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AICN COMICS REVIEWS THE THING! GREEN LANTERN! INDIE JONES! Q & @ WITH THE NEW RADIO'S ALEX CAHILL! AND MUCH MORE!!
#48 | 3/29/06 | align=right> #4 |
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ESSENTIAL NOVA VOL.1
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #3
THE THING #5
GREEN LANTERN #10
FANTASTIC FOUR #536
CAPTAIN AMERICA 65TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL NO. 1
Big Eyes for the Cape Guy presents TRAMPS LIKE US
Big Eyes for the Cape Guy presents BATTLE ROYALE Vol. 15
Indie Jones presents SUPER REAL #2
Indie Jones presents TOUPYDOOPS #1
Indie Jones presents HYPER-ACTIVES #1
Indie Jones presents…
CHEAP SHOTS!
Q & @ with The New Radio’s Alex Cahill
ESSENTIAL NOVA VOL. 1
Written by Marv Wolfman, Len Wein
Art by John Buscema, Sal Buscema, Carmine Infantino
Published by Marvel
Reviewed by Buzz Maverik
There's a demon who lives for comic books. His home is at the Local Comic Shop. They call him The Fanboy. They said that whoever challenged the demon would die. Their maturity would buffet wildly and their brains would disintegrate. Then, they built AICN Comics and men came to Austin-Deep In The Heart O' Texas-to review for it. They were called @$$holes, and no one knew their names...
Think about the first comic book series, featuring an original character, that you started reading when it first came out. I'm not talking about relaunches or teams of pre-existing characters. I'm talking about new characters, in new books, that you started with one issue one.
For some of you, these may be very recent books. For others, we may go back to some of the great icons. I'm sure the answers will be surprising either way.
Marv Wolfman's THE MAN CALLED NOVA may not have been the first comic that I got in on the ground floor of. I know I was reading Steve Gerber's OMEGA THE UNKNOWN, a book to which NOVA was very much a reaction (not an indictment or anything negative, though). But NOVA was a key book for me in many ways. I was a kid. I started with the first issue. I enjoyed the book. The protagonist, Richard Rider, was a little bit like a real person and I was able to ignore the ways that he wasn't.
Even in the late 1970s, we were starting to hear: "Today's comics and their characters aren't like they were ten or fifteen years ago." In the original NOVA lettercol, Wolfman cited the relative realism of modern Marvel comics, particularly OMEGA and MASTER OF KUNG FU, as an inspiration to do an old fashioned book that was similar in tone to Ditko era Spider-Man. With stalwart artist John Buscema, doing some of his best work of the Me-Decade, he created Rich Rider, a high school kid who was struck by a beam from space and given the alien powers of Nova.
The tone was somewhat funny, at first almost like an Archie comic. Rich/Nova lived in the '70s, the Marvel Universe of that time, but his life, supporting cast, and problems seemed out of the Kennedy era. He even hung out at a malt shop called Uncle Fudges. I never saw a malt shop in the '70s. We hung out behind a convenience store or in each other's garages or at the park until the cops chased us off. Later, I realized that with the focus on Rich's underachievement in sports and academics, we were seeing a preview of the '80s, with his high school rival, Mike Burley, as the buff, valedictory poster boy for the Reagan era. In the one touchy-feely true '70s scene, Rich wanders in late to his psychology class. The class has to sit on the floor. The teacher urges the kids to share what they like least about their classmates. Rich demurs, but Burley launches into a pitiful tirade about how everyone hates him because he achieves and how his parents expect so much from him but no one expects anything from guys like Rich.
Rich was a slacker before the term was even commonly used. He was Peter Parker with longer hair and a lack of brains (and a cute girlfriend named Ginger, whose reasons for dating Rich I could never understand. C'mon, the guy had no self confidence). This being the 70s, you wonder about pot. It was never mentioned or implied, but I imagined Rich passing a bong around with his pals Caps and Bernie. Likewise, you won't see a STAR WARS or Zeppelin poster. You have to imagine those. Anything real about the era seems almost accidental. Rich's pal Caps is kidnapped by his uncle, who has been turned into a monster called Mega Man. Nova rescues Caps, of course, but we never see Caps' parents. They are absent and their absence is not noted. I don't think we even used the word "latchkey" then, anyway.
One of the most wonderful elements of the book was the gallery of new rogues that Wolfman and his artists, primarily the Buscema brothers, invented. We got a new hero and new villains. Condor. Powerhouse. Diamond Head. And best of all, the Sphinx. All visually interesting, with simple yet interesting objectives. Nova fought them for no good reason, simply because that's what guys with super powers did. And he clearly got his ass kicked every single time. It was great.
I have no idea whether NOVA was ever a top seller or not. It was canceled with issue # 25. I can tell you my own reasons for my enthusiasm failing at the time. The Buscemas were doing some of their best work, which completely served the character, tone and story. For some reason, they left the book. Silver Age legend Carmine Infantino was brought in. Mr. Infantino had been a big cheese at DC, was instrumental in FLASH, MARTIAN MANHUNTER, GREEN LANTERN, etc. of that era. In my opinion, he was a better artist than either Buscema, far more interesting. The book looked better, sharper, edgier, cooler...which was all wrong for it. Mr. Wolfman was still writing, but the look affected the stories for me. Somehow, better art was worse art. If I felt that way, maybe others did too. In this day of writer-driven (often driven to death) comics, it's hard to imagine the impact that art can have on one's perception of a concept...but I think that's what did it.
Having got in on the premiere of the character, I have to say that I've never been too comfortable with any of his revivals. THE NEW WARRIORS. His solo book by Erik Larsen. Whatever's going on currently, ANNIHILATION or whatever I'm not reading. I mean, early INVINCIBLE was the closest to true early NOVA which was supposed to echo early AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #3
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Frank Quitely
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Prof. Challenger
"[S]omewhere in some Platonic space, [there] is an ideal form of the character, and all that is important is that you be as faithful as possible to that idealized form…I put forward as a possibility, that in some ways there is some ideal form, some ideal Platonic form of these characters, existing somewhere in the reaches of the human mind, and that it's the writer's job to try and not so much invent the characters as it is to intuit them…It's working from the belief that there is a perfect realization of that character somewhere there, and that if you are just patient enough or dig deeply enough you will be able to unearth it and present it to your readers intact."
-- Alan Moore (interviewed by Jess Nevins in A BLAZING WORLD: THE UNOFFICIAL COMPANION TO THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOLUME TWO)
I find it hard to put into words how fantastic this series is. The best sum up is in that quote above by Alan Moore about how a writer should take a pre-existing character and write him or her in their idealized form. Morrison pulls in elements from all eras of Superman. I noticed in this issue that he brought back Steve Lombard, the loveable lunkhead of a Sportscaster who used to pick on Clark back in the 70s. Rather than a generic-looking 70s sportscaster for Galaxy Communications, he's a burly moustached ex-jock sportswriter for the Planet. Cat Grant, from the post-CRISIS era, is there. And then Morrison throws us all for a loop by pulling in an old standby from the silly-cover era of SUPERMAN comics; the old other strong guys trying to steal Lois from him storyline. Just as silly as it was decades ago, and just as much fun as "Samson" and "Atlas" show up to compete with Superman for the love of Lois.
Under any other writer, this would come off as either self-deprecating or campy retro. Under Morrison, it just seems like Superman the way Superman is supposed to be. He even has the annoying Samson and Atlas finally push Superman's buttons so far that he sits them down to reenact scenes from ROADHOUSE. I loved that whole scene.
Morrison balances this type of silliness with a deadly serious threat to Lois' life from the Ultra-Sphinx and tops it all off with a romantic full-pager of Superman and Lois kissing on the surface of the moon. All of this in the context of a celebration for Lois' birthday and Superman's gift to her of allowing her to become Superwoman for a day.
Frank Quitely's art has improved. When I reviewed the first issue, I made a comment about his penchant for sticking Superman with an ugly face. His Superman has none of those problems anymore. He looks appropriately Roman-esque and youthful but powerful and experienced. His Lois is young, sexy, and self-confident. Her comment about being grateful about losing her powers because she'll "never have to put up with the annoying zee zee zee of Jimmy Olsen's Super-Watch as long as I live" was laugh-inducing. I also enjoyed how she just will not accept that Clark and Superman are the same person…that this was just another one of Superman's silly little pranks on her. Read through that SHOWCASE PRESENTS…SUPERMAN and tell me if that isn't a spot-on point of view. This really is the Platonic idealized perfectly realized version of the character.
I really cannot get enough of this stuff. It would not hurt my feelings at all for DC to just dump the One Year Later Superman stuff and start the whole line over from scratch with this book as the template. It's that good.
THE THING #4
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Andrea DiVito
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Sleazy G
Of all of Stan Lee’s earliest creations at Marvel, I’ve long felt Ben Grimm was one of his most inspired. The Thing is a very nearly perfect character. He’s got the superstrength and invulnerability, sure, but that’s not terribly interesting in and of itself. No, his real strength is in the amount of depth crammed into the big guy. A former street tough but with a good heart, a guy who looks out for his friends and family, a guy with a sadness and loneliness few can really understand but who copes with it all with a sense of humor, a guy who does the right thing no matter the consequences to himself…now that’s a character worth reading about. Wrap him up in that iconic Jack Kirby character design and it’s hard to go wrong.
Which is why it’s sad that this title is struggling only five months in to its run. Dan Slott is really giving this book his all, folks. We’ve got one of the great Marvel characters here, and Slott is really doing him justice. The series springboards off the recent storyline in FANTASTIC FOUR that made Ben a fat cat. Anybody who knows Ben, though, realizes that the old “mo’ money, mo’ problems” adage is going to apply, and does it ever. He’s been dating a gorgeous movie star who doesn’t really understand him or care about him, he’s been trapped on an island full of people he needed to save from the carnival-based villain Arcade, and he’s been struggling with his feelings for old girlfriend Alicia, wondering if he didn’t miss out on his one chance at true happiness. In issue #5 he goes back to the old neighborhood and finds his reception on Yancy Street even colder than usual. His old gang respects him even less now that he’s got money, a shop owner he had ripped off as a kid doesn’t cut him any slack for being a rich superhero, and he’s getting pushback from the mob for building a youth center without their crews.
There are a lot of familiar elements here for long-time readers—Alicia, the Yancy Street Gang, Ben’s past as a ne’er-do-well—but they’re all told in a manner that is completely accessible to new readers: a few panels are all it takes to figure out what’s going on. Still, this stuff could all come off as dull or feel like a retread of what had come before if Slott wasn’t doing such a fantastic job. The saving grace for this book can be summed up in one word: heart. Slott manages to give this book a lotta heart, which is a pretty rare quality in comics these days. The reader can feel everything Ben is going through: whether Ben is just being mopey, or he’s had a good laugh, or he finally realizes what an old opponent-turned-friend is trying to tell him, there’s a genuine connection to the characters. That heart can be found in the lesser characters, too, though, and seeing old Mr. Scheckerberg or the local blue-collar guys from the neighborhood putting Ben in his place and reminding him of where he came from is a great touch. Having Ben realize there’s more than one way to make a difference and then deciding to put his money to better use just feels right, the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from Benjy. It manages to keep The Thing grounded and relatable instead of just another powerhouse knocking around the bad guy of the month. Not that the bad guys of the month aren’t there, mind you--throw in a couple of classic Thing villains like Paste Pot Pete (danged if I’ll call him The Trapster) and Sandman at the end and you’ve got a fine lead-in to the next issue.
This title is one of those rare books that made me actually care about what was going on and why, that made me feel things for the characters I was reading about instead of just being entertaining. The fact that it’s a book that actually has a moral and teaches the characters something new also distinguishes it from a lot of what’s out there right now. Andrea DiVito’s turning in amazing work as well: a guy with a face made of orange rocks isn’t the easiest to pull emotions out of, but whether Ben is hunched over feeling miserable in the rain or wiping a tear of laughter out of his eyes the art always manages to perfectly convey what Ben is going through. It’s some of the most expressive body language I’ve ever seen used on The Thing, and it works wonders for the characterization.
As I mentioned earlier, this book is suffering from low sales. That’s a damned shame, because we’re talking about a book that has everything: action, humor, pathos, and fun. It’s well written and beautifully drawn and accessible to new readers, and it’s already struggling to survive. It bucks the trend of massive crossovers, so you can read it without having to pick up anything else to know what’s going on. It’s got heart and a creative team that really wants to keep working on this series. Like RUNAWAYS before it, though, it’s a title that really needs a lot of fans to rally around it if it’s going to last much longer. I know a lot of you have said you tried books you ordinarily might have overlooked after reading a review here. Well, I’m telling you right now, this is one of those books. It’s one of the best new series I’ve seen out of Marvel in a very long time, and I can’t urge you all strongly enough to check it out. Give issue #5 a chance: it’s the first issue of a new storyline, and I honestly think you’re going to love it as much as I did.
GREEN LANTERN #10
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Ivan Reis (pencils)/Marc Campos (inks)
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Prof. Challenger
This was an interesting week concerning this comic book. I bought it, sat down at a pizza buffet, and read it. And, of course, as usual for this series, I liked it. But then a funny thing happened. I kept bumping into fellow comic fans who hated it and were vocal about it. Perplexed, I engaged in a fictional dialogue with an amalgam of all those purveyors of negativity and this individual posts anonymously online, no he doesn't, by the name of "Lockjaw." Here's the transcript of my back and forth with Lockjaw for your consideration.
Prof: What's NOT to love about this comic? The team of Reis and Campos produce artwork that evokes Neal Adams in his prime without being a slavish imitation. There's a team of Rocket Reds trying to take down a pissed off GL, a mysterious creepy new villain calling himself Igneous Man, Sinestro recruiting for a villainous Sinestro Corps. Throw in the fact that Hal gets a little one-nighter action, Green Arrow shows up, and plenty of teases about the past year. What's not to love?
Lockjaw: meh. This comic was more of a fanboy circle jerk than I thought was humanly possible. You got a lame group of heroes brought out of mothballs to fight with Hal. Fight ends with a flashback rather than an actual conclusion to the confrontation. Then they flash forward to bore us to death with talking heads debating super-hero politics. Total snoozer for me and the womanizing bit with Hal was just….damn creepy. Middle-aged man cruising bars scamming for chicks to bang? Brrrrr. At first I thought maybe they'd just de-aged the guy but then they had middle-aged Green Arrow show up and remind Hal of the old days. Reminds me of that friend of everyone's dad (or everyone's creepy uncle) who never got over being 25.
Prof: Well, I don't think the fact that Green Arrow is an old fart means that Hal is an old fart. I suspect that they intend there to be about a 10-year difference in their ages. They can still have a shared history but it doesn't mean they're the same age.
Lockjaw: Whuddevver. See, this whole series is pretty much what I dreaded when I found out they were bringing Hal back. Johns just can't let go of all that past Continuity. Nearly a year in and Jordan's still "atoning" for his sins…which weren't even his fault anymore now that we have "the devil made me do it" deus ex machina known as Parallax to blame it all on.
Prof: See, I'm confused by that position. All the acclaim that Johns has had over the past few years, and ultimately what led to his role in CRISIS, is that he's the number one guy to go to when attempting to incorporate past continuity into current legacy-oriented series like JSA and STARS AND STRIPE. GL is a legacy title as well with about 40 years of convoluted continuity. Seems like a waste to throw it all away if incorporation can be done in an exciting and relevant way. Not sure why the winds of fandom have turned on Johns right now.
Lockjaw: Well, one good thing has been the fact that they don't have him sharing the book with a bunch of other Lanterns. But it looks like DC's gone nuts again and is restarting the whole GL franchise again and I suspect that GL fatigue will set in soon once again. I doubt that 3 years from now there will still be a GL comic sharing the stands with GL CORPS and ION.
Prof: Well, ION is supposedly a limited series.
Lockjaw: Whuddevver. And GAH! Johns just loves those lame old GL villains. Black Hand? Killer Shark? Herman Head or whateverisnameis? And even that skinny guy in the stupid costume and the stupid name…Sinestro? All these moldy-oldies running around are sucking this comic down a black hole. Then they go and dredge up one of those bird-faced GL's for the big last page "shocker." And don't get me started on that face-sucking plant story. Where's my beer?
