Free Comic Book Day is that special time of year when our nation’s hobby shops get stuck with the bill for tons of giveaways in the hopes of drumming up interest in print media. It’s the second-most wonderful time of the year, a good one for making recommendations — to prospective readers and movie studios alike.
Because Hollywood is relying increasingly on the comic book industry as a farm system for its forthcoming franchises, making trade paperbacks as essential as manuscripts to agents and execs looking for the next breakout hit. Here are five funnybooks ready for the big screen.
1. “Jupiter’s Legacy”/”Jupiter’s Circle”
At times breezy and at others shockingly graphic, the “Jupiter’s Legacy” series of books combines history and the current zeitgeist in the spirt of “Watchmen,” only less dense. Mark Millar offers a behind-the-scenes examination of superhero melodrama, exploring the cross-generational impacts of the super-powered life as the Golden Age gives way to the Information Age.
“Jupiter’s Legacy” chronicles the mysterious formation of hero team the Union and how its members gained their powers, juxtaposed with the team’s largely disaffected — but also super-powered — modern-day offspring and their consumption with celebrity. “Legacy’s” follow-up, “Jupiter’s Circle,” flashes back to each team member’s travails during their post-war adventures, covering extramarital strife, struggles with homosexuality (if you had Edgar J. Hoover in the gay pool, you’re a winner) and internal turmoil.
2. Evil Empire
This election cycle has gotten so damn loony, what was previously a hyperbolic story about perverted presidential power is now a conceivable dot on the political horizon. The world effectively burns when a polished, pedigreed candidate for the Oval Office in the neo-Kennedy mold turns out to be a nihilistic sociopath who successfully encourages citizens of the U.S. — and then the world — to forfeit all notion of civility or rectitude and go for self.
What ensues is a global orgy of rape, plunder and murder in the name of free choice told from the perspective of a politically conscious rapper-turned-revolutionary. Writer Max Bemis is as big on twists and outrageous scenarios as he is on culture references that fall just outside of pop, making this novel, thoughtful what-if tale about a world order predicated on the basest of human impulses a lot more fun than it should be, and a potential millennial moviegoing epic.
3. The Fix
Although this title currently has just one issue out so far, the early returns are incredibly encouraging. This story about crooked cops, mobsters and a dog named Pretzels is funny, sharp and outrageous, like “Preacher” writer Garth Ennis without all the jizz and juvenility — and it’s a lot cheaper to dramatize.
“The Fix” surprises in so many ways (there are five twists in issue No. 1 alone) that it would be a disservice to go into too much detail describing it. However, this line from publisher Image’s synopsis serves it well: “If you liked classic crime comics like ‘Criminal’ and ‘100 Bullets’ we apologize in advance for letting you down!”
4. “The Last Sons of America”
Clocking in at a tight four issues, this miniseries contains notes of “Children of Men” and “Y the Last Man,” envisioning an America unable to procreate after a biological terror attack strikes the mainland. The story focuses narrowly on the child trade that emerges when, like anything else in this country, reproduction gets outsourced, mostly to poorer countries where fertile citizens can use money more than kids.
Of course, it’s not that simple, with parents often having a change of heart and competing adoption agents cutting legal corners. The ensuing desperation gets a pair of agents in trouble when one of them kidnaps a child whose only English is “Star Wars” quotes — only to find out that she belongs to the kingpin of their Nicaraguan territory. The two eventually stumble upon the real truth about what terrible secret really powers his empire and how high up it reaches.
5. Copperhead
Two words: space Western. If that doesn’t arouse interest, perhaps the story of a sheriff and single mother who’s new to her and her son’s adopted home planet will. When Clara Bronson (nice touch, by the way) arrives in the rundown mining town of Copperhead where she’s been installed as the law, she’s immediately confronted by legions of alien hillbillies, a Boss Hogg-like space kingpin and a dangerous band of outlaws with a personal vendetta against the new sheriff.
It remains a mystery why Bronson has landed in this inhospitable planetary outback, and additional subplots include an inbred family of Slimer lookalikes and the specter of xenophobia left after the conclusion of a war between humans and the alien race of which Bronson’s resentful deputy sidekick is a member. “Copperhead’s” blend of Western and space fantasy tropes is crossover-audience catnip and the characterizations — especially Bronson’s — play to just about every prevailing trend in Hollywood right now.
