Heroes, Comic-Book and Real

KEVIN SMITH, who wrote and directed the comedy “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” took the red-eye from Los Angeles to New York last week for a party with big names — people he says he admires. Scorsese, Coppola and Spielberg? No, not that business, not those names. Mr. Smith owns a comic book store in Red Bank, N.J., and also writes for some.

“Guys like Neal Adams, who draws Green Arrow, are legends to me, just like Scorsese is a legend in the movie world,” Mr. Smith said before auctioning paintings from “Heroes,” Marvel’s book about police officers and firefighters on Sept. 11, at the party on Thursday night at Club 101 on Park Avenue. The money went to the Twin Towers Fund.

Mr. Smith’s original passion was comics, not movies. “I had to sell my original comic book collection to help finance `Clerks,’ ” he said, referring to his 1994 film, which laid the groundwork for a more recent animated television series. “I’m a huge Batman fan. I had to part with all my Batmans. And I had a Sandman statue. I really hated parting with all that.”

A few weeks ago, in a update on his plans for Green Arrow, writer Kevin Smith told us about a new villain he was creating for his final, three-part story arc (issues #13-15) for the DC series before he moved on to launch Marvel’s Black Cat.

Though declining to go into details about the new villain, Smith did tell his creation was featured on the cover of Green Arrow #13, and he called that, “the most astonishingly artistic comic book cover I’ve ever seen”.

Smith also let the artist responsible – series cover artist Matt Wagner – say all he was prepared to say at the time about the villain.

Said Wagner, “The concept was BOLD AND SIMPLE enough that the image just popped right up. In fact, I’m f*****g surprised that no one’s ever thought to call a character that before. Seems like a natural and the natural ideas are always the best.”

Well, that was then, today we know the character’s name is Onomatopoeia, and that he’s been hunting down non-super powered heroes, with so far great success.

For readers wondering, a browse through the dictionary reveals “onomatopoeia” is defined as,”the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss)”, or in other words, a concept comic book readers should be very familiar with.

Anyways, click on the image to open a preview first look image of the new villain. The original story on Smith’s Green Arrow and Black Cat plans follow…

When this past summer, DC and Kevin Smith announced his next project for DC would be a Brave and the Bold ongoing series with his entire Green Arrow creative team in tact – artists Phil Hester and Ande Parks and cover artist Matt Wagner – Smith speculated his Green Arrow run would end around issue #15. Last week the writer made it official, confirming for the record his and cover artist Matt Wagner’s last issue will indeed be #15.

As previously reported, issues #11 and #12 will be stand-alone stories, while issue #13-15 make up one final three-part story arc, featuring a new supervillain of Smith’s creation.

Smith declined to tell Newsarama anything specific about the villain, saying, “And ruin the surprise? Heavens no. But I’ll tell you what someone else said about him….

“Matt Wagner (who’s come up with just about the most astonishingly artistic comic book cover I’ve ever seen for issue #13) had this to say about the new villain in our recent email exchange about what the cover image featuring the villain should be…”

“And a cool character he is! Like I said, the concept was BOLD AND SIMPLE enough that the image just popped right up. In fact, I’m f*****g surprised that no one’s ever thought to call a character that before. Seems like a natural and the natural ideas are always the best.”

Smith did not know whether Hester and Parks would also be exiting with issue #15, and a spokesperson for DC was unable to confirm what their last issue would be either. As it turns out, there looks to be some downtime between the end of Smith’s Green Arrow run and his starting on Brave and the Bold, as the writer tells Newsarama the launch of his upcoming new Marvel ongoing series Black Cat (more on that in a moment) comes first, making a timetable for Brave and the Bold too early to say.

Back to Green Arrow, Smith told us he was not aware of his replacement being found by DC yet, and asked if he had any input in the selection process, Smith replied, “They haven’t asked yet, so I don’t imagine they’re going to.”

As to Black Cat, Smith informs us plans for that series have changed slightly as well since its was announced this past summer.

Originally the series was to be launched with a special Spider-Man/Black Cat one-shot leading into the new ongoing series, but as of this moment, that one-shot has been changed to a four-issue Spider-Man/Black Cat mini-series leading into the solo Black Cat ongoing series.

Smith said they’re gunning for a May debut of the mini-series – in time of course of the Spider-Man film – and describes the mini-series as “packed”.

“Aside from our main story, we’ve got something happening to Peter that’s going to rock his world and change all the books forever,” he teased.

Smith isn’t giving away too many details about the ongoing series either, saying just that it will be “darker and edgier” than people might expect, and although the series was recently described by a comics publication as dealing with the mystical/magical aspects of Felicia Hardy’s ‘bad luck’ powers, he said that is not accurate, and that the series will be more in the vein of his work in Daredevil, “at least moreso than Green Arrow was.”