Prof: We are totally on a different wavelength here. I think all those old-school villains have been utilized pretty well by Johns. I hope he keeps bringing them into the series, so long as he also takes time to bring in new stuff as well. I personally think the idea of Sinestro recruiting aliens who have the ability to instill great fear for an anti-Green Lantern Corps is simplistically brilliant and I can't believe nobody's done it before. Also, Johns is a master at throwing out that fishing line just enough to hook me. The teases about what has happened over the past year were just tantalizing enough to keep me tuning in. I want to find out what happened to Hal and "Cowgirl" and what that cryptic line "Last year when the skies turned red and our world cracked in two" actually means. Does it mean that post-CRISIS leaves us with a two-tiered multiverse? Inquiring minds want to know.
Lockjaw: If Johns is going to be "Captain Yesterday" in everything he does then I'm out. I suspect that on GL he's suffering from "Dream Project Syndrome" (the same thing that killed Busiek's IRON MAN and Byrne's DOOM PATROL series). Even his updates of older villains have the taint of pandering that turns them all into psychotic murder-happy maniacs. I wouldn't expect you old-schoolers to be digging on that. And anyway, why are you even paying any attention to what I say? I'm just a jaded knuckle-dragger who doesn't like anything unless it's written by Bendis or Ellis and deconstructs the heroes of your youth. Heh.
Prof: Because, even though you're completely wrong about everything, your voice is loud and listened to by the publishers. GL #10 was a quality comic through and through. I love how Johns has taken the whole GL Corps as a police force idea and just gone with it. Hal Jordan sees himself as "a cop" and John Stewart is on an "undercover assignment." I really dig all that. I'm also intrigued by Johns' One Year Later set-up where Green Lantern is not welcome in a number of countries, like Russia. For a cop who's precinct is this sector of the galaxy, that has got to be incredibly frustrating for him. This comic had character development, huge action sequences, teases about the last year, teases about the future, and dynamic artwork. As I said at the beginning: What's not to love?
Lockjaw: Whuddevver.
FANTASTIC FOUR #536
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Penciler: Mike McKone
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewed by Humphrey Lee
As if we needed a reminder, this week in comics comes along and goes ahead and reminds us that the CIVIL WAR is upon us. Alongside NEW AVENGERS: THE ILLUMINATI that's pretty much the setup issue, we get this little ditty that shows a little peripheral insight into the ILLUMINATI but also starts an event that apparently plays a role in the overall story of it. Or so one would assume. But then again, when does a tie-in really have to be a tie-in instead of just a grab for a quick sales increase these days?
Anyways, back to the issue at hand. It's not a terrible issue, per se, but really, it doesn't develop well at all. When you spend an entire comic building up anticipation to the last page, and that last page is pretty much just the cover of the book, well then that kinda takes most of the “thunder” out of the build up now, doesn't it? And to add a little bit more ad nauseam to the events inside this book the CIVIL WAR "building" that supposedly make this book a tie-in to Marvel's latest event are about a page or two of Reed Richards having a late night discussion over the proposed Superhero Registration Act that is the kick-off of this latest conflict. Oh, and a page ripped directly out of the ILLUMINATI issue and inserted in between moments as a flashback moment. There's the ad nauseam I was talking about. But there isn't enough time to talk about the bill as the FF have to make their way to Oklahoma where an army of Doombots are attacking a U.S. science installation of some kind. Why are they attacking it? Well, that's because somehow Dr. Doom is back, silly. And what's so important there that Doom would want? Well, let's just go back to that cover...
So, okay, the overall story progression is pretty weak, but what saves this issue? Well, for one thing, even when telling a weak story JMS still does it with sound characterization for the main characters. Even during some pretty bad spots on his AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run (*coughGwenboinkingGoblincough*) I couldn't dispute that he's at least had a good feel for the "voice" of Peter Parker throughout. And that rings true here. At the very least he has a good groundwork for the team as the whole "First Family" of the Marvel Universe. Reed and Sue's interaction as a loving albeit rather unusual married couple always comes through as genuine, much like the Thing's and Human Torch's rather angry "brotherhood". There's definitely some pretty funny moments that come up as these two interact throughout the book. And the second thing that at least stops this book from being a total wash is Mike McKone's art. Some of my very favorite superhero art of the past few years has come from his pencils and his run on this title is no exception. His panel to panel dynamic is top notch, as is his detail in both the action sequences and more dialogue driven moments. If there's a reason to stick with this book, McKone is definitely a great one.
But despite the positives I just listed towards this title, I don't think the overall storytelling has been very strong up to this point. The opening arc to JMS' run was a little bit in the "out there" department as we saw Reed Richards apparently traveling back so far in time as to witness the Big Bang... yea. But the Hulk arc that preceded this was pretty solid (and was also a bit of a CIVIL WAR lead-in as it was apparently the final straw that caused the ILLUMINATI to do what they did to Banner). And like I said before, this story seems to be off to a bit of a weak start. Most of the tie-in stuff was rehash, and honestly, I think this is what? The third time Doom has tried to get Thor's Hammer? Now, obviously I'm genuinely interested to see how Doom has made his "triumphant return" but that's kind of bad when his umpteenth re-emergence is more interesting that the story going on around it. I'll stick around for the payoff though. Call me hopeful. I'm hoping that CIVIL WAR can end up becoming a bit of a shot in the arm for this book, as well as the Marvel line, but so far it's been more of a stifled yawn.
CAPTAIN AMERICA 65TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL NO. 1
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Javier Pulido & Marcos Martin (with epilogue art by Mike Perkins & Frank D'armata)
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Prof. Challenger
For some reason, picking up this comic made me flash back 25 years to CAPTAIN AMERICA #255, the "Special 40th Anniversary Issue" by Roger Stern and John Byrne. So, I dug through my garage stash and pulled out that issue that "Marvel Comics Group Proudly" presented back in early 1981. Graced by a most excellent cover by Frank Miller and Joe Rubenstein depicting Cap and Bucky heroically posed behind Frank's boldly exciting recreation of the iconic image of CAPTAIN AMERICA #1 with Cap delivering a roundhouse right to the jaw of Adolf Hitler. All superimposed over an aged parchment background, the cover promised "Thrills! Chills! And More!" and "See Cap's Very 1st Adventure!"
It delivered on its claims with what Roger Stern called the "definitive life story of Captain America." It's a timeless retelling of Cap's origins, an untold first adventure, and how he came to be a part of "modern" America. Reproduced directly from Byrne's pencils (except for a modern-day one-page epilogue inked by regular inker Rubenstein), the book was a special among specials for the time. It may have even been one of the first times I can recall that a Byrne comic attempted to unnecessarily try to explain in-continuity simple evolutions in artistic decisions (such as the reasons why Cap originally had a different-shaped shield or why his costume was changed from his original where the mask left his neck bare). In the context of the times, though, those little tidbits were novel and eaten up by the fans. Top this issue off with a most-excellent Hostess Ding-Dongs (or King Dons if you live in bass-ackward locations of this wonderful country) ad starring the Human Torch vs. an unknown villainess wielding a supersonic hair dryer (Madame Blow Job maybe?) It also features what appears to be stylin' art by Sal Buscema and Joe Sinnott.
So, how does this newest anniversary special stack up? It has a cover (no cover credits that I could find) also featuring Cap and Bucky heroically poised in front of an aged-parchment background, this time all photoshoppy and featuring an image of the Declaration of Independence and soldiers from various war-periods in American history. Whereas the earlier comic used dramatic action to offset the posed figures, this cover is all about static imagery and muted earth tones. It may evoke nostalgia but it's not as eye-catching as the earlier comic with its bright reds, yellows and blues.
This special also tells an untold tale of Cap and Bucky, this time from near the end of the war rather than the early years. As with the last year of the regular CAPTAIN AMERICA series, this issue is focused heavily on Bucky (nineteen years old here). No shying away from the realities of war, early in this story Bucky is shown running around with a gun in one hand and dropping a grenade into a jeep full of Ratzis while taking a bullet in the chest. Cap carries Bucky five miles on foot in less than five minutes to a secret Allied safehouse of an older German doctor and his young, beautiful daughter Gretchen. Parallel storytelling kicks in at this point. Story one covers Cap and Sgt. Fury and their hunt for the Red Skull and this old castle that supposedly houses a powerful weapon. Story two covers Bucky's recovery and development of love between him and Gretchen and their discovery together of important information relating to Cap and Fury's mission.
I'm not going to spoil the story here but it is a solid adventure with excellent tag-team artwork by Pulido and Martin who both have a similar cartooning style. Well worth the money, easily. But here's my gripe about this comic. I'm irritated by the absence of Sgt. Fury's cigar. Nick Fury is a character who was designed in both his incarnations to have a stogie sticking out of his mouth and it seems sub-moronically hypocritically politically stupid to have a WW2-era story featuring multiple war-related killings and injuries in a very mature story but make a point of retroactively removing Fury's cigar. Hell, I didn't even notice the Red Skull's cigarette holder. In fact, the more I think about it, this is 1944 Europe in the middle of the War? And nobody's smoking? What sort of parallel dimension does this take place? The friggin' gov'ment put cigarettes in the soldiers’ damn C-rations back then! I don't understand this unfathomable disconnect that thinks blowing people up and machine gunning people and slicing people's throats is fine to show in a WW2 comic but gawd-forbid that we show somebody light up a stogie. Grief! Also, I know it was cool when Alex Ross did it in those couple of panels in MARVELS but can we call a moratorium on artists who draw Sgt. Fury always making sure they slip in a panel where one eye is shrouded in blackness to foreshadow the fact that he will eventually wear an eyepatch? Becoming cliché now. Time to quit.
And my final gripe is not really a gripe so much as an observation as to differences in approach between this issue and the 40th Anniversary issue. In the older comic, the approach was to step outside of the story arcs as they were progressing in the title at that time and tell a timeless stand-alone story for the ages….so to speak. In this Anniversary Special, it is clearly more a glorified set-up for the next long-term story arc in the main CAPTAIN AMERICA title involving Bucky/Winter Soldier, Red Skull, Dr. Doom, that castle and…maybe even…Gretchen. The "special" aspect is mildly diminished for me by the cynical marketing tied into it. But Brubaker's a good writer and he still delivers a good Cap adventure here with nice art by the boys from BREACH.
TRAMPS LIKE US
Creator: Yayoi Ogawa
Publisher: Tokyopop
Reviewer: Dan Grendell
"...unless you would like to be my pet?"
An overview of Volumes 1-8
Once again, the Japanese take a really weird, even creepy idea and turn it into something that I actually enjoy reading. At first I thought they were fucked up, then I thought I was, and now I figure everybody is, so it's all good. The basic premise of this series is that Sumire Iwaya, uptight career woman, finds a homeless guy and feeds him for a night. The guy decides he wants to stay, and she agrees he can - if he will be her pet. He is all over the idea, she renames him Momo after an old dog she used to have, and they live together as master and pet. Momo greets her at the door every day, cheers her up, and listens to all of her problems with a sympathetic ear; she feeds him, washes his hair, and gives him a place to stay.
It sounds simple (and bizarre), but of course there is more to it than that. Momo is a rising star in the dance world, it turns out, and could easily live on his own - he just likes his life as a pet as he sees how much Sumire needs him, and has fallen for Sumire. Sumire, on the other hand, has grown to rely on Momo as the only person she can show her true feelings in front of, and can't relax without him around. She has feelings for him too, but is determined to keep it a master/pet situation, especially when her old flame, Hasumi, returns and their relationship develops into love again. Torn between Hasumi and Momo, and keeping the fact that she has a man as a pet from her boyfriend, Sumire tries to juggle it all while still maintaining her work ethic as a career woman.
Volume One: Sumire and Momo meet, and make their master/pet arrangement. Hasumi re-enters the picture, and the games begin.
Volume Two: Momo teaches Sumire a lesson about being selfish, and an encounter with a pervert shows just how tough she can be.
Volume Three: A dentist's assistant named Shiori makes a hard play for Hasumi, and Momo runs away.
Volume Four: Sumire goes undercover at a theme park (and kicks some ass), Momo, Hasumi, and Sumire spend Christmas together, and Momo and Sumire take in another stray.
Volume Five: Momo is kidnapped but Sumire and Hasumi rescue him, Hasumi proposes, and Sumire gets a creepy stalker.
Volume Six: Momo and Sumire investigate a mermaid mystery, Hasumi is sent to Hong Kong, and Sumire stops some terrorism in the dance world.
Volume Seven: Sumire's best friend Yuri stays for awhile in need of help, and Sumire heads to Hong Kong to see Hasumi.
Volume Eight: Momo meets an old woman who needs his help too, Sumire has a short encounter with amnesia, and Hasumi bumps into Shiori in Hong Kong.
Ogawa's art style is very shojo, fitting the romance angle of the manga - the characters tend to have puffy lips, wide eyes, pointed chins, and flowing hair. They also tend to be quite lanky, such that it is hard to tell that Sumire is taller than most women, though that is one of her defining physical characteristics. Ogawa is quite good at representing emotions on the character's faces and with their postures, which is essential in a manga like this one, and she chooses a variety of angles and compositions for panels so the pages never seem to feel repeated. Backgrounds are common, and well-defined. I very much like how the art tends to have a fun feel to it, keeping things upbeat.
Overall, the weird premise drew me to this book, but the great story and art are keeping me here. Humor, romance, and action, all in one package - it's a hell of a fun ride.
BATTLE ROYALE Vol. 15
Writer: Koushun Takami
English Adaptation: Keith Giffen
Artist: Masayuki Taguchi
Publisher: Tokyopop
Reviewed by Dave Farabee
I gotta admit: I was nervous as hell going into this, the final volume of BATTLE ROYALE.
A year or two back, I reviewed the first volume, and against all expectations, the manga about a class of Japanese kids forced to kill each other on an island turned out to be more than just exploitational trash. Then, several months ago, I blazed through the rest of the series (review here, with far more specifics than I’m going to give this go-round), and lo and behold, I discovered it actually had substance. Yes, there was ultra-violence, yes there was sex and bodily fluids, yes there was a leering perversity to it all, but by the end, I’d decided BATTLE ROYALE had evolved into a Grand Guignol adaptation of all the stressors of the teen years. THE OUTSIDERS as directed by Quentin Tarantino. Paul Verhoeven’s CATCHER IN THE RYE. Martin Scorsese’s A SEPARATE PEACE. It had something to say, it’d earned its place as the most purely suspenseful comic on my shelves, and all that remained was to see whether the payoff could live up to the promise of the build.
Yes, I was seriously worried the creators were gonna fuck it up in the final chapter. So many ways it could go wrong: Too nihilistic. Too hopeful. Too predictable. Too ambiguous. Too much story crammed into a small space. Character resolution without thematic resolution. Thematic resolution without character resolution.
But they didn’t fuck it up! In fact, my friends, they knocked that sumbitch out of the park.
Now the hardest thing is finding a way to talk about the finale without giving too much away. I figure it’s probably safe to say that the cast of 42 students has been dramatically and gorily whittled down over the course of the preceding fourteen volumes. More precisely, four remain - several of them injured – and at the end of volume fourteen they were all in one place with bullets a’flyin’. Picking up immediately from that point, volume fifteen opens with the climactic action sequence of the story. We’re right in the middle of the shoot-out upon which everything hinges, the good versus evil face-off that’s been building for hundreds of pages. Is it any wonder the book goes into ultimate Sergio Leone mode at that point?
Remember the train station wait at the beginning of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST?
The opium den with the ringing phone in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA?
Eli Wallach’s epic race through the Civil War cemetery in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY?
Well if you can believe it, those quintessential Leone moments were practically running at Benny Hill “Yakety Sax” speed compared to the shootout that opens this volume. Let me put it this way: there’s a sequence that couldn’t last more than ten or fifteen seconds for the characters, but as presented – essentially the time it takes for a single pistol to be drawn and fired – it runs in the neighborhood of 80 pages. 80 PAGES! A number like that might frighten even the manga faithful. Surely, surely that’s the very definition of glut, right? Decompression at its worst?
NO, goddamn it. It works, and it works beautifully. Because by the time the scene comes, the series has long established that every death on the island is meaningful – heroes and scumbags alike - and after hundreds of pages building up the stakes for the final four, I truly believe that nothing less than Leone-on-crack would satisfy. I swear, you can almost hear the Ennio Morricone score building and building to the big moment…
But truth be told, it’s the epilogue that had me the most riveted. Even after that shot-to-end-all-shots, there were still twists and turns to be had, still violence to be done, still a need to find a singular winner. The mark of the book’s success, I think, is that every page in the second half of the book had me guessing at the final scenario – and to my pleasure, often being confounded. Reminded me of the first time I saw THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, when Eli Wallach’s strung up on a noose at the end and ol’ Clint’s riding off. I was riveted to the screen, trying to figure out if Wallach could possibly earn Clint’s mercy, whether he ultimately deserved it, and if I could be happy with a movie where he was just left to swing. Such was the level of tension as the grand finale loomed ever closer in BATTLE ROYALE. Think of it as a master course in comic book suspense, and if you can sweat it through, you graduate. Making suspense like this work is so much more than having a lot of pages to work with – it’s variation in panel size, spare but appropriate use of internal monologues, false leads to screw with expectations, and enough surprises that you almost have to catch your breath when you hit the last page.
