Reporters in Comics!

[samurainoir]

I don't think it's coincidental that so many of our favourite superheroes have careers in journalism. It's a great device for getting a protagonist into situations involving Crime, Tragedy, Corruption or Natural Disasters that typify the adventures of the spandex heroes.

My favourite character in the pages of Daredevil has always been Ben Urich. Heroic because he always looks so decidedly UNheroic.. a slight man with glasses in a shirt and tie. AND HE FIGHTS CRIME WITH A KEYBOARD AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

And he's not a man without fear. He gets afraid often... and do you blame him?

Think about that moment in Born Again after the Kingpin's goon threatened to do horribly unspeakable things to him and his family if he even thought of the name "Matt Murdock". The one where he's cradling his cast and the newsroom is going nuts around him and the nurse murders the cop over the phone.


Then think of that moment on the park bench when he takes off his cast and utters "Matt Murdock"... proceeding to write the Kingpin expose for the Bugle.

I imagine that a great deal of Urich's emotional power in this book comes down to Mazzucchelli. Rereading Born Again recently, I was really struck by how expressionistic Urich was drawn compared to the natural realism in all the other figures and faces in the book (as in the page above).

I know many people wondered whatever happened to Mazzucchelli, which I take to mean "Why isn't he drawing Superhero Comics Anymore?", since Mazzucchelli has a wealth of indie graphic novels completed in the past two decades since Batman Year 1.

It was because of his personal beliefs that Violence was not a solution to problems and the fact that superheroes invariably fight problems with violence. And despite the awkward Nuke ending to Born Again to give Matt someone to punchh, notice it was actually URICH who stopped the Kingpin with Journalism.


I also just realized, despite the unevenness of the various series, Ben Urich has been the star/co-star of his own de-Facto ongoing series for half a decade now! Starting with taking down Norman Osborn in The Pulse, through all the various Frontline minis running through all the major events starting with House of M.

[samurainoir]

One of the most underrated series ever put out by Marvel.


Street Level, character driven stories that would not be out of place as an evening one hour prime time drama. One of the few times they have really explored J Jonah Jameson and Betty Brant outside the confines of Spiderman (although Peter does have a small role).

As far as I can remember, one of the only times Marvel has done a Black and White (not magazine) comic book. Which I'll assume was a creative choice given the fact that this was the era past four color newsprint.

I always hated whenever Jonah fell back into his typical blustering stereotype after this. I kind of wished Betty would have joined Urich over at Front Line. She really is an underused character with a great deal of history to draw on.

[Meule]

Here's another journalist