Ultraheroes: Attack of the Hilariously Stupid Footnotes

Well, as you probably know by now, it looks very much as though Boom has lost its license for classic Disney titles--either that, or it's canceling them for some other reason. The evidence: their list of July comics includes the Disney Afternoon lines but not the classics, you can no longer purchase classic subscriptions from their website, and nobody from Boom is willing to comment on the situation in any way. I could believe that those first two were just misunderstandings, but the third one is really damning--Boom flacks had previously never been shy about defending their work on the Disney Comics Forum, so their silence here speaks volumes.

Obviously, this is heartbreaking, given that they were just getting into the swing of things. Given the modern history of Disney licensing, I guess I always thought in the back of my mind that Boom would have an expiration date, but I sure didn't think it would come so soon. Goddammit, I at least wanted them to get through the backlog of unpublished-in-the-US Van Horn stories. I don't know any details at this point, of course, so I'm not necessarily saying that they should take the blame for it, but I will say this: their refusal to clarify the situation really fucking pisses me off. This, Boom people, is bullshit. The utter lack of respect for your long-suffering readers is palapable. I assume that this radio silence is the work of executive types; it would almost certainly be wrong to blame the editorial staff, who are probably just as upset as I am about this turn of events--but someone is being a real heel here.

So let's take this opportunity to ridicule the horribly misbegotten "superhero" title that the company thought--insanely--would be a good initial way to draw in readers.

With this series, Boom's editors clearly took the position that these books were intended for children who were totally unfamiliar with Disney comics, and to that end, they included...footnotes. And, okay, a few of them are fair enough--a brief note that Eega Beeva is from the future, fine--although even this is wildly inconsistent; is any kid who doesn't know Eega Beeva gonna know Emil Eagle? Or the Phantom Blot, for that matter? And yet, those guys go entirely unremarked.

But a lot of them are just insultingly stupid, as in:



Thanks, Super Aaron--nobody would have guessed that Super Daisy was Daisy's super identity! God knows WHAT they would've thought if you hadn't swooped in with the save! Incidentally, note that Donald's superhero alter-ego and hers start falling for each other without knowing who they are in their everyday lives. And note that Daisy's alter-ego is Super Daisy. "Gee, I wonder why Clark Kent and Super Clark Kent have never been photographed together?"



He may SAY that he gets his powers from peanuts. He may be SHOWN eating a peanut. But we wouldn't quite be able to say for sure what was going on here if good ol' Goober Aaron hadn't clarified.



Either Chris has a really, really low opinion of his readers' ability to recognize irony, or he just HATES the Phantom Blot SO FUCKING MUCH that he feels the need to spell this out so no one--NO ONE, YOU HEAR?--misses it.



Gee, Aaron, thanks for that--are you from Paris, mister?



HEY! Where's the footnote for "insouciant?!?" Dammit, Carl, stop respecting your readers' intelligence! It's not the Disney Comics Way!



You know, when I was small, reading my dad's old comics, I didn't need heavy-handed editorial guidance--I figured shit out as I read. It wasn't that complicated! I don't remember specifically the first story I read with Gladstone, but I'm pretty sure that I understood that he had special luck pretty much as soon as I saw him displaying special luck. But kids these days...well, they ain't that bright. Or so Boom figured.



This one's just brilliant. Please note that a google search for "The Confederation of Outside-da-Law" will turn up nothing (well, except this blog post now). That's because it refers to an obscure Brazilian story from the seventies that, outside of Brazil, has only ever been published in France and Italy. This is the first time that that English title has ever been used by anyone. The footnote's entirely useless in directing readers to the story if they were of a mind to read it. So why include it at all? I can only assume it's part of a desperate attempt to convince readers that this "Ultraheroes" business isn't just a painfully gimmicky flash-in-the-pan thing, but that it's a long-established franchise with a rich and varied back-story. Mission...not accomplished, guys.

All of this is indicative, I think, of the fact that Ultraheroes--and the US release thereof in particular--is just a horrifically misbegotten train wreck. The story itself is deeply uninteresting, and the editorial assumptions and decisions behind its US appearance paint a clear picture of a group of people who haven't got the remotest clue what they're doing or who they're trying to reach. Its "companion" release, Wizards of Mickey, actually isn't too bad--it's certainly gimmicky in its own right, and it's not exactly a masterpiece of plotting, but it's generally readable and entertaining for what it is. Whereas Ultraheroes is just a dismal slog from beginning to end.