Sorry to be so oblique, but there are some things worth waiting for, and BATTLE ROYALE’s ending is one of them. I can’t recall being so viscerally swept away by a comic since Frank Miller’s first (and only truly great) SIN CITY yarn. That level of involvement is a particular specialty of manga, and never accomplished more successfully than with BATTLE ROYALE. So it is that I add the final volume to my bookshelf content that buying all fifteen volumes was money well spent. I salute creators Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi, as well as English language adapter Keith Giffen, for their unflinchingly extreme morality play.
Dripping with melodrama but highly accessible to the end, BATTLE ROYALE proves to be one of the great modern comic book stories.
SUPER REAL # 2
Written and Illustrated by: Jason Martin
Published by: superrealgraphics.com
Reviewed by: superhero
SUPER REAL number two sets out to answer the question of what happens when five of the most incredibly vapid people meet each other to go on a reality television show that’s going to give them superpowers. Of course, you don’t need to read SUPER REAL to see what vapid people would do on a reality television show. You can turn on practically any channel these days to see that. But with all of the moronic antics you see on reality TV I think you’d be hard pressed to find a group as completely intellectually inept as the crew that’s been assembled in the pages of SUPER REAL. And that’s where the beauty of this book lies.
Imagine it. You get a group of young, great looking, and perpetually stupid people straight from a GIRLS GONE WILD location shoot and decide to give them super powers. Well, that’d be the most completely irresponsible thing anyone could ever do, right? The thing of it is that you’ve got two interests behind the production of the SUPER REAL TV show that have absolutely no moral scruples at all: Television Producers and Corporate Executives. So, in the end, it completely makes sense.
What also makes sense is that all of this is comedy gold. The main cast of SUPER REAL is so completely thick and shallow that the mind boggles at the concept of giving them powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men. And that’s why the main conceit behind the book pays off so well. It’s the fact that these dunderheads have been picked to be genetically modified that makes the concept alone behind SUPER REAL pretty freakin’ hysterical. Martin seems to revel in making his cast of potential supers as dumb as they could possibly be because there’s not a Reed Richards among any of them. I honestly started thinking how hard it must have been for Martin to actually write the dialogue for the contestants. The stuff they talk about is about as deep as a rain puddle in the Sahara. It actually impresses me that Martin was not only able to make the dialogue coherent but was actually able to make it funny as well.
This issue never actually gets to the point of where the team ends up getting their super powers but instead focuses on the team’s initial reactions with one another. Issue two follows up on the first’s setup and actually went a long way to setting up my anticipation for the next issue. I’m dying to find out what happens when these clowns actually get their newfound abilities. While this issue does hint a bit at some sinister behind the scenes shenanigans I’m hoping that the book doesn’t veer too much into that direction. Right now the idea of empty-headed twenty-somethings getting powers just tickles me to no end and I’m hoping that the next issue pushes the book into the actual super-heroing arena. Don’t get me wrong, SUPER REAL is a great book so far but by the third issue I really, really want to see some follow up Martin’s great two issue set up. SUPER REAL has some super potential and I’m hoping that issue three starts to deliver on what the book’s main concept has set up so far. As funny as it’s been so far I can only read about overly muscled, stripper-type cokeheads hitting on each other for so long.
Martin’s art involves a combination of digital photography, Photoshop effects, and actual drawings to make SUPER REAL one of the more interesting looking books out there. The colors are bright and Martin pulls off the digital photography/cartooning hybrid with flair. Its look is unlike any other book out there that I’ve seen and while it may put off some readers I actually found it refreshing. The first issue of SUPER REAL was an all around well produced package and nothing’s changed with issue two.
SUPER REAL continues to be one of the better indie books (hell, books period) out there and I’m looking forward to reading the next issue.
TOUPYDOOPS #1
Writer/Artist: Kevin McShane
Publisher: Lobrau Productions
Reviewed by Dave Farabee
I’m a hard sell on pop culture gag strips, especially the kind that traffic in the likes of monkey gags (no offense to our esteemed mascot, Schleppy). It’s all pretty much “Been there, done that, not funny anymore.” The interesting thing about TOUPYDOOPS, which is a pop culture spoof book, which does have monkey gags…is that it still made me laugh out loud at several points. Way I see it, that earns it a look!
The premise of the book, courtesy of the TOUPYDOOPS website:
“Imagine a Hollywood run not by movie studios, but by comic book publishers. Here, Peter Parker is a bigger celebrity than Tom Cruise. And the Betty Ford Clinic is actually the Betty Rubble Clinic. Into this world steps our hero, Toupydoops. The star of his own comic strip back in college, Toupy moves out to LA with dreams of starring in his own comic book swimming in his head.”
And so we get a two-tiered spoof, lampooning both Hollywood and the comic book biz. In the first issue, Toupydoops moves to L.A. with his best bud in hopes of auditioning for a villain in SUPERMAN. Visually, Toupydoops looks like a cereal mascot with antennas and a pompadour (or is that a mohawk?). He’s the blue-skinned guy in this image, flanked by his chain-smoking pal, Teetereater, and cigar-smoking pet monkey, Mr. Bananas. They’re all likeable schlubs looking for their big break, and if it all seems a little too “college comic strip”, well, that’s what it was, but a dose of excellent comic timing manages to elevate the whole affair.
Here’s the page that won me over, a bit of purely visual comedy with impeccable pacing. Also really enjoyed Toupy’s casting call, where he hits it off with the casting director. The scene establishes the book’s slightly raunchy sense of humor – Toupy’s checking out a signed picture of Neil Gaiman’s Death from SANDMAN and the director explains, “Y’know, before I got her that guest shot in Sandman, she was just another Goth chick with no tits and too much eye makeup. Now look at her – she’s every Emo guy’s wet dream.” Apparently the guy cast “practically all of the early Vertigo books.” It’s a fun bit, veering into full-on funny when the casting director decides Toupy owns the villain role and starts showing him tapes of all the shitty auditions prior to his. It culminates in an awkward and hilarious elevator ride with a very “Hollywood” Superman:
Toupydoops: Never figured I’d see you on an elevator.
[Beat panel. Superman’s reading a paper, drinking a latte, barely listening.]
Toupydoops: Y’know. ‘Cause you can fly.
Superman: Mmm.
Visually, the book’s still got a touch of the “up-and-comer” look to its cartooning, but it’s still a pretty polished aesthetic. The expressions are all clear and funny, the timing’s right on, plenty of cinematic variation of camera shots, and the storytelling’s nice and clear. Especially worthy of note is the extended fight sequence between Teetereater and the human-sized cockroach lurking in the apartment. As Mr. Bananas plays a MORTAL KOMBAT-style fight game in the foreground, the game’s mirrored by the epic Man v. Roach battle going on in the background. Absurdist bits like the roach’s special move of breathing fire or the 3-HIT COMBO Teeter tags him with are positively inspired.
Certainly TOUPYDOOPS is the kind of book I can see appealing to fans of LIBERTY MEADOWS, PVP, and PENNY ARCADE. But even if you’re a cranky-ass mofo like myself who doesn’t read those strips…you might want to give TOUPYDOOPS a look. It’s got a fun cast, broad-appeal slapstick that goes beyond what could be a one-note premise, and it looks pretty nice ta boot. Seems like it’s got the goods.
TOUPYDOOPS website (features two decent-sized previews).
HYPER-ACTIVES #1
Writer: Darin Wagner
Artist: Clint Hilinski
Publisher: Alias
Reviewer: Prof. Challenger
I will be interested to see how this new comic series does in an increasingly crowded super-hero market. Watching Marvel and DC put the big corporate squeeze on the small press means that these indie publishers really have to push hard to fill a niche market that the Big Two don’t already own. HYPER-ACTIVES does fill one of those niche markets, but I’m not sure about whether the audience is out there. That niche market is a retro-feeling super-hero book that I think intentionally feels a whole lot like the first batch of series that Image put out when its founders broke from Marvel. In the years since, not only have Marvel and DC drastically changed but Image has too. What makes HYPER-ACTIVES stick out is that there is a whole new retro movement out there (BIG BANG’s homage to classic DC or GODLAND’s homage to Kirby’s 70s/80s work), but they embrace a publishing period that is generally looked down upon nowadays.
The down side of that early Image work was that the sudden absence of any editorial control resulted in serious story-telling and writing problems. However, on the up-side, the creative freedom that all these artists exhibited in their work meant every page was dripping with enthusiasm and a sense of fun and excitement; basically page after page of a bunch of elaborately designed super-heroes with cool names posing real nice and looking dramatic. And sometimes, that is enough to carry a series for awhile. But what each Image creator learned over time was that to engender long-term commitment from readers, the writing and storytelling have to quickly become more sophisticated or the readers will move on to something else.
HYPER-ACTIVES has a lot going for it in that it is completely unapologetic in its love of super-heroes. Let’s see if I’ve got all these characters down: Alphaman (a Superman type), Silverwing (cosmic-powered legacy type), Surefire (looks a lot like Sand from the JSA), Rush (speedster), Panzer (huge strong guy), Honeychild (indistinctly-black lady in a bee costume), Wereclaw (Wolverine/Beast type), Scandal, Boy Genius, and Alphaman’s daughter (sorry, didn’t catch her name but she wears a too-short to believe skirt and maybe I was distracted by that). Remember how the pilot episode of E.R. was intended to be a day in the life of a big-city Emergency Room as seen through the eyes of a first-day resident (Dr. Carter)? Similarly, writer/creator Darin Wagner jumps right into a day in the life of a big city’s super-hero team as seen through the eyes of a brand-new super-hero (Silverwing).
This newest hero is only the latest to assume the mantle of Silverwing. We know this because the story begins with the elderly, but still powerful, Silverwing’s final battle where some cosmic Kirby-crackle flies out of his body before he dies and vaporizes. The Kirby-crackle enters a bystander and voila, we have a new, and somewhat confused, Silverwing who promptly takes care of the bad guys and then finds himself invited by a late-arriving Alphaman to visit the Hypersphere, headquarters of the Hyper-Actives. Wagner teases the reader with glimpses of the Hyper-Actives trophy room, with mementos of past adventures, including the evil mirror universe version of the team called the Retro-Actives which we will hopefully see some of in future issues. He also has characters nonchalantly mentioning and flitting back and forth from here to someplace called “Earth PI,” which I thought intriguing enough of a name to want to find out more.
In the world of the Hyper-Actives, the super-heroes are true celebrities who seem to revel in the attention and publicity. They are all over the celebrity magazines and entertainment TV. They also refer to the masses that they put their lives on the line to protect as “peds” (short for “pedestrians” I would imagine) which indicates a certain level of class superiority in their perceptions. Quite different, say, from the old BATMAN TV-show where Batman obviously (and humorously) called everyone “Citizen,” positioning himself as a humble servant to the people. Something to follow up on as the series progresses. For a super-hero comic, this is all good. The hardest part of a fantasy series is that the author has to create a fantasy-world that is believable within the parameters he sets up. The relationship between the “peds” and the “Hyper-Actives” (a name not chosen by the heroes but thrust upon them by the media) is there, a history of super-powered heroes and villains is there, dimensional and planetary adventure-hopping is there. All of these are well-established plot devices within the genre and set up quite nicely for this series.
I did have a few problems with the issue though. Nothing that drives me away from the series, but I think they are storytelling elements that can be improved and the first is kind of ironic coming from me. I am one of those vocal opponents to the slow-as-molasses style of writing that has taken over the Big Two (Marvel especially) in the last few years. But here, I think Wagner may have tried to move TOO quickly and missed his own set-up on what would have been a strong narrative point to pick up on. When Alphaman arrives on the scene literally minutes after the new Silverwing’s transformation he delivers this line of dialogue: “At this moment, your perceptions are expanded, your body feels almost weightless and you’re even having trouble recognizing your own voice. I know this from my own powers of observation and from what your predecessor told me of his first day living with the Silverwing essence.” There’s very little follow up on that in the comic. This new Silverwing just kind of mulls things over a bit and then shows up at the Hypersphere. I would’ve liked to have seen some evidence of him really struggling to comprehend what has happened to him. It’s a similar complaint heard from movie reviewers about THE FANTASTIC FOUR last year. I don’t think it would have been construed as padding out the story for this first issue to spend a little more time on Silverwing’s personal struggles before accepting Alphaman’s offer to meet and possibly join the Hyper-Actives. But, you know, like the UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER-MAN, just because it was not shown in this first issue does not mean that it did not happen “between panels” and could be shown in a flashback. As it is right now, though, we don’t know very much about his personality, in fact, I don’t recall whether we were even given his name…other than Silverwing. So, these are things I would encourage some further exploration of.
One other thing about the writing end. When I finished reading through this issue, I thought it read as if the target audience is a little younger than most new comics nowadays seem to be aiming for. So, I passed it on to my own little “youthful focus group”….my 11 year-old son. He liked the comic and did say he’d be interested in reading more, but his very first comment was somewhat telling. He said “None of these guys seem to be able to get through a panel without cursing.” I had noticed the clever way that Wagner sort of phonetically wrote out some of the characters’ lazy mispronunciations of “shit,” but as an adult I had not noticed the other more mild curses until it was brought to my attention. And his observation was good, I think. For a comic like this to succeed, it needs to be something that can be read by Jr. High kids and up without fear of an uninformed parent freaking out that her kid’s “funny book” has rampant PG-13 dialogue. Just food for thought for the creative team to consider.
Now, on the art. I thought Hilinski’s art was appealing. It’s not as polished as someone at the major publishers. He does have some real anatomical issues, women’s waistlines being a particular issue, but there is an identifiable and likeable cartooning style there. I would suggest that his strengths lie more in his pencil work than in his inking because the shading and weight that is given to the illustrations in the inking stage just did not exist for me. I’d really like to see a polished inker take his pencils and go to town because I think he’s got some real talent here that would be enhanced by a good inker. His costume designs for the main characters are also very nice.
I enjoyed HYPER-ACTIVES and plan to pick up the next issue. My son also enjoyed it. He had no complaints at all about the art and said his favorite characters were Boy Genius and Wereclaw. Wereclaw because he “looks cool.” Boy Genius probably because he relates to that. If you like that early-Image groove, then HYPER-ACTIVES is your kind of book for sure.
FALLEN ANGEL #4
IDW Publishing
It’s interesting. FALLEN ANGEL’s a book I consistently enjoy, but it’s never quite at the top of my reading list. I think it’s because the citizens of the mystical Bete Noir, for all their human foibles, remain so enigmatic that I’ve never quite been able to get comfortable with them. Which isn’t to say that I don’t find their activities interesting. The latest issue flashes back to the specifics of Lee’s fall from God’s grace, sees a custody battle writ large as a high-seas duel, and deals with the love/hate struggle of a parent over a child who’s made a decision that could well be his damnation. It’s big, big stuff, but like Sly and the Family Stone once said, “It’s a family affair.” Still, as interesting as it all seems, as rooted as it is recognizable human issues, I wish I could feel closer to FALLEN ANGEL’s characters. There always seems to be a distance, one I don’t even find with the exploits of superheroes. - Dave Farabee
JEREMIAH HARM #2
BOOM! Studios
Keith Giffen and Alan Grant may be treading through familiar territory with this space-faring tough guy routine, but the story around Jeremiah Harm is damn good. Sure Harm isn’t too different than Lobo or Trencher (except for the fact that he has a thumb which lights his cigars for him, which I have to admit, is frikkin’ cool!). Remember
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you mean you go in public to read comics! Wow, you're a lot braver than I thought. Kudos!
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I really do. But I just can't. Does anyone agree that re-starting titles like GL from a new issue one is confusing? Maybe I don't have both feet firmly placed in the comic book world, but each time a restart occurs somewhere, the less I care about that character. OYL is fucking boring as Batmanshit.
