first couple of seasons, wasn't bad, either.  Being of a somewhat paranoid nature, I'm convinced that at least one of the two people who voted for Superman Returns' Brandon Routh did so to make me look bad, since I wrote that I didn't expect him to get any votes.

That wraps up the latest Gutter Talk poll.  I'll be back with another one before too long.  If you've got a burning question you'd like my readers to answer, let me know.

New Gutter Talk Poll: Vote For Your Favorite Superman Actor

Henry Cavill--the new Superman

Speaking of Superman, as I was in yesterday's post, I have decided that it's about time for another Gutter Talk Poll.  This one was inspired by the recent announcement that Zach Snyder, director of the upcoming film Superman: Man of Steel,  has found his leading man.  The lucky, or perhaps unlucky, if you believe in the so-called "Superman Curse", winner of the role is Henry Cavill, a 26 year old British actor apparently best known to some for something called The Tudors, whatever the heck that is.  It seems that Cavill had actually been cast to play Superman in 2006's Superman Returns, until Brian Singer came on board as director and booted him in favor of Brandon Routh.

So, over to your right, at the top of the page, you'll notice a list of previous actors who have assayed the role of the Last Son of Krypton.  Your task, should you chose to accept, is to pick your favorite from among those listed.

Note that the choices are limited to those actors who have portrayed Superman, as opposed to Superboy or simply Clark Kent, in live action movies or television series.  Therefore, Bud Collyer of the 1940's radio show, Tim Daly from the 1990's animated series, Gerard Christopher of the 1980's Adventures of Superboy syndicated series, and Smallville's Tom Welling, among others, were excluded from consideration.

I actually thought about leaving Brandon Routh off the list as well.  I can't  think of anybody who really liked Superman Returns all that much and I honestly don't expect anyone to vote for him.

In truth, I expect this poll to come down to a two man race between George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. Still, I could end up being surprised.  Just maybe there are a lot of Kirk Alyn fans among my readers.

The poll will be open for the next seven days, and I'll discuss and analyze the results here sometime next week.

By the way, if you are reading this on my Open Salon site, click here to participate in the poll.

The Winner Is....(Mike Grell Poll Results)

It's kind of weird.  On Tuesday here in Columbus, Ohio, it was 50 degrees and rainy.  Then, on Wednesday, it was as if someone decided that since it was December and Christmas was just around the corner that it should be snowing, so they flipped a switch and suddenly there was snow.   

Yes, ladies and germs, the yuletide season has descended upon our heads with a thud, and next week I'll begin my celebration of "Christmas With The Caped Crusader" wherein I'll be looking back at some of the many seasonal tales of the Batman published over the years.

Right now, I'd thought I'd say a few words about the results of my Mike Grell poll which came to a close along with the month of November on Tuesday. 

As you can see, The Warlord, with more than half the votes cast, was the clear winner.  I'm sure this probably says more about the readers of this blog, of course, than it does about the quality of Grell's work on the series.  What that is I can only speculate, though I suspect it simply means that the people who are reading Gutter Talk are people who are interested in the same things, at least as far as comic books, that I am and that I want to write about. This really comes as no surprise.

I'm a little surprised that weren't more votes for Green Arrow.  Likewise, I'm sure many of you, given my previously stated love for the character, may have been surprised that my vote went to Warlord.  It's true that Ollie Queen is my favorite super hero and I do feel that Grell's version is  one of the best, but I guess I just prefer his work on more fantasy oriented concepts.

Thus, I suppose I'd probably like Starslayer, the preference of at least one of the respondents who voted "Other."  I have read, and  liked, a few issues, but not any of the ones Grell himself did.  Of course, there aren't that many.  He left after the eighth issue, presumably to focus on Jon Sable, Freelance.  This, I suppose, accounts for the "unrealized potential" this person saw in this series.  The brevity of Grell's tenure on the book is somewhat surprising given his lengthy run on Sable, as well  as Warlord and Green Arrow.  Counting the regular series, various mini-series, and an issue of Secret Origins, Grell wrote 94 issues of the Emerald Archers adventures. 

Jonathon Riddle remarked to me once that Starslayer is more noteworthy for its back up features than for the lead story.  It is true that both Groo the Wanderer and Grimjack debuted in the title's back pages.  It was also the first regular series written by John Ostrander.  

By the way, did you know that Starslayer was almost published by DC?  It was one of a handful of not yet released titles, which also included The Vixen, scrapped by DC in 1978 as part of the mass cancellation of titles that has come to be known as "The DC Implosion."  
Given the importance of the book, as I noted above, for the talent and concepts that it helped to introduce, its interesting to speculate just how the history of comics, and independent comics particularly, might have been different had the "DC Implosion" not occurred.

Vote For Your Favorite In Gutter Talk's Mike Grell Poll

If you turn your gaze to your right, you'll notice something new in the sidebar.

Blogger.com has a feature that allows users to add a poll to their blogs, and I've been wanting to do one, but had yet to come up with a question worth asking.  

Over the past few days, though, I've been reading quite a few old comics written and mostly drawn by "Iron" Mike Grell.  My personal favorite work of his is Warlord, and now I'm giving you the opportunity to tell me what yours is.  Voting will be open until November 30.  

If you chose "Other," I'd appreciate it if you'd post a comment and tell me which Grell comic not listed here you prefer to the choices I've given you.  

(Those of you reading this at the Open Salon version of "Gutter Talk" click here to go to "Gutter Talk Prime" and take the poll.)