World Enough and Time

Bowe Cleveland was one of the kids shot in one of the recent schools shootings - and what a hearbreaking phrase that is. Shot in the chest and abdomen, he is being slowly awakened from an induced coma. He was a Spider-Man fan. Stan Lee sent him a video-taped message, which you can see on Comic Book Resources.

The comments are interesting, especially the comparison of Bowe to Flash Thompson - a character who has become one of Marvel's more interesting people. Others sound as if they are blaming the victim.

In any case... hooray for Stan Lee.

I just came across this story online: George R.R. Martin wants to write Doctor Strange.

Wow. I'd love to see what he made of it. Doctor Strange has long been a favourite of mine - but he has suffered from some uninspired writing over the years, and the latest disappointments have been the totally uninspired Doctor Strange, Season One by Greg Pak and Emma Rios, and The Defenders by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson.

The Fraction/Dodson Defenders looked good. Dodson's art was lovely. And Fraction, who is the best writer at Marvel, had an excellent first issue that went nowhere. That devolved into a fairly dull and incoherent story which had me thinking, "Isn't anything happening yet?" It isn't that he didn't have great characters - Doctor Strange, Danny Rand, Betty Ross - I love them. I loved the way they present Strange's spells. So what happened to the derailed plot?

Seems to me it's long since time for Doctor Strange to become Sorceror Supreme again.

Martin can certainly write grabby and edgy stories, and he has a good touch with magic.

Meanwhile the latest news from Stan Lee is that there will be a Doctor Strange movie. There was one, once. It was ignominiously bad. The idea is that there will be another one. George R.R. Martin could write it. Why not? He's had plenty of screenwriting experience, he loves the character, and he understands comics.

I don't think it will happen. But I can wish.