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First character I got in on the ground floor was
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USAgent and Connor Hawke are two of my favorites that I got in on from the ground floor. I had collected books earlier than their first appearances, but those two characters will always hold a special place in my heart because I saw them grown from back-up characters to something unique. I sure hope DC has something special planned for Connor Hawke soon. Maybe a modern day version of Legion's Karate Kid or something along those lines. And USAgent is the Guy Gardner of the DCU. Let's hope no one kills him off. These days, I always feel frightened for my obscure characters in fear that some creator will come along and not realize the potential of these lesser known characters and try to kill them off for sheer dramatic effect.
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what I like about OYL is that it affects the WHOLE of the DC universe, something I don't think Civil War will do. Especially after how House of M was supposed to break apart the Marvel Universe & yet most writers have ignored it & already the machinations can be heard in the editors' office to get things back to normalcy. OYL will require a lot of patience but I think there'll be some pay-off to it...as long as it's handled well & writing teams aren't swapped halfway through
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For, like, a year you've done nothing but trash him for what could of been. What did you think of Engelhart's return with the 6-part Dark Detective? Do you have a hard-on for Frank Miller's early wrk that won't go away? Who do you hold as THE writers/artists of the Dark Knight? Did you get pissed off with the Knightfall storyline cause Bruce was a cripple racing round the world while "Batman" was a psycho? What's your fave arc from memory? (off the top of my head, mine would be either 'The Cult' or 'Blades') this ain't a personal attack on you, you got enough of that in the Batman Begins TB's, I'm just being curious is all
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If your hobby embarrasses you more than the guts of the redneck gluttons piling their plates 12 inches with pizza and toppings, then it may be time for you to stop readin' 'em. :)
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I work in a comic shop so I have perused the titles for this week. Not everyone has, however, and might not appreciate you being such a cockgobbler and spoiling shit without a warning. Please get a disease and die alone. Your pal, William.
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According to Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters Column at Comic Book Resources the new Alpha Flight is going to consist of AMERICAN heroes who have fled the U.S. of A. because of the whole CIVIL WAR mess ala Vietnam draft dodgers. AND Captain America's gonna be the one leading the charge up to the great white north! Man, is that isn't completely FUBAR I don't know WHAT is! If this is true...the Marvel Universe is about to become one huge MESS.
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and (i cant belive im doing this)-the spoiler warning is right there in the subject of macks post willy. why the unprovoked attakc?
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the more im sue im going to avoid civil war and by extension most of the marvle books i was reading for at least a year till all the nonsense gets cleared up. oh well like i said in the previous tb,it wont be bad saving money for a change
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The table of contents has it right, but the article itself is mislabeled.
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I just never read these damn headlines. All the same, why post something if people will avoid it? I stand by the hope of moviemack catching gangrene and having it rot his face off, though.
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I don't get the hate over Civil War already, I guess it's just from being burned by House of M. I mean, did any of you read The New Avengers Illuminati? I thought it was quite interesting. The whole Hero Registration bill is very similar to Watchmen.
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I feel the same way reading Keith Giffen.
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y'know, seeing as how expressing agreement or appreciation for a review must constitute that apparently. But f'real an' all, Not only did your review of Fallen Angel express exactly what I too had been feeling in regard to the book (which I've read every ish since DC's 1) and why it's on the fence for my pull list based on that and it's 3.99 price tag (okay 3.19 with my discount but still). As well, your final review of the Battle Royale series has convinced me that it must now go on my 'must read, no REALLY must read' list. In fact, it's now my 'must read' project for this year.
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Look, I can get with All-Star Supes. I thought the first 2 issues were good. Supes is dying, Lex is feaking eeevil for a change and there is some chemistry between Supes and Lois. But this issue was a waste. Waste of a good opportunity. What was the point? I think that had to cross Morrison's mind once after the notion of making Lois "Superwoman" popped into that bald dome of his. There's one shot of her buzzing through the sky of Metropolis, then what? Nothing. She has "super powers", shouldn't she do something, oh, I don't know...super? This issue could've been fun, but it was a wasted opportunity. Speaking of a waste, two words: Green Arrow. That book is going nowhere and I'm dropping it like the cover was embossed with gold-foil syphillis. Here's a little something for those of you not "in the know". Pick up Millar's work on Ultimate FF. You'll thank me later. Good freakin' book. Anyways, it's $2 import night at the local, and I'm out. Have a good one everybody.
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"I really cannot get enough of this stuff. It would not hurt my feelings at all for DC to just dump the One Year Later Superman stuff and start the whole line over from scratch with this book as the template. It's that good." ***I humbly dissagree with your assesment: I LOVE the Lois/Clark marriage. It was a sign that the old gaurd can change. I LOVE the current OYL storyline.They are bringing back Clark and the Supes we know. THe Lois/Clark/Superman triangle was silly..and is STILL silly to this day We had 65 years of that crap. Morrisons a great writer and BECAUSE this paticular story is not in continuity and firmly tounge in cheek I can enjoy it. But any other writer would make it crap. Lots of crap. And Keep in mind: Superman and Batman are still the big sellers of DC.
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I must agree that Superman is just top-notch! I can't believe how much I like it. The Thing, however, crossed the line into cornball this issue. It wasn't exactly bad, but it went to far in it's sincere-salt-of-the-earth thing. And from a pawn broker? There are two pawnshops withing a mile of my house, and they are not even a desirable element, much less someone to get up on their crotchety high horse. I still thought it was ok, and I really liked the trapped on the island with Constrictor and Nighthawk story line (though it was also a bit screenwriting 101) but I may drop Thing cause it's getting very square, and not in a good way, really.
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that sounds fucking cool! and what the fug was up with tonights Lost? gods i fucking hate/love this show!
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Apr 06, 2006 6:25:00 AM CDT
USAgent/John Walker IS the Guy Gardner of the Marvel Un
by vagrant's choice
Well said, Ambush Bug. Any idea what happened to his partner Battlestar? I cut back heavily on my Marvel reading from 94 to about 98. One final question, has Flagsmasher been seen recently? I think the last comic I saw him in was Cap #349.
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Green Lantern rocks the crabs offa yer momma's gash hoagie!
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1) I too have read comics while dining at the pizza buffet place. 2) The first new character I can remember getting on board with issue #1 is the early Dark Horse hit "Boris the Bear". 3) Moviemack's right about 1YL. Did they really need an entire Crisis for what have been, so far, mostly very minor changes? 4) Moviemack, I thought Ratcatcher (or whatever his name is) was a pretty cool idea for a Bat-villain. Anarchist is ok, too. 5) I read Avengers Illuminati. It was a pretty good read. But it doesn't exist in my personal Marvel Universe (Call it Earth-Rev). On Earth-Rev, the Hulk never killed anyone, even by accident. On Earth-Rev, villains get caught and then escape from prison all the time, but nobody wonders why Spider-Man doesn't just kill them. On Earth-Rev, Wolverine, Nick Fury, The Thing, and Pip the Troll all smoke cigars. Wolverine, however, has been civilized by the X-Men enough that he no longer smokes in front of the kids.
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#3 was "a waste"? Let's break it down, roughly: The introduction of 2 new Daily Planet characters, the invasion and repulsion of a subterranean dinosaur army, Superman outwitting an ancient demon-pharoah god thingy, Supes arm-wrestling Samson and Atlas at the same time (the force of which causing earthquakes), and then finally making out with his woman on the Moon while the Earth sets behind them after taking her on a date to an underwater city. If that is "a waste" and something to "yawn" about, what gets you excited? Nigga please.
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I kind of wanted to hate it, but I actually enjoyed the Illuminati Special, as well as the short preview. So I guess I will try out Civil War... though I haven't gone near a Marvel event in a long time. I'm kinda scared.
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I really like the Cap: 65th Anniversary issue. I haven
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has disappeared into obscurity. After Cap reclaimed his title, USAgent joined the West Coast Avengers for a spell and Battlestar joined Sandman and a couple of other mercenaries to follow Silver Sable around on adventures in SILVER SABLE & THE WILD PACK. THose who read this underrated treat know that SS&WP was one of the coolest comics to come out of the 90's. Great action. Great character comflicts. An all around great book. Since that series conclusion, though, Battlestar has been missing from current continuity.
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Is the same problem I have with a lot of Marvel books these days. The writers are all jaded fans and they've let their world wearyness slip into the characters. Where once it was "Oh no, not the Sandman" now it's "Oh Great, here comes the Sandman, what does that loser want?" The current crop of Marvel super-heroes sound like the negative whiners out here in fanville.
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Both could be valid, given the recent retcon on Bucky's own origin. Perhaps his papers say 1928, when actually he was born in 1925 and they lied about his age to make him seem a bit younger and more 'fresh faced' when he was going to be Cap's secret black-ops sidekick. Damn, son, do I get a No Prize for that shit? As far as Civil War goes, I like the idea behind it, I just fear the execution of it. I think it could be very cool, but I kind of doubt that it will be. Then again, I can put faith in Millar. ... As far as Hyper-Actives goes? I'd have a hard time giving that one to an 11 year old given that the cover features a dude with a pair of guns hugging two bosomy angels in such a way that their ginormous tits are all squishing up against one another. Why do I get the feeling that Prof Challenger just quickstarted his little nephew's jump into puberty? Poor kid's singin' like Peter Brady now.
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"I am Mars' sole survivor. There is a reason for that."
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Last I heard from you friend, you were going to have a few CURRENT reviews done by the weekend. That was a few weeks ago btw
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Hey, no one seemed too interested. If you're keepin' track though, I'll see you back here this Sunday with a review of IC6 and the Omac special. I pick those cos they seem like the 'important' releases this week. If something else tickles me, I may do it instead.
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Apr 06, 2006 12:12:57 PM CDT
Oh yeah, and Swamp Thing is in the new Infinite Crisis
by rev_skarekroe
Well, just his hand. I wish they'd quit teasing me.
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"Earth Prime... where... are.. YOU." Best moment.
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I'm with you on the redesigns of Spymaster and The Ghost. Both has classic and awesome costume designs that made them distinct from a lot of the other villains. Whiplash's redesign a few years ago was equally unappealing as they reshaped him into looking like some S&M feak before the sentient Iron Man armor snapped his back and threw him into the ocean. The old costumes were better, but I still love Irving's art in THE INEVITABLE.
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It had plenty of action, sure, but it introduced three major changes to the status quo, including a big one for the DCU: other countries have banded together and say that the American heroes are no longer welcome without permission, just like with our military forces. Beyond that, we've got the forming of a yellow-ringed Sinestro Corps and the return of at least some, if not all, of the GL's that Hal whacked--and they're bound to be unhappy about it. Three big new directions for stories, plus action in the skies (and bed) for Hal, plus a glimpse of the New Guardians...lots to like in this one. So much stuff was crammed in here that it sets up storylines for at least the next two or three years.
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Sunday. You got it man. I didn't kow the OMAC Special came out yesterday! Damn, I was at my shop too.
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On Earth:Rev Lorelei walks around sans costume. It was her you spanked it to back in the day right, Rev?***I like Scarface and the Ventriloquist quite a bit but I think Firefly is better. Cool in the comic (remember when he burned his skin right down to the nerves?) and cool in the Animated Series. Plus fire is damn sexy.
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I had the first couple issues of this as a kid and um... didn't they talk about sex all the time and they fought this dude who just had mountains of Coke? I was like 8 years old and I remember feeling creeped out.
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I was looking on dc site for news on the next GC tpb and it says #12-15 and #19-22 will be in it. So what happened to #11 and #16-18? In the next TPB? They suck that much? I missed out on this series when it came out and wondering what's going on?
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A trip down memory lane. http://tinyurl.com/hexhs
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...based on the info in the article. That being said, the concept is actually decent, and having such a non-white guy lineup would be a welcome change in the DCU. Sure it was handled in a stereotypical and childish manner then, but it doesn't have to be now. It's one of those ideas that, if reworked correctly, could be pretty cool.
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...there wasn't anything I was interested in except IC, so I bought that and Essential X-Men vol.6 cause that's the era I read as a little tyke. Beyond his other narrative problems, why didn't anyone ever explain to Claremont that Americans don't speak with British slang? The stylized dialogue of everyone saying 'honeybunch' and speaking in sentence fragments seems really ridiculous now that I'm not seven. Does he still write dialogue like that?
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but I haven't read a lot of his stuff lately. I think the Decimation one shot was written by him. That'll be the last (until he is highly praised again
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Spoiler***Spoiler***Spoiler***Spoiler***If Cap expatriates himself to Canada, to lead Alpha Flight, it would only work if he quits being Captain America again and resumes his identity as The Captain. Or even Nomad. Or maybe he could become a new character called, The Expatriate! The X-offices would probably object to that last one.
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Does John Quixote review comics anymore? I know he posts here from time to time but is he done with the reviewing thing? And what about Superninja? I always imagined her as being a hot Asian chick. I don
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I did quite enjoy this issue of IC, although I must agree that so far the OYL stories, while not bad at all, aren't exactly extreme makeovers. Anyway, I live in LA and last week one of my favorite comics (can't remember if it was Runaways or Blue Beetle) had a character refer to the USC area as being in East LA, which is really wrong. USC is on the western edge of what used to be called "South Central." If LA were cut in half, it would be in the western part. It is miles from East LA. That really bugged me. And I remember the Millenium mini that led into New Guardians. It was a good idea, and it was GodAwful. Extreme stereotypes on parade and Joe Staton's art couldn't have been more wrong for the book. And regarding "spoilers," well...put me in the "if you're concerned about spoilers, wait to read the talkbacks." I enjoy discussing "shocking" events that occured in this weeks comics.
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That's all.
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Our roster has changed quite a few times over the four years we've been at AICN. Our reviewers come and go and occasionally old 'Holes have come back for a review when they get the bug. Jon Quixote hasn't reviewed for us for a while, but there's always a possibility that cuh-razy Canadian will return to dole out some @$$ie-justice. Same for Superninja, who is not Asian by the way, as far as I know. Ali Knievel originally went by the name of The Comedian and he was actually the guy who got us all together. This column wouldn't be here if not for him. Village Idiot AKA Greg Scott was another 'Hole who took this column by the reigns and helped mold it into the reviewing fighting unit it is today. For the longest time, Dave F. went by the name of Cormorant and to this day, I still call him Corm out of habit. I've always been Bug. Sleazy's always been sleazy both in name and in way of life. Same with Vroom. And Buzz will forever be Buzz. And don't forget Lizzybeth. Never forget our the original Indie Jones herself. Lizzybeth, Lizzybeth, where for art thou? The fifth anniversary of our inception is coming soon. It seems like an eternity since The Comedian reviewed that first issue of X-FORCE and then Dave, the Comedian, Buzz, and I banned together to form our first ever column. Soon after came JQ, VI, Sleazy, and Supes. But it wasn't until Vroom was recruited from hostile forces and Lizzybeth was forced to work with such mainstream comic geeks that the true @$$holes were formed. Ahh the memories...
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thats all
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Some would say that the X-Men should have ended when Phoenix died the first time, except that leaves out the orginal Brood saga and Paul Smith's great art. Some would say that Claremont lost it after Secret Wars when John Romita Jr. first started drawing and Rachel showed up and Kitty Pryde became a ninja and Storm lost her powers, but those Barry Windsor-Smith Storm issues were spectacular, as was the Colossus vs. Juggernaut fight. Flipping through Essential X-Men 6 it's apparent that the man simply had no grasp of the plot anymore. To be sure, the tie-ins to Secret Wars II didn't help, but on top of that you have Nimrod running around, a two-part tie-in with the New Mutants that takes place in between the 200th issue (as the editor points out -- what a scheduling headache) multiple storylines and plot points that have to be explained afterwards, like how Cyclops shows up out of nowhere, or Magneto taking over for Professor X, or the fact that Romita apparently hated drawing Nightcrawler and left him out of a few issues, so they concocted a solo adventure for him. And in the middle of all of this, the X-Men relocate to San Franciso, but then suddenly Wolverine turns up in New York to be ambushed by Lady Deathstrike, who recieves cyborg upgrades from Spiral, who's now running around with Freedom Force with no explanation. And the disappearance of Rachel and the joining of Psylocke verges on incomprehensibility. There's only one possible explanation for it: Claremont had to be on cocaine. Too many ideas floating around simultaneously, too many plot threads dangling at once, too many forced crossovers (the Mutant Massacre was hopelessly confusing and isn't helped by being packaged in this volume). It all seems to be the work of a man who's on a year-long coke binge. Hey it was the 80's. And the worst part of it--too many fill-in artists. I love Alan Davis and Barry Windsor-Smith and Rick Leonardi, and they're actually better than Romita's somewhat sketchy work here, but they totally ruin the flow of the stories. Interestingly, Al Williamson's fill-in inks are much better than Dan Green's. Guess the entire regular staff was doing blow. And a final, out of nowhere crack at Rob Leifeld: I hate him so much that he makes me dislike Arthur Adams' amazing work on the Asgard stuff, which I used to think was really cool. Look at that stuff and see where Leifeld really stole all of his ideas from. This volume truly shows the seeds of all the badness that came soon afterwards, not only in the X-Men, but across the company and the industry. Fitting that Wolverine is on the cover, ripping the book to shreds.
