Friday Favorites: Comics and Music

Welcome to the first edition of NerdSpan’s Friday Favorites, a weekly list of some of our favorite things featuring NerdSpan writers and special guests.

Long before I wrote about comic books I was writing about music, so it seemed natural to kick this series off by combining the two. We see music crossover into comics all the time. A couple examples just off the top of my head include Nine Inch Nails lyrics in David Mack’s first Kabuki graphic novel and some musical reference in every volume of Scott Pilgrim.

What about the reverse? Here are my five favorite comic book crossovers in music.

5. Paul McCartney & Wings- Magneto and Titanium Man

Did you know Paul McCartney was a comic book fan? He was such a fan in his younger days he wrote a song titled “Magneto and Titanium Man.”

This wasn’t the first time a Beatle referenced comics in a song. Captain Marvel made a guest appearance in John Lennon’s “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” from The Beatles’ White Album.

“Magneto and Titanium Man” isn’t a well-known Wings’ song. It was originally a B-side for “Venus and Mars/ Rock Show” and later appeared on the Wings Across America live album. But it’s obscurity only enhances its cool factor. It’s Paul McCartney! And Magneto! (And also the Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo—but McCartney! Magneto!).

Oh, and that image projected over the band? Exclusive Jack Kirby artwork produced just for the song performance during the tour.

4. Sufjan Stevens-The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

Sufjan Stevens once claimed he would record an album about each of the 50 states. Ok, he only made it through Michigan and Illinois before giving up on the project, but those two albums produced enough solid material to forgive him for falling 48 states short of his goal.

Included in the massive tracklisting for Illinois was the Superman ode “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts.” Metropolis, Illinois, proclaims itself the hometown of Superman. The city is home to a Superman museum, a giant statue of the man of steel, and plenty of super-kitsch.

In this video clip, Stevens’ massive backing band kicks the song off with a sampling of John Williams’ classic Superman theme song as Stevens throws inflatable Supermen over his audience.

3. The Crow and Tank Girl soundtracks

There was a time in the 1990s when a movie soundtrack could draw as much anticipation as the film itself. And comic book inspired productions brought along some of the best soundtracks.

The soundtrack to 1994’s The Crow was a dark masterpiece that reached number one on the Billboard charts and offered a collection of bleak alternative favorites. The Cure kicked things off with “Burn,” Nine Inch Nails covered Joy Division’s “Dead Souls”, Henry Rollins covered Suicide’s “Ghost Rider”—an homage to Marvel’s burning skull biker. The music enhanced the vengeful mood of James O’Barr’s comics and the film.

A year later brought Tank Girl, another anticipated alt-heavy soundtrack. Tank Girl contrasted heavily with The Crow, full of punk attitude and up-tempo alterna-pop. The album featured songs from Bjork, Hole, Veruca Salt, Devo, Portishead, and Joan Jett and Paul Westerberg.

Bjork’s hit “Army of Me” kicked off the album, but Devo got the film’s opening credits:

And speaking of soundtracks, we can’t leave out…

2. Batman

Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has eclipsed those early films that began in 1989 with Tim Burton’s Batman. One thing those films had that Nolan’s trilogy didn’t? Really good rock music.

Ok, Prince isn’t exactly my taste in music, but there was a “Batdance” craze when the first film came out. Batman Returns was sparse in terms of a soundtrack, but its lone offering–Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Face to Face”– fit the film’s tone much better than any of Prince’s music did in the original film. Plus the track, co-written with Danny Elfman, remains one of goth punkers best (and last great) songs.

I’ve never seen the next two installments of the 90s Batman franchise. But this isn’t about the movies, it’s about music. And the soundtrack to 1995’s Batman Forever had me drooling. You had one of my all-time favorites in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds! PJ Harvey! Mazzy Star! And this wonderful Zoo TV era leftover from U2 that even guest starred Bono’s stage persona Mephisto.

By the time Batman and Robin arrived in 1997, alt-rock had fizzled out, but the Smashing Pumpkins were still powerful, as proved by their offerings to the film’s soundtrack—”The End is the Beginning is the End”, which won a Grammy, and “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”, which found a nice home a decade later in the Watchmen trailer.

1. Tori Amos and Neil Gaiman

If you are a Tori Amos fan or a Neil Gaiman fan you probably know the backstory here. The two gave their own versions of their meeting in this 1999 article. But just in case you don’t know how it started, here’s a brief recap:

Tori was living in LA in 1990 and often had an art student friend stay with her. One time when this friend left, his copy of The Sandman: The Doll’s House stayed behind. Tori read it, liked it, and made reference to Gaiman and the Sandman in a song called “Tear in Your Hand.” A year later, Tori’s friend attended a convention and met Gaiman. He’d brought along a demo tape that included “Tear in Your Hand” on it. He also took the liberty of writing Tori’s phone number on the tape. Tori was living in London by then, and one day received a call from Gaiman who complimented her on the songs and said he hoped she would continue with music, not knowing the demo tape songs were being released as Tori’s first album, Little Earthquakes, in only a couple of weeks. A friendship blossomed that has continued to this day.

Tori is famous from dropping Gaiman references in her songs. In “Space Dog,” Tori sings, “Seems I keep getting this story twisted/ so where’s Neil when you need him” and in “Carbon” Tori says, “Get me Neil on the line/ No, I can’t hold/ Have him read ‘Snow Glass Apples’ where nothing is what it seems”. She also write the introduction to Gaiman’s comic, Death: The High Cost of Living.

In turn, Gaiman has written short stories that have appeared in Tori’s concert programs. You can find Amos’ lyrics floating through The Sandman, a Tori poster hanging on Rose Walker’s wall, and he said that while his character Delirium was created before he met Tori, “they steal shamelessly from each other.” In Tori’s song “Horses” she sang “…if Neil makes me a tree…” and Gaiman eventually did in Stardust.

Perhaps it’s best to close out the first edition of Friday Favorites with the song that started the friendship: “Tear in Your Hand.”

So what are your favorites?

Next week: A back to school edition of Friday Favorites.

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