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I was thinking about his writing last talkback when the subject of "superhero downtime" was breached re. NEW AVENGERS. Best superhero downtime issue was an early Byrne X-MEN when the heroes returned from their initial visit to the Shi'ar Galaxy and had met the Starjammers for the first time. Let's see, Jean was ducking Scott. Nightcrawler hung from a jungle gym in his room, filled with movie posters, and called Amanda Sefton for a date. Storm got naked and watered her plants. Banshee took Moira McTaggert on a picnic with a platonic Storm and Colossus along. Wolverine strolled through the woods, neared a doe and THE FUCKING GROUND ERUPTED WITH WEAPON ALPHA!!! That was good superhero downtime. I have particular love for that issue because it was part of my haul when I joined a pair of friends to steal an entire spinner rack...I would say that the last decent Claremont X-MEN was the one where the Reavers attacked Muir Island and the last of his borderline great work WAS the first appearance of Rachel Summers in our timeline. That issue was a good example of how to keep the heroes out of the book until you need them. We follow Rachel as she's stalked through New York by Selene, a mutant vampire and future Black Queen of Hellfire. Near the end of the issue, Rachel is trapped in a burning home. Out of desperation she cries out telepathically: "Professor Xavier, help me!" An astral vision immediately appears saying: "Be calm, child. My X-Men are already there." And Colossus, Rogue and Nightcrawler come bursting in to save her and to handle Selene. I don't think CC has been quite that good since, but has been a damned site worse.
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Exceptional insights into Grimm and how he can be viewed in the pantheon of Lee's collaborative creations. As Claremont would have me say, "Spot on!"
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Officially, I died from food poisoning in the mess hall at Langley. Cause of death: bad gravey.
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If OYL has done anything right, it's making Batman, "The Batman" that we all know and love when we think of the character. His characterization has been spot on, and not just in his titles, but in Catwoman, Robin and Infinite Crisis as well (The scene in IC #6 w/ Hal and Ollie for example). I really thought that moviemack may have finally had his type of Batman back that he loves. Guess I was wrong there! To be fair, mack has a point about killing Scarface, because that really is a good villian unlike the other two no-names that were offed, but that isn't enough to even for a moment derail me from these OYL Batman issues. I do think that mack is wrong about hiring the detective for the 'daytime' though. Batman is going to be Bruce Wayne during the day, we remember Bruce right? It makes perfect sense to also get back to Batman's dual identity. He's a rich guy that can use that to his advantage for his night job. Which is exactly what he did by hiring the detective for the day. Really well done. It's like I'm watching the animated series again. Also, I felt the same thing about Robin not being Tim Drake as well. I hope that Robin leaves the Titans and stays in Gotham with Batman. He's living in the barnyard apartment at Wayne manor right? Haven't read the new TT, maybe he is leaving? Batman and Robin work well together, and I almost forgot that.
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You just summarized it all perfectly, making much more sense out of all this than I could or Claremont ever did. How about when Logan kills Rachel (for all intents) in order to stop her from killing the Black Queen?!? Wolverine explains it to Kitty as "Like it or not, girl. We're heroes. We're supposed to stand for something. If we break the rules, why should anybody follow them?" So that's what a hero does. He kills a hero to keep the hero from killing a villain. Christ. Anyone on the team during this era and the rest of his run showed that kind of out-of-left-field characterization. "We're X-Men. We don't kill. Except sometimes I do. But you don't. And if you try to, I'll kill you." That alone is argument enough that Claremont was on coke the whole time. The series becomes one of the most baffling mainstream comics ever produced from here on: stories get so incomprehensible; characters radically switch personalities at the drop of a hat; there's little to no transition between storylines. Entire massive story-arcs are introduced and forgotten about for years. And EVERY situation, no matter how minor, becomes this totally life-and-death melodrama where Storm is willing to sacrifice all the X-Men.
And yet the most troubling thing for me is all the 'Claremont-speak' in which EVERY character speaks with the exact same voice, which is the voice of some Brit out clubbing on coke while dancing to New Wave (except Rogue, who has the same voice, but with 'Ah' instead of I, and 'shugah' instead of 'honeybunch'.) In #212 Sabretooth calls Logan 'old son.' Sorry to go on, but reading Essential vol.6 was like some kind of trip back to my childhood wherein I realized that I wasn't the one who was confused; it was this English bastard named Claremont. -
"Was that really necessary, Adam?" - "Absolutely."
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I loved that bit too. Although wouldn't his brains and stuff be on the other side of the mask, as the mask got pushed through the back of his head? As drawn, the head-goo seems like it's on the wrong side of the mask. Not bitching, though. It was a really cool scene.
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(The IC #6 SPOILERS) Yeah, I think you're right John D. It looked like he turned on a blender! I feel this issue was probably the biggest in scope of the series so far and the best since #4 of course. I do have two minor complaints: 1) The art although good, was the least inconsistent it's been the whole series and 2) Where the hell did my glossy cardstock cover go DC?! My OCD cannot deal with 5 thick covers and now this 'normal' one. Did I mention the OCD? Later fellow tb'ers, Cogs and @$$holes.
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but Heathen has, indeed, confirmed that the cover stock to IC # 6 was of a different stock than the others? What the hell? I paid four bucks for that book dammit! Give me something besides the lame assed pitri dish swirling Napoleon Luthor! "My pitri dish!" I mean, if that wasn't some of the WORST dialogue I've read in a comic book in a long time then...well I guess I just haven't read a Chris Claremont book lately. Behold the totality of my psychic knife!
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but Heathen has, indeed, confirmed that the cover stock to IC # 6 was of a different stock than the others? What the hell? I paid four bucks for that book dammit! Give me something besides the lame assed pitri dish swirling Napoleon Luthor! "My pitri dish!" I mean, if that wasn't some of the WORST dialogue I've read in a comic book in a long time then...well I guess I just haven't read a Chris Claremont book lately. Behold the totality of my psychic knife!
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Ambush Bug, when you say Village Idiot was recruited from hostile forces do you mean he was a Grayhaven reviewer? If I remember correctly they only posted positive reviews. Talk about hiding your head in the sand.
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oh & by the by, from what I've heard they might not be putting Engelhart's Dark Detective into a trade. Personally (cause I read & enjoyed it) I hope he get's another 6 issues so he can truly finish it off rather than having to leave it quite so open. Oh, & I didn't find Knightfall stupid when it came out because I was 6 at the time. You know, that perfect age to swallow anything in comic-form. I was just being curious as it truly was an "event" for Batman back in the day. It doesn't beat the progenitor of the whole thing (the excellent Venom arc) but like you said LOTDK's first hundred ishes are quite exceptional. I'm sure your "momma" is a lovely woman & would probably wwant a date before carnal acts. Something I'm not into with women though. You know, personal preference & all. But thanks for asking my questions! I really wasn't expecting it
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I loved the way Kelley Jones drew Batman. I also liked Batman Begins, not as the perfect Batman movie, but as a pretty good one, in so far as the movie was actually about Batman and not one or two or three of his villains, and they captured his character pretty well, I thought. No, Batman doesn't have a glider-cape, but that's probably the closest approximation to all the swinging around on buildings he did in the heyday, when he'd just toss a string with a batarang on it and be able to seemingly fly above the skyline. They incorporated various elements of his origin that have all been altered or added at different points in his development and changed them for the movie in a way that didn't betray the character. It wasn't perfect or even extraordinary; it WAS a thousand-times better than any of Burton's dreck. The one thing I really can't forgive is that they cast a guy who's actually built like Batman... and then encased him in another stiff suit of molded plastic. I understood why Michael Keaton had a rubber suit-- because he's about 5'6 and 130 pounds. Bale in the suit looked stupid. And it suffered from the one plot-point NO superhero movie has been able to get right: the villains have the most ridiculous plans. If there's a "microwave transmitter" that causes all water to evaporate, it seems like that would include the water in the human body. But whatever. It's a movie about a billionaire who dresses up like a bat. It's simply going to have certain limitations, and within those limitations, I thought they did a pretty good job. It would have been nice to not have the rubber suit and to actually be able to see Batman fight, but I'll just keep holding out hope for those aspects.
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Why did Morrison give her super powers only to not do anything with her once she has them? Pointless. Ane the arm-wrestling match was lame. Why not have a good ol' fashioned throw-down rather than the "Over the Top" re-enactment? I thought the issue had potential, but it was wasted. Oh, and I'm not black, so try to refrain from glossing me with "nigga". Cracker or honky will do just fine if we absolutely have to bring race into the whole thing. When's the @sshole reunion coming? Wouldn't mind hearing some of the @ssholes and talkbackers from days of yore waxing poetically about some of the stuff out now. Where you at Cormorant? RenoNevada2000? You there bizarromark?
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But I did say Voume 6, and she turns up in volume 5, along with the Storm de-powerization. Although, even that issue features some awkward exposition as Xavier explains that Cerebro lead him to Rachel and Selene. But you're right, that issue and the two immediately following are among Claremont's best. However, right after that, in the middle of the fight between Forge and the Dire Wraiths (a licensing toy-driven crossover that becomes more important than the loss of Storm's powers) is when the cracks begin to emerge. Forge's mentor walks into a room, and... we're not told exactly what happens for some twenty issues, Nightcrawler ports in Amanda Sefton from nowhere, Illyana reveals her demonic nature to her brother as an afterthought, and it takes about six months for Storm to leave for Africa. Also, somewhere in there, Xavier teaches an entire semester at a university in the space of one issue. But it was all still relatively well-written, or at least his ticks hadn't quite caught up with him yet. Maybe it was when he first discovered coke, but before he started really abusing. Also known as the salad days.
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Brubaker is hitting it out of the park with Cap and the first two issues of DD were good, but X:DG just feels sort of off. Wolverine
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...because Claremont wanted Sabretooth to be Wolvie's actual father. I believe his idea was also going to be that Sabretooth only showed up on Wolvie's birthday, and all other appearances were robots or clones or some other nonsense like that.
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ENOUGH WITH THE F**KING SPINNER RACK ALREADY!!!! NOBODY CARES!!!
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No, he calls Wolverine 'old son' because, like all Claremont's characters, he's speaking in cockney slang, as in "'fraid not old son."
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Dan Slott is running a contest to try and help with THE THING's low sales numbers. If you haven't seen the article at newsarama.com yet, clicky the link to check it out: http://tinyurl.com/lptp8
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Have I ever struck anybody here as the type who cares if anybody cares?
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No, I do remember reading that Claremont or somebody was toying with the idea that Sabretooth was Wolverine's father, which was kind of a cool idea and could have made for lots of good plots...My least favorite Claremont speak was the anti-self pity thing that almost every character spouted in exactly the same way at one time or another: "Them's the breaks, kiddo. You take the hand you're dealt. Wishing won't change things. Neither will hoping or whining or moping or bitching or kvetching or grousing or grumbling or griping or something else. You gotta make the best out of what you were given...like in Chris' case an almost situational writing talent based on the talents of the people he's working with, like how JR Jr. drew this issue and is a good artist and all at this point in his career is still kind of an awkward storyteller so Chris has to write scenes like this whereas if Byrne or Cockrum or Paul Smith were drawing this issue..."
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Did the Colombian Secret Police carry him off or something? I, for one, miss that Cog.
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No, no, no-- I realize that Claremont was toying with the idea of Sabretooth being Wolverine's pop; I understand that. I'm saying that in X-Men #212, which is the first time these two characters are shown together, near as I can tell, one of the first things Sabretooth says to Logan is "When I kill you, Logan old son... I want you to see it coming." Now, this is some of the first dialogue the two characters ever exchange in comics (though we're meant to understand they have a history). At this very early stage, the phrase is not indicative of Claremont's still-gestating whim of making Sabretooth Logan's dad, nor does it read like some kind of paternal reference. It reads as what it is: fucking cockney slang.
Yeah, Buzz, I hate that anti-self-pity speak too. And in this era it's in EVERY issue. No matter what happens, or how many ways there are out of a particular situation, everything leads to Storm being willing to sacrifice all the X-Men's lives and Logan saying something like "Them's the cards we got played, kids. We're heroes. No quarter asked. None given." I just really can't get over how bad this stuff is, and it was somehow the coolest comic of my childhood. -
my fellow colombian friend vale has been lost to the cult of bendis...the bendii or something they are called...give it time...after he's done trapsing around in a loin cloth worshipping the bald headed one he may return...one can hope...if not we'll have to find a new cog...sighs...does joey q hate thank you for smoking? i thought it was a swell cinema experience. is wolverine now vegan?
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I see that Dr. Sun appears later in the volume. I have a vague recollection of this character. Did he really start out in Tomb of Dracula? The idea of a robot with a human brain battling Dracula is so odd
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http://tinyurl.com/omky9
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Cause, I could have sworn that #24 was out just about a month or two ago. I mean, that's crazy right? I've only read the first 12 issues is what's crazy!
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"For all my vaunted powers I could not save them!"
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...has anybody brought up this metaphorical thread running through the Seven Soldiers series?
It seemed to me that the 7S miniseries each followed a kind of standard formula with varying degrees of success. One two-part story; a self-contained story; and a final issue that tied into the Sheeda invasion. But beyond that, there seems to be this very real theme of a corruption of youth, of the idea of youth trying to revel in its own innocence and potential and being brought down; a recurrent theme of people being forced to grow up in a very dark way that corrupts their essences. I'm thinking of the fates of The Newsboy Legion from Guardian, or the teenagers in the first issue of Frankenstein, or Zatanna's sidekick, or the mental-powered guy in Bulleteer #3 who gets drunk while pining for his one youthful adventure with the Justice League, a time he can't let go of. I haven't read every issue of each miniseries, but I'm wondering if this theme keeps recurring. It could almost be an analogy for Morrison's views on what happened to DC comics as a whole. -
I haven't read any of the series (ahh! quit throwing stones!) as of yet, but have been meaning to pick up the trades OR wish for a nice big HC of the minis. *** Anybody read Exterminators #4? Sickly disgustingly entertaining as usual. Man, the bedroom scene gave me the creeps. *** Vale?
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Hated that Green lantern review. It started out really good with the two sided argument and i was thinking, man...this is great, two completely different opinions on the same subject. Two oposing views. Who's right, who's wrong? I guess we'll never know and that is why this review is interesting. And then Prof. decided he'd tell us he's the one who's right and the people who don't agree with him don't really matter. Ugh. I mean you have the right to write it, sure, and i have the right to criticize it for being self indulgent.
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Man that House of M written by Brian Michael Bendis with art By Oliver Coipel sure was hideous, FUCK Civil War written by Mark Millar with art by Steve McNiven!!!
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In Prof's defense, GL was damn good. And fuck that HoM! Despite my misgivings for Marvel currently, I have more faith in Millar than the Bendis. And the idea of Civil War is interesting, but even the Marvel Zombies are sick of HoM, Decimation, Civil War, Annihilation, Planet Hulk, etc. Too much at once, and more annoying because HoM was SUPPOSED to be a retcon wasn't it? And now fallout books of HoM are also lead in books to Civil War. It's a giant fuggin mess.
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Yes, the good doctor was a character created by Marv Wolfman for TOMB OF DRACULA. He was a commie scientist who was experimented on by other commie scientists. The disembodied brain needed blood to survive, so he sought to control the world's greatest blood hunters, the vampires, which ran him afowl of Dracula. In one of the best Dracula stories, he drained Dracula's powers. I remember not being too crazy about his appearance in NOVA. For me, that was toward the beginning of the end, which did turn out to be the end of the series soon after. Somehow, Sun didn't work too well as a mainstream supervillain, but I'm not sure why.
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its good to hear from u amigo! as for that exterminators isssue the bedroom was creepy but the woman on the couch was far worse imo. i cant stop reading the book even though it grosses the shit out of me.ive always had a thing about bugs and sometimes just holding the comic makes my skin crawl. finallly read crisis and godamn! that was an overwhelming issue! im also seeing a mega event done right! this is no house of meh friends and neighbors.and heathen i havent heard your thoughts on wednesdays lost. what do u make of it?
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From CRISIS RECOVERY #6: Nice.
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"what are you dense? no speako english? what are you a beaner im godamn booster goold!"
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Yeah, bugs have always scared the crap out of me too, and I'm trying to forget how disturbed I was with the woman who hasn't left the couch since 1992! Ughhh!! That was disgusting. I know what you mean about feeling dirty when holding that book, which I guess is a compliment cause were reading it, right? Lost. Hmm
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An excellent point about CIVIL WAR...one with which I mostly disagree. The part I agree with is that the WORK should be judged on its' own merits. The part I disagree with, which others have already touched on, is that these are the same KINDS of things. They're doing it at DC, too, which is why I don't really distinguish between companies any more. "A major turning point for the, let's say, @$$hole universe, in which things will never be the same..." You know how polybags and variant covers from the early 90s are funny. These company wide craparcs from the mid00s should be the next joke. Like, our monthly books suck, we can't put out anything interesting month to month, but let's turn everything on it's ear so you'll never look at...I dunno, Adam Warlock the same way again. Actually, I have more respect at this point for Bendis than I do for Millar, although I've enjoyed Millar's work more. Marvel sort of marches to the beat of Bendis' drum, while Millar has to be the biggest yes-man in comics. He panders to Marvel and he panders to his fans by doing the unexpected in the exact way they expect. I get the feeling Bendis follows his own muse, his own ideas, that he'd do what he does even if nobody was buying. With Millar, if square jawed, straight laced traditional superheroes were what Marvel wanted, that's what he'd given 'em. All of these crossover e-vents are bordering on the meaningless and worse, the boring. I'd rather see each book get shaken up in its' own way, almost all the time, which, whether you love it or hate, was what Bendis did with DAREDEVIL (I'm closer to hating BMB's DD than loving it, but I respect him doing is own thing).
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ESSENTIAL TOMB OF DRACULA VOL. 1 and 2 with incredible art by Gene Colan whose style was so strong that I never miss the color.
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defintely wtf and not in a good way. thats what i mean about i dont think ill be around too much longer. i might do season 3 but if we end it as convoluted as things are now then im bailing. and yes the fat woman took the cake (no pun). i bought the new moon knight but havent read it. and hey wouldnt a super boy action figure(from IC 6) just be all kinds of awesome?
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the Green Goblin etc. SHIELD lady who's name I forget seemed mighty pissed off and up on her high horse about why Spidey doesn't just kill Norman Osborne and be done with it. "At what point does it become Spider-man's fault" Ok - this is an issue that has dogged comics for a while, especially the Bat books but I feel it was badly handled here. Seems to me that Spidey does his best - batters the bad guy, hands him over to the relevant authorities, bad guys escapes and Spidey kicks fuck out of him again. Repeat ad nauseum. OK fine. But why are these fuckers escaping from prisonin the first place? This SHIELD gal is just assuming bad guys will escape. Is that the fault of the prison or the guy that puts them there? Imagine it this way - some evil prick keeps killing people and getting caught. The cops bust him, he gets stuck in jail and then escapes. Is it the cops' fault because they didn't kill him? Of the fault of the jailers for not keeping him locked up? The cops are doing their job, the jailers aren't. And fuckign Spider-man doesn't even get paid to mop these fuckers up. This whole Planet Hulk/Illuminati thing is based on a totally flawed piece or logic and not one that these SHIELD types would make. They can figure out how to have cool flying air bases but not how to contain the Hulk? Or even Norman Osborne? Totally stupid
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Stupid Havana Club
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CONNOR!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!
DAMN YOU DC! YOU DID IT AGAIN!!! (Okay well almost, I didn't actually cry this time)
In 1985 I was 17 and when I read COIE# 7, I really did cry over the death of Supergirl. It was a horrifically brutal death and equally heroic.
And damn if DC didn't do it again. See, this is an aspect of the Superman 'family' that is often overlooked by many comic fans in my opinion. Ultimately, the Supers will do what is right no matter what the cost is to them. Their existence is DEFINED by the essence of heroism.
I am moved AND entertained by Infinite Crisis. That's all I've ever really expected of my comics. That they have been both that immensely thought provoking is icing on the cake and always will be.
That said: HEY DAN DIDIO, I spend a considerable portion of my annual budget on your product. You think you can turn on a couple of fans and try to see something beyond the billowing fart-smoke of your own ego to see that a little quality control in actually applied? And you, GEOFF JOHNS, a professional writer usually researches his material. One would think that not too horribly difficult if the material came out less than a month before your story did AND you get a comped copy of it. And you two, JEANINE SCHAFER and EDDIE BERGANZA how about you two shits just DO YOUR FUCKING JOB and actually edit THE. BIGGEST. BOOK. to come from your company in the last 20 GODDAMN YEARS?!?! It is stated several times in the IC Day of Vengeance special that the Spectre has destroyed the Ninth Age of magic in the DCU and that it is the Tenth that is now upon us. On Page 9 of IC# 6 The Phantom Stranger says "....the Ninth Age of magic will end before it's even begun". Now before I am labeled merely a psychotically obsessive fanboy (I am a psychotically obsessive, pseudo-homicidal, messiah/martyr complex afflicted MOTHERFUCKER thank you very much) this glaring lack of quality (not too mention an all too common occurrence in MANY of your books of late) in what is THE. BIGGEST. STORY. your company has EVER (EVER MOTHERFUCKERS...or am I merely inferring from personal conjecture that it addresses your entire publishing history of these characters?? Huh? Huh?) published, NOTHING LESS THAN PERFECT (especially in the goddamn text fer chrissake) will do. Now get your shit together and don't make me have ta come bitchslap you fuckers.
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*Curses inability to edit post for typos*
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WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU GET OFF GIVING ME THIS CHEAP-ASS COVERSTOCK FOR THE SAME GODDAMN COVER PRICE?!?! THIS IS A RIP-OFF, PLAIN AND SIMPLE, A FUCKING SCAM. This kind of bullshit is what contributes severely to customer dissatisfaction and one way or another directly impacts your sales you pompous fucks. Fucking fuckers....
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Thanks for the information Buzz Maverick. I think I
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2:30 east coast time; I just got kicked out of a bar, plus my girfriend said if I "keep showing up in this condition, we don't have a relationship." Much like Connor and Cassie no longer have a relationship. Because, obviously, he's dead. Psynapse, you sound both drunk and emotionally forlorn-- I appreciate that, on both counts. It was hard for me to see Connor die because I consider Cassie the hottest girl DC has going (except for maybe Zatanna), and when her heart broke, my heart broke for her. I thought about how hard Connor's tried to become an actual person (think of Raven explaining to him that he had a soul). Then I thought about how none of these people actually exist, and how it was like I was watching a soap-opera but with better looking actors in skimpier clothes. Yet that didn't take away the hurt. Connor lost his right hand! Explain to me how Alex Luthor's tower blows up and decimates Superboy, but Nightwing walks away undamaged. Ah, well. Omelets and eggs, my man. DC comics has done exactly two things right over the last fifteen years: Dick Grayson and Wally West. And Wally may not even exist anymore.
... Shit. -
...it was the bit about Spidey's culpability in the Green Goblin's recurring escapes/murders/etc. Here's the deal: the reason villains escape isn't because Spidey and friends don't have the stones to off 'em. And it's not because of revolving door prisons or shitty supervillain confinement technology. And it sure as HELL ain't, as Mark Millar brought to the table in MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN, because corrupt corporations hire all these supervillains to distract heroes from The Real Problems With The World. No. No, God damn it, you rationalizing idiots. The reason supervillains keep escaping, the only real reason, is because THEY'RE GOOD FICTIONAL VILLAINS. Readers love reading about the likes of Joker, Green Goblin, and Magneto! Writers love writing about them! It's that simple. It's the most *basic* conceit of the genre, that you don't take every story literally, you don't add up all of the adventures and expect a realistic representation of a life, you don't have to wonder why Batman's hands aren't mulch from impacting on thousands of jaws over the years. And once upon a time, nobody even cared about this stuff. In the fabled decades when comics were a kids thing, readers started at age eight or nine, read for a few years, moved on. But now that readers take in stories by the *decade*, now they've all got to be analyzed with adult sensibilities, quantified and justified by adult standards lest any of us accidentally enjoy the fantasy of Superman flying without worrying about the sound-barrier-shattering slipstream in his wake and all the windows he'd be shattering to rain down glass on pedestrians. Conceits that children understand implicitly (i.e. a villain escaping is NOT meant to reflect a failure on the part of a superhero) are utterly elusive to adults. That's how we get ridiculous, overthought, cynical concepts like Spidey being pitted against the Scorpion so he doesn't notice that Nike's got sweatshops in Korea. And do note the ramifications of Millar's genius addition to the Spider-Man mythos. I'll help: Spider-Man's victories are in fact all FAILURES, all examples of him being played as a chump by billionaires lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills. And now he's also a failure for not killing said villains - what a pussy this guy is! A spineless pawn of The Man! Honestly, with that Millar and Bendis's mentality dominating the industry, both among creators and the fans eating this stuff up, I'm shocked Grant Morrison's neo-Silver Age ALL-STAR SUPERMAN has an audience at all. I guess it's a novelty amidst all the rest, but if all of DC's books were like that, better believe fucking HEADS would be exploding. Everyone would be wondering how many bystanders were killed by Samson and Atlas's antics in ALL-STAR #3, or better yet, why Superman was farting around with two super-jocks when he should've been solving world hunger. Why, it really says something about him, doesn't it? He's selfish, isn't he? Not truly altruistic at all. And because he's an American icon, the same could be said for the whole of America. That's so deep I just blew my own mind. ***** So to quote Edward R. Murrow, "this I believe": that superhero "realism" is a precarious fantasy. It works best when it's not the prevailing quality of a story, but rather a garnish to the larger-than-life aspects. The Thing having to catch a cab to get to where Blastaar is tearing up Queens - that's a nice bit of realism. But when you start asking questions about hero culpability in genre conceits like recurring villains, the dominos begin to fall. A few posts back, Kuryakin rightly noted that if you're going to ask that question, then you also have to start pointing fingers at the jails that can't seem to hold said villains. And we should also start asking why governments haven't done more to stem the tide of supervillains in the first place - surely this is more important than immigration issues! Truthfully, it's times like this that I want Grant Morrison to show up in comics like ILLUMINATI, break the fourth wall ANIMAL MAN-style, and point a damning finger at the true culprits behind supervillainy: the readers. They're the ones paying for the books! They're the one pressuring comic companies to bring back favorite villains! So I say *they're* responsible for Magneto sinking that Russian sub back in UNCANNY #150. They're the ones who destroyed Coast City, who obliterated Genosha, who failed to stop Phoenix from cooking that planet of broccoli-head aliens, and as long as we're at it, who destroyed an *infinite* number of Earths back in the original CRISIS. You genocidal fucking maniacs! Now how's that for some real, reality-based, realistic realism?
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..of a World War, the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. When have today's "creators" ever been in a situation where they've had to kill anything except time or a six pack? Ah, but they're edgy, guys. And cold blooded and real world.
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...which is why the Fantastic Four, Bruce Banner and Peter Parker NOW did not received super-powers from exposure to radiation but got cancer and died. And the X-Men have powers like extra toes, third nipples and they can sleep with their eyes open. Plus, they're all sterile.
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...many people still consider it wrong. I've heard there's even laws against it. Like, you could get a ticket...
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...to the miniseries RUINS that Warren Ellis did for Marvel in the 90s. You haven't lived till you've seen Marvel Girl as a hooker or the Hulk's entire body becoming a mass of bursting, gamma-spawned tumors.
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with a helping of some dave wizdom being dropped and buzz being buzz?i must have done somthing right to be treated so nice this early on a satruday morning
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The first comic I ever read monthly was G.I. Joe by Marvel. Readers often wrote in and asked for more realism. I can
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What else could I say? Both of you were spot on. I thought the @$$holes would have been more pissed about the Hulk killing thing, but 'Spidey to blame' for villians escaping is ignorant too. That's Bendis for you. I'm growing really too, too tired of his stuff. *** Kal-El, you mean like this ** http://tinyurl.com/mbons ** looks a little too zombie-like though doesn't he? As for Lost, I think I'll give it until the end of season 3 to really show that it has some sort of resolution in mind. I don't want another X-Files or ALIAS on our hands. I don't think the show should go on longer than 4 seasons, unless there's a damn good reason. But epsiodes like this Hurley one seemed to just fuck with the viewer by saying, "What if it's just in his mind?" Fuck that, we deserve better. *** Conner lost his hand too? Man, I've read the issue a few times now and every time there's something to pick up on. Psy, I didn't remember that 9th age thing, but yeah, that seems like a big mess up, not Marvel continuity mess up, but still bad. Don't even get me started on the cover stock. Fuggin' A!!! I thought IC #6 had plenty of great moments though. Martian Manhunter's dialogue, Black Adams moment, Alexander 'reaching' for our world, Batman being a leader, Batman trusting Hal to rescue him, "ROUND TWO!" Plenty to have me jonesing for the final issue. It'd be nice to have a big omnibus type of book that had IC, Countdown mini's, Specials and some monthly issues all together. Wonder if that will happen?
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but not in the usual way, but more in the way of this past weeks episode - WTF?
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Aw F@#$, there goes my fanfic! Why don't they just up and off Calculator and get rid of my triumvirate of villains while I'm at it?
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Is that why, Thalya? I also just thought that there's a lot to wrap up or at least address next issue: What's Joker been doing? Dr. Light? Elongated Man? Flashes? Calculator? Is issue 7 going to have a higher page count? It at least better have it's thick cover back
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http://tinyurl.com/gfoky *** Now, I know why all my 90's comics aren't worth crap. He's poison!
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Just being me, when (I allow-or so all these Zen fucks keep telling me) things actually piss me off, I'm a genuine dick. But see, that's the thing, I've NEVER read a story where the 4th wall was just so completely permeable throughout the story and that's a really neat thing to me. Then, (when let's face it, supporting this book means arguing with somebody about it) to have it shit on by clumsy fuck ups and cheap-assed and lame as fuck quality issues like the coverstock switch (Which IS the epitome of a customer fuck over DC.) just kind of makes you feel burned no matter how much you enjoyed the book. That's just fucked up in my opinion...
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No, they up and offed Star Sapphire (Deborah Camille Darnell version) and Psycho Pirate IN THE SAME FRICKIN ISSUE!!! I was going to hook up the two of them in Issue #6! And I'm just about done my rewrite of Issue #1!!! Geoff Johns, I love your Zenmaster writing, but you bastard! I'm gonna have to set this thing before IC now so I can have those two plus an alive Connor in the story. Rassenfrassen..grumble grumble...
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But, your fanfic breaks all sorts of walls doesn't it? Like the 4th one and maybe even the 5th? : ) You could always work around IC if you really wanted to. Never underestimate the use of vibrational frequencies, multiverses, hyperwhatevers, and good 'ol time travel!
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I think it's Conner for Kent and Connor for Sarah. Am I right? Agree w/ you Psy on the cover stock. How does something like that happen?
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yeah it does look a little to zombie ish as well as like a little kid. i guess i was hoping for a cooler one but ill probably buy that one as well.lately ive just become such a sucker for dc and specifically jla/big 3 items. behold my latest purchase-http://tinyurl.com/hzrom***as for lost yes it has become more and more of a fuck you to the viewer imo.***no shit fuggin cheap bastards gave me regular paper instead of the fancy cardstock cover!i also feel your rage psynapse.and its such a sweet cover too(the jim lee superboy cover)!
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'Cuz those bookends are (Thank you Peter Griffin) FREEKIN' SWEET.
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First of all OMG IC#6 was SOOOO awesome, there are no words to describe it. Well maybe two: Epic and Fantastic. Or maybe just one: Epictastic.
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First of all i know i say this every 2 months but i'm obsessive and weird: "You want realism then pick up a newspaper. You want entertainment pick up a comic book" Please let us not work under the assumption that superhero comics are all that comics are supposed to be. Pisses me off. Second, i find the subject to be very interesting...the idea of revisionism and deconstruction. We've been reading revisionistic superhero stories for a while now, haven't we? Some triumphant and some, well...not very, but the idea of placing a logical explanation behind a superpowered character's motivations and/or universe is not new and Bendis certainly did not invent it. Watchmen is a revisionistic story, even The Incredibles is revisionistic, are you going to tell me that wasn't entertaining? But the reason those stories worked was they starred analogues instead of "the real thing". And i stand by the comments i made last week, or the one before that, that these are your characters and you won't stand for anything less than exactly what you want them to be. And that's totally valid and i respect it. Buzz, on the other hand, raises an interesting point which is "what state was the world in when these characters were created?" (paraphrasing of course) The holocaust, the Cold war, Nuclear paranoia, those are the backdrops fof many of these archetypal characters and that makes them direct responses to what was going on in THE REAL WORLD when their creators sat down and put pencil to paper. How are today's stories any different? And i'm not saying Bendis sat down and said "hey...let me respond to the world around me through my dialogue-heavy comics", so you can cool yo' jets mister! I'm saying these things just sort of happen as art tends to imitate life most of the time. So what i'm getting at (and fuck you if you think i'm overthinking things or being pretentious, i hate you anyway) is i find it very interesting that writers like Millar would have that to say about Spider-Man, and mostly i'd be inclined to say maybe the reason stuff like that happens is we don't believe in heroes anymore. Ok so these writers aren't edgy and they never had to live in fear of anything, that deosn't make their ideas any less valid: These heroes are pussies, the Avengers get their asses handed to them more than they actually get the oportunity to be heroic, Spider-Man is distracted from the real problems the world is facing, and Captain America (SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!) doesn't believe in America anymore so he runs off to Canada or something, and he'll maybe even give a speech about America not being what he has believed it to be all his life anymore but THAT America, that dream, that idea... it's still in him...he just doesn't want to live there anymore because of Bush or something (END SPOILER). Maybe it's a lot more complicated than that but i'm pretty fucking sure it's there cause i can see the patterns. And maybe it doesn't make for good stories (or in this case the stories you'd like to read) but it exists for a reason and that reason is it's almost entirely impossible to create these comics in a complete vacuum where only fanboy-ism exists and the only thing that permeates the stories is an understanding of what came before. These comics will always be a byproduct of their time, whatever time that might be and i don't think there's anything anyone can do about it.
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if its something gay im not down. but for you psynapse, yes im down
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The response to Lost has also been really interesting to me and seeing how people react to it has, in fact, informed me of what i believe my own reaction should be. What i believe is Lost owes me nothing and in turn i owe Lost hours upon hours of entertainment, so why be pissed at it because it wants to fuck with my mind? So i'm gonna let the show go through the paces it wants to make, and yes i'm quite aware it could end up being one of the worst fuck ups ever, but so far let me judge it on its merits and not on what i believe may or may not happen 2 seasons from now. I read an interview in which the creators said they'd been concerned with placing little easter eggs here and there until they realized people where more concerned with finding those easter eggs than concentrating on the emotional stories they were trying to tell. And if nothing else, that's pretty naive on their part and therein lies the problem: Lost has taken on a life of its own and the public has shown where its interests lie...in the answers it's not getting. I've found myself really not caring about Kate or Michael or Sun sometimes(although i did care about Kate showering, thank you once again, Lost) because all i want is the fucking answers (or clues and WTF moments) and i don't give a shit if Hurley doesn't like change and change is overrated if it doesn't necessarily reflect or have a direct effect on what is going on with this mysterious island (which it sort of does, but not in the way i'd want it to), but i can't help thinking maybe i'm missing the point. What's Lost really about? Is it the goal or the jurney? I'm gonna try not to take it personally and i'm gonna try to let it be its own thing rather than what i want it to be. Let's face it, the chances of Lost's resolution being entirely satisfying are pretty low and even if they are satisfying to me, it doesn't mean you guys won't hate it, you know? The last thing i want from it is to pander to me and try to figure out exactly what it is that i want so it can deliver it, when most of the time the show has been about giving me something i didn't know i wanted. So i'm gonna sit back and relax and let it happen and be entertained. Maybe you're not interested in that shit, but the little nuances and the characters and the interactions and the acting and the (in my opinion) elegant storytelling, that's what's made Lost so friggin good, the fact that you're not just tuning in to a cool and mysterious plot, you're tuning in to a QUALITY show, a well made program. When it was first revealed that Locke used to be paralized from the waist down and was now able to walk, i wasn't really concerned (at first) with what made his paralysis go away; i was completely blown away by the beauty of the moment, this man smiling in glee amidst a scene of utter chaos...and that's what makes it special to me, and that's why i'm gonna choose to not be pissed off at it cause it keeps me guessing and delivers episodes that seem to serve no purpose. Oh and one last thing: About the characters being one-dimensional? Dude, we are ALL one-dimensional. No, really. Something happened to the character before the island so he acts a certain way on the island. we're all like that, we're a lot less complicated than we think ourselves to be, and human behavior is so predictable it's amazing we still have original stories to tell. That is all.
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Go a little less than halfway down this page for his post: http://tinyurl.com/rg97h As always, a class act, and I find I'm pretty much in perfect sync with his views on the Hulk. ***** Vale, additional thoughts on your thoughts tomorrow. Psynapse, by all means, seek out and enjoy BATTLE ROYALE. I just watched the movie tonight, and I must say: it's but a pale shadow of the comic - tamer, less sex, less violence, less emotionally involvment, and a weaker ending ta boot. Movie? No. Comic? Si!
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It's the official cop term for a burglary. I learned it at 12 when I got busted for going into the old lady across the street's house and jacking her for $56 in silver dollars and a gallon jug of Cheer laundry detergent. Yeah there was all this lecture-ey, court-ey, probation-ey stuff (I guess, I wasn't really paying it much attention honestly) but damn if my clothes weren't springtime fresh and my Shogun Warrior collection totally pimped.
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thats what i thought but i had to throw the shameless gay joke in there. i know im a douche bag. still the bookends are MINE!! you cant have them!!oh who am i kiddin theyre just going to end up in the Cog mansion somewhere propping up vale's alan moore coolection and thalyas IC trades
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http://dccomics.com/
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And speaking of zooming (ignore bad segue) does anyone think that the chance of Bart being the new Flash is more possible now? Superboy Prime said the Flashes kept him under the red sun for 'years', so maybe Bart grew up? Maybe 5 -10 years holding Superboy P? *** Joker is bound to make some sort of appearance in IC #7. I think it will involve the society, but I also believe that maybe he'll try and take out the leader of the society because he's pissed at having not been invited, which in fact Alexander is the leader. Maybe? Maybe not? Oh, and I also read somewhere that when Alex merged Earth 462 and 154 that he made Earth 616! Oh, Geoff Johns, geek humor at it's best. And I leave you all a link to the new artist for Batwoman ** http://tinyurl.com/jleac ** I hope that get's a laugh and DC in no way is really considering this. Does anyone know who the OFFICIAL writer for Action Comics is yet?
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I hear your point but seriously...no more spoilers. I know i tried spoiling it for myself that one time but now i'm stronger than yesterday or whatever Britney would say and now i don't really want to know if 2 months from now they say maybe it's all in Hurley's head because remember he was in a mental institution? That, by the way, is a nice red herring that would piss every single person off if it turned out to be true.
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and sorry about the Spoilers, I thought you had fallen off the wagon!
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In this week's Teen Titans? And yeah, I also noticed Starfire's out of the picture, so definitely pre-IC.. And what do you want to bet Joker pulls a Babs Killing Joke on Calculator at the end of Infinite Crisis? (*sad sigh* though it could make for some very dark humor about Stephen Hawking being a supervillain..) At least Guy Gardner seems to have come out unscathed.. Johns has to be a big opportunist. It's clear the only reason he offed Star Sapphire was so he could get back to doing Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire in Green Lantern. I fail to see how that whole Spectre sequence in IC #6 is relevant to the story otherwise. And is anyone else loving Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis? I think it's playing off my love of Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker. (and King Orin has not left the book at all..)
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I should note that bringing Carol Ferris and Star Sapphire back together adds a hell of alot more to whatever conflicts happen with the character and the last incarnation of Star Sapphire didn't really do much, so it's a good move, but still opportunistic. I may have to start adding GL to my pull list.
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Green Lantern has just been solid. I kinda didn't want the one-year later treatment done, but GL#10 was a good read. Also, my onscreen tv guide has justice league unlimited listed on 4-15-2006 @ 10:30 has anyone else heard anything on its return?
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And to drop logic as to what an Uber-Geek I am. Those of you reading IC take a close look at Earth 462. The Wonder Woman depicted there is the Cathy Lee Crosby one from the cheesy 1970's movie and the Wonder Girl is the Debra Winger version from the old 1970's TV show.
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I don't get it, what makes him an arrogant asshole? Is he an asshole because he has an opinion on Hulk just like Dan Slott has? Remember, in Slott's post, how he points out that's his PERSONAL take? These two guys are stating they respect eachother and enjoy eachother's work and they have completely oposing views on the same subject, but to you Bendis is an asshole and how dare he, really. I mean i don't get it, it's not like suddenly everything Bendis says is the absolute truth, especially when the subject matter is so subjective. Truth is, isn't it cool that there's a choice to be made and Marvel provides you with both options? You believe Hulk has never taken a life? Read Slott. You believe Hulk has killed trillions upon trillions of bystanders? Read Bendis. So yeah, i don't get it, please explain.
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;) MattBrady does awesome recaps, he does.
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I'll wager the reason Bendis comes across as arrogant to so many is that his particular take seems to go against the original intents of Stan Lee and the other Marvel founders. Tons of writers have done that to some degree, but Bendis's reworkings seem particularly egregious as they always seem so anti-heroic. Note that Frank Miller made DAREDEVIL a dark book, but Daredevil himself remained quite pure.
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Just read your ArchEnemies review from a month ago. Darn good, but I don't understand your minor quibble about the emphasis on Vincent over Ethan. I think there's way more fertile ground in exploring the villain over the hero, especially when we're always treated to a hero's secret identity in comics, but not the villain so much. Besides, what's interesting is that Vincent is very sympathetic with the situation with his father and just as an awkward geek-type character in general, but interspersed are some creep-like bits that make you wonder just how did this guy get reared? And then, ok, supervillain. What's he doing with an apartment and a roommate? I can see a hero doing the secret id dance there, but a villain?
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Yeah, that was an impressive issue. Superboy going nagged me a little. He certainly became more interesting as time progressed (his initial costume was hilarious, the x-ray glasses on those hawaii beaches, lol). They seem to be stretching the GL's thin, maybe they could have bumped off one of them to make things simpler? Anyway, it can only be a good thing to fuck off a Titan. It was good to see they had something to do in this issue, they always seem to bore me. I didn't even notice the cover stock, but now that you guys mention it, i'm pissed. I picked up issue 6 of Iron Man, that fucking art is unreal. I love it. I want to go back and grab the other first five, impossible as that sounds. I hope they bring a TB out for those issues. Also grabbed Uncanny X-Men to check in and see what is happening. First time I have picked up an X comic in about ten to twelve years. Never really a big Marvel reader, but these Marvel films have reminded me what awesome characters exist there, and Civil War is starting to look to me to be more interesting than OYL now that I am bothering to take a look. That Illumaniti strand sounds really cool, I hope I'm not too late for it. I have to admit I've always been intimidated by all the different versions of the Marvel universe to give a fuck. But the catch-up text on the first page of Uncanny helped, and so with this sketch sneak peek on Civil War. .........What I find amazing is how cool this IC series is while everything else is braindead. It's a bad state when the only other title with any excitement around it is for Blue Beetle. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm pissed they have cut off JLA. Marvel looks like it is doing more interesting things with its main heroes than DC is what I'm trying to say. And so long as the artwork is cool, I may JUMP FUCKING SHIP!
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ding
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Vale wrote of current trends in superhero realism: >>And maybe it doesn't make for good stories (or in this case the stories you'd like to read) but it exists for a reason and that reason is it's almost entirely impossible to create these comics in a complete vacuum where only fanboy-ism exists and the only thing that permeates the stories is an understanding of what came before.<< I'll tell ya one thing: I do think the changes that've come over superhero comics were inevitable, but in no way solely because comics are destined to reflect the real, callused world. It's the audience that defines the approach, and the most meaningful change, of course, has been the graying of the audience over the last several decades. For comics' first few decades, they sold better than they ever have since, and they did it with minimal reflection of the real world. Sure, the 40s had Nazi villains, the 50s bent towards the rise of sci-fi, and the 60s had atomic threats, but in most cases we're just talking about adventure stories guised in the *trappings* of current events. Surely no one who's ever read a Golden Age "hero vs. Nazis" comic put it down feeling the full weight of World War II or the Holocaust. And in the 50s when Batman was selling in the millions, I think the closest he got to relevance was fighting aliens because they were in the popular culture - but it's not exactly the rise of the Civil Rights movement, is it? And even when books like the X-Men *did* get around to reflecting the Civil Rights movement, relevancy still took a backseat to old-school cliffhanger fare. It was a plot hook and little more, which was well and good because relevancy is a quality adults look for, not the kids making up the bulk of the audience. I'd say it's only since the 70s that the trend of relevancy has begun to encroach on escapism. And the 70s, of course, was the era when sales began really sliding. So much so, in fact, that the direct market of comic book shops was created in response. In the short term specialty shops seem to've saved the biz, but they certainly didn't *stop* industry shrinkage. As convenience stories, newsstands, and grocery stories stopped carrying comics, the median age of readers went way up even as sales continued to decline. It was out with the pre-teens, in with the diehard adults who'd stuck around later than most and those older teens and twentysomething with cars to find specialty shops and jobs to afford the rising prices. And even as that median age has risen from kids to teens, teens to twentysomethings, and...is the comic majority in its 30s yet?...there's been an ongoing struggle between adult desires for relevancy and youthful/nostalgic desires for escapism (what Vale seems to be referring to as "fanboyism", though I'd say that's tantamount to calling it "fannish" to want action in a STAR WARS movie). I think the post-2000s may be the first era where relevancy is on the cusp of overwhelming escapism. So what's it all mean? Simply that the grown-ups took over the kids' clubhouse, and we've all known that for quite some time. You can be for it or against it, but make no mistake: THAT is the source of the increasing cynicism and call for relevancy in superhero comics, not some inherent property of the genre that inevitably forces it to mimick the real world. ***** As an aside, does anyone know if there's a good, accurate comic-reader census out there? I'd be fascinated to know what the average age really is, what kinds of comics certain ages buy, etc, etc.
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Look Benids is smart no matter which way you look at it. BUT he does seem like an asshole with what comes across as disdain for comic fans and quite possibly the superheroes he writes about. He seems to only take his own work and the work of his immediate peers seriously and have NO respenct, NONE for what's come before unless it's someone who's still around and who's ass he can kiss, like Frank Miller. That being said...I do enjoy some of his work, actually quite a bit of it. But in interviews (just check out his freaking ridicoulous podcast interviews on wordballoons.com) he just comes across like he actually hates his fans. Not only that, but has an actual disdain for comic characters and their histories unless he or Millar or one of his pals is working on them. Almost anything that's come before his is just worthless and silly and should just be used to be taken apart to show how pathetic the heroes actually are. Unless it's his own pet project like Ultimate Spider-Man and Alias. I dread...DREAD what's coming with Civil War and that's because it seems like Bendis and his buddies have been given free reign to do what they will with the Marvel Universe which means that all of the actual fun of it will be sucked dry and we'll get heroes like Iron Man being pussies and rolling over for the federal government or icons like Captian America running to Canada because they choose to run instead of do the heroic thing like fight for what's right.
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That's the only reason I had that minor criticism. That, and a villain is only as good as his/her hero and vice-versa. A lesson I think we all learned from the original Burton Batman movies...correct? :O)
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While they can be informative Matt fucks up a little too often when giving his crisis reviews (Example: In the 1st column he refers to Zoom as Prof. Zoom) and he nor any poster there gets a smidge of credit towards my geektasticity.
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but that would be out of character...i'm only hired for random responses.
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heathen...logan vs. bauer...its on!!!
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Sorry, i think i didn't make my point very clear: I believe these characters, stories and comics reflect some aspects of the world surrounding the people who create them, and yes that means some of them are direct responses to certain situations, but not all of them are. As i said, some of them are cultural by-products of their time, so, surely, if we accept the theory that today's writers (the postmodern ones anyway) don't really believe in heroes anymore and that is reflected in the work, then it's fair to claim way back when, during dark but simpler times, the need for escapism was palpable and these heroes were born out of cultural necessity and their creators were influenced, of course, by WWII, to give an example. See? Not about the actual event but what it tends to represent. Today's comics are far more likely to reflect a very inmediate sense of cynicism than evoking the war in Iraq and its every beat. Back when it was easy to believe in your country, back when it was easy to recognize the good guys from the bad guys, heroes had their place. It's interesting that you should mention the sales decline of the 70s (something i did not know about) because those were certainly cynical times and i'd venture to say maybe superpowered beings with magnanimous motivations and untouchable notions of right and wrong were no longer that believable (as in hey, this is something i can believe in) and slowly but surely a sarcastic and revisionistic worldview began to take over idealism and there seems to be no turning back. So i guess what i'm saying is yes, you're absolutely right, THAT is the source of the increasing cynicism and call for relevancy in superhero comics, not some inherent property of the genre that inevitably forces it to mimick the real world. Art is always ALWAYS influenced by the real world and that is why music and movies and comics can always be categorized by the decade. You can trace America's steps in time as you listen to its music and you watch its movies and read its comics. Popular culture is always willing to lend you a hand. I would even dare claim the world of comics is so big and insulated right now that it has an influence on itself (and don't tell me it's not big because here i am sitting in Bogota, Colombia talking about Bendis), and if you're going to call Dan Slott the Anti Bendis, and look how refreshing that is, then you're accepting there's a need for an Anti Bendis, and Slott's popularity can be a direct answer to Bendis (when i say Bendis i mean everything he seems to represent) existing in the first place. Art imitates itself. So this disrespect that you claim Bendis is guilty of, you may not like it, but i think it's totally valid and it has a logical explanation beyond "wow he's such an asshole". Even if Bendis doesn't know it himself.
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but it kind of ties in i think.i just tivoed burtons batman and honestly,was i young?is that what it is? thats a cheesy movie!i like BEGINS a lot more.and ultimately,i can see bale doing the IC 6 thing better than keton.
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oh ic #6...how i love thee...where's the oversized hardcover collection??...wait...you have one more issue to go...sweet mercy...and bendis should hire you vale or at least pay you for your continued staunch defending of the bald one (he is still bald yes?)...but what if bendis is an asshole? is it ok to work with characters that oyu didn't create and depise everything that was done before with them until you started working with them? if so, i hate family heirlooms...like that old watch that has been passed down...i depise all the history that came with it and those that wore it...in fact i'm going to ignore all of that and just deconstruct and make it "better" because i'm now the one behind the wheel...good god...why am i seeing so many coke lines? darth...i'm expecting jessica alba in my package...seriously...
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Cover to IC #6: I like the Jim Lee one, but man those ankle-high hills are STILL showing up all over the place? I thought they left with the 90's. *** Dave and Vale. I agree with you both! Is that weird? Dave have you considered that maybe, and I know you might quake and weep at the very notion...but maybe just maybe Superheroes and comics as they were are dead? That 50+ years of back issues are enough for that genre? That maybe they're not coming back? Maybe the medium is shifting and morphing (I won't say evolving) and it *boomy shaky voice* SHALL NEVER BE THE SAME! And except for tiny niches (excluding manga here), comics won't be for kids. Now some would say this would be the death of the industry. But does that mean it's impossible for an 18-24 year old to pick up his first comic book? You have to be age 8-12 in order to start reading comics?
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hear anymore or any word for that matter on Warner's making a Metal Men movie of DC's...well...metal men...and woman?
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Kal-El, I "hear" the voice of Kevin Conroy from the animated series whenever I read anything w/ Batman in it, unless it's All Star, then I go w/ Adam West because it's not quite as creepy
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I really don't have a right to say shit. However, If disdain is the primary feeling a writer has towards his subject matter how is it ever gonna be anything other than that in it's expression?
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I can type! *** Valid point, Psy.
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"Remember in the Hulk movie when the Hulk threw a tank with a guy inside it across the desert and it crashes and the guy gets out of the tank unscathed? Didn
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Anybody with me? Can't stand the clapping one either. You know what makes the Electric Slide viewable on film? First, take out the audio of the song, it's one of the worst things ever, then overlay a slower song by somebody like Radiohead, Death Cab for Cuite or Beck. It does wonders and is surreal looking. *This random tangent has been brought to you by, The Heathen! Doped up on insulin for over two decades!*
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April 15th! I sure as hell hope so. Hope they don't pull a switcheroo like last time. I need some JLU. There's only 4 left right? : ( I'm with you on GL.
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See...that's why I can believe that the Hulk can throw a tank at another tank and the soldiers inside can survive. And no one EVER said that if the Hulk knocks a building down that people just get up and walk away unscathed. No one actually gets killed is all. People could be hurt or scared or traumatized but the Hulk doesn't kill. It's just comic book logic and, yes, it doesn't make sense but neither does a nerdy scientist surviving a "Gamma Bomb" and turning into a big green dopey super-strong monster! It's just a convention of the genre! Good guys are good guys and there's NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! They can be tortured good guys. They can be angry good guys. But they are inherently GOOD and that's THAT! Look, as a fan, I want action not MURDER in my superhero books. I'm not saying that there's no room for books like The Ultimates or The Authority, I happen to like them very much. What I am saying is that if you want to fuck with the heroic ideals of long-loved characters that have been around since before you were alive either publish your own books or keep it in the Ultimate universe. The MARVEL universe should strive to be creative and original and not just be a hackneyed copy of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie! Creative and original doesn't just mean dark and spineless heroes. Has Marvel learned nothing from the '90's? Apparently not...
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punched that goon into an acid tank.
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In one of (ironically) Bendis' last DD issues, during the Murdock Papers arc, him and Bullseye crash through a glass roof. I may be misremembering something, but I think Bullseye throws a bunch of glass shards at DD and some of it hits a bystander who bleeds out in DD's arms. DD swears to stop this maniac right now... that to me was cool. Did I remember that wrong? I'm getting old...
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Blackthought: Bendis SHOULD be paying me god dammit! I've gone to bat so many times for him i'm afraid one day he'll just come out and say "Guys that was all garbage, i sucked and i was wrong", and i'll have to go hide in some cave. That said, i don't think i'm a blind follower (too god damn smart for that), instead i have a passion for justice (yup, a true colombian hero) and i don't like to see people give criticisms that i consider to be unfair. I think someone said Bendis has a desdain for everything that came before and everyone just accepted it because it sounds like the perfect argument you don't have to think about all that much. Remember, this is all based on speculation and you haven't heard it from the man yet, and proof isn't so substantial that it can properly incriminate him. Bendis sounds like an arrogant asshole? Absolutely! Have you read the Powers letters columns? It's his online persona, much like Warren Ellis has his cranky old bastard one. So yeah, we can sit here all day and talk about Bendis' omission of everything that came before and how he hates Stan Lee and how he even raped his own mother once, because remember that scene from Dissassembled when that building blows up or whatever? Damned if that wasn't written by someone who raped his own mother. It's all speculation based on some loosely strung together facts that amount to nothing, in my humble opinion. *** Heathen: That's the other thing, Bendis hates his fans. All speculative. Maybe what you're implying is he doesn't really care about fan reaction when writing, and in that case it might (see? I'm doing it too) be true, and also in that case "Hate" is a strong word. Bendis, as it appears, is doing his own thing. Now, gauging fan reaction in this board in particular, i think it's safe to say you can't really do your own thing in superhero comics and get away with it. Doing your own thing means you don't give a shit about history, you hate the fans and you'd like to take a dump on Captain America's chest. And Stan Lee's. And, see, i know exactly how you feel because i was pissed off at JQ for taking away Wolverine's smoking abilities! That can be considered as doing your own thing, not giving a shit about history, hating the fans and taking a dump on...someone. Probably Wolverine. So maybe i'm just a hypocrite then. Wouldn't count on it tho'. Oh and i'd rather have Bendis calling the shots at Marvel and not that colon smidge Jeph Loeb. *** Shigeru: I think you're right, i think that Bendis quote does make it sound like he just doesn't get it, and if he just can't suspend his disbelief when talking about a GIANT GREEN MAN maybe he shouldn't be writing this material and should concentrate on what he does best, which is crime stories and stuff. Powers is a good vehicle for deconstruction, i believe. I just don't think it's fair to say he's an arrogant bastard just cause he has an opinion on a fucking fictional character. JQ's an asshole for using Wolverine to push his personal intolerant agenda, while Bendis offers a new take on old characters is where my theory's at right now. Let me polish it just so i don't sound like a hypocrite. And people, i wrote the quote of the year and no one realized it! "If you want to read a Marvel where Hulk kills people when he flicks cars around, read Bendis. If not, then read Slott" It's so fucking simple, if reading a Bendis comic feels like habing the man take a dump on your chest then by all means don't! You already know what's gonna happen, you'll feel insulted and write it in the talkbacks, and then i'll have to come here and defend Bendis and it WON'T EVER STOP!!! Tired. So tired. Must shower. Tired.
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with taking dumps on people's chests.
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..volcanoes?
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i fear who is...and frankly...if i was bendis i'd hate myself.
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...with his dialogue heavy comics, and in that regard, we @$$-types may be too hard on (heh-heh, I said hard-on) the man. This may be unconscious or intended in another way. Simply, consider what you're doing right now as you read this, as you post here (no, no, not that. Put it back in yer pants fer Chrissakes!). One form or another, all we are doing is talking. And Gawd knows, I love women, but with the feminization or our society and culture (even our pop culture) everyone talks too fucking much. I mean, Tarantino is kinda the voice of his filmmaking generation (argue) and he was raised mostly by a single mom. It's funny that all his bad asses talk up a storm...except his single female protagonist who is much more like a traditional male hero. The talk shit...an interesting gimmick, but grating and repetitive as paradigm. I believe you can actually do more with action.
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and don't forget Glycon.
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happy monday people!
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If I believed he didn't care for fan reactions then he wouldn't have said stuff like, "break the internet in half" or killed Hawkeye a second time just for reaction. Who's reaction/ The fans. He cares, if e didn't he wouldn't gripe about it so much. Vale: "i think it's safe to say you can't really do your own thing in superhero comics and get away with it. Doing your own thing means you don't give a shit about history." Mostly true to a degree. Can't have Superman killing people, etc. Valid point, but I'd just like some coherent stories with dialogue, action, and thrills. With Bendis writing superheroes, I get one out of the three. Guess which one? Call me positive in thinking I should get all of those from a book called the Avengers. You know that one of Bendis' favorite single issues of comics is Avengers Annual #10 (first appearance of Rogue, guest starring a bunch of people) ** http://tinyurl.com/koygv ** or so it was stated in Wizard. He say's that that issue had everything you'd want from a comic, but he isn't even coming close to that. Not even near that. Why? I sure as hell don't know why. Avengers Annual #10 in the hands of Bendis would be a six issue arc. As for, Jeph Loeb may not be the greatest, or even consistently good, but I'll lay it out right here and now: I think the superheroes of Marvel 616 would be in better hands if they were in Loebs and not Bendis'. I'd like to see Robert Kirkman, Dan Slott, David Hine, Brian K. Vaughan, Josss Wheson and Millar be the go to boy's though. Vale: "he just doesn't get it, and if he just can't suspend his disbelief when talking about a GIANT GREEN MAN maybe he shouldn't be writing this material and should concentrate on what he does best, which is crime stories and stuff." Exactly. Not saying he can't write or that he's not smart, but leave the capes alone.
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Yay for Bendis and pooping!
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I also type like I have a lisp. *** After talking about the Bendis and his books so much I think I know why a lot of people loved/hated his DD run. It was right on the border of being what Brian was good at, AND was supposed to be a about a superhero too. So it was a mixed bag as plenty will say. A mystery/thriller type of book with lawyers and dirty alleys. Really good at first, but then it was layed on too thick perhaps? I'm mainly guessing here, having not read more than two of his DD arcs.
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'Cuz then I'd have to have an opinion on it. Oh wait, I do. He's obviously running the show at Marvel much the way Johns is at DC. Funny, I read more than 10 DC titles a month but only 2 from Marvel and they happen to be the 2 that remain untouched by The Bendis Imperative: Runaways and Astonishing X-Men. Hmm, If he's to your liking then rock on. Until Marvel publishes a story that is as brilliant as their choice to let Magneto 'remove' Wolverine's adamantium a few year's back was fucking moronic (Cuz it's one thing to switch around the 'rules' of your universe like DC does, it's another thing entirely to simply write stories as if your reader has never read anything previous like Marvel is pulling) I'll continue to look the other way.
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Indeed Alan Moore is my favorite writer, Bendis isn't even CLOSE. I preffer Garth Ennis, Morrison and Brubaker to Bendis, but i still think he's good and i think DD and Powers are fantastic.
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Can't wait for his run on Uncanny X-Men. Hopefully there will be a different artist than Billy Tan sooner than later. As long as it's not Bachalo. He usually plagues every X-book that I have interest in. Who would the Cogs like to see as the Uncanny artist? Bru's Cap is great. Wonder what his vote was for the Civil War thing? Ooh, and his Books of Doom mini has been real good too.
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Brubaker's one of my fav writers based solely on his Catwoman run, it was that fucking good. Check it out NOW!!!
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Teh Hulk throws a tank and Bendis thinks it is ridiculous that people survive. Mate - a giant green man (who has been turned that way thanks to his exposure to gamma rays ) has just thrown a tank. Where do you want realism to kick in? I like Bendis' writing occasionally. Despite what a lot of people though about his DD run, I enjoyed it. Good books can take these variances and just absorb them, no harm. And I really like Powers. I just feel like the guy seems ashamed of comics. He seems to feel embarassed to be a part of a world where people could describe the various costumes of the Sub-Mariner down the years. He seems to aspire to more than comics - he wants to write movies or novels, seeming like he feels that comics are just silly whereas Dan Slott seems like he loves comics and all their silliness.
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But I just felt like I had to write a post that included the name 'Bendis'. Anyone that cries because a soldier didn't die in a tank thrown by hulk needs to reassess his life and on what parameters has brought him to the present moment. Because upon closer inspection he/she will realise something is not quite right with their perspective on the world. Universal release a Hulk movie that has to earn a certain amount of money, so it gets a PG rating, so people generally end up living when assaulted by Hulk. Mainly because he's the hero of the piece. This guy obviously needs to watch Sin City more often to get his fill.
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that catwoman run was something sweet and yeah, i knew vale's fave was moore...seriously...who's isnt? don't answer that...and heathen in 2028 bendis' reign at the helm of marvel will decrease by one book...er...mabye not...maybe one foreward or something...and i think the biggest problem with marvel books right now is that they don't have enough ads.
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Whatever happened to just writing a good book?
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haha yeah I mean do we REALLY need all these pictures of guys in costumes and stuff? I wanna know more about Pharrel Williams latest line of clothes or what some sports star has to say about milk
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I would not call Bendis arrogant and ignorant in the Newsarama interview. A better word might be defensive. He actually pulls out portions of his script for the Illuminati to explain some of the plot points. He sounds like a guy on trial arriving at court with his evidence and alibi in tow. I wonder if he had a Powerpoint presentation. You can also feel the exasperation as the interviewer pounds him with questions about Marvel continuity. We all know how much he loves Marvel continuity. I just wonder if the interviewer was doing this deliberately to piss him off. Bendis has had huge success with Ultimate Spiderman, Powers, New Avengers and Daredevil. It gave him the prestige to create the biggest company wide cross-over seen at either Marvel or D.C. for a long time. He gets to write whatever he wants without having any kind of editor to deal with. He gets to create a vanity project like Alias that no one else cares about and Marvel collects it in an elaborate trade that no one will buy. It
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So's ya know, that wasn't an interviewer pelting Bendis with questions or in fact doing *anything* to deliberately piss him off. See, Bendis was just responding to a bunch of fan questions which he himself put out the call for at Newsarama last week. Me, I'm slightly bummed that Bendis didn't respond to what I asked. I was even reasonably polite...
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What'd you ask?
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those ads are deliciously paced with lots of action while maintaining the modern day desire to have 8,990 words of dialogue per page...marvel style baby!...heathen...enter heller...beep boop beep...
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which is that I really hated that scene in the Hulk when he threw the tank and the guy got out unscathed.
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of Wolverine is...isn't adamantium non-magnetic? If so, how the hell did Magneto suck it out of Wolverines pores? Not that it'd be possible anyway. At least Magneto didn't throw a tank at the X-Men and have an X-man survive it...:O) Remember when Magneto sunk that Russian sub though? That was freakin' crazy! And then the Avengers had to go after him and the X-Men had to try and stop him? Man, that was a cool limited series. Ahhhh...the sorta good 'ol days...
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No, actually adamantium has always been shown to have magnetic properties. Magneto had been bouncing Wolverine around from day one. The Reason that Mags has never been able to affect Cap's shield is because it is a Admantium/ Vibranium alloy and the vibranium part negates his magnetic field. What Marvel had established waaaaaaaaaay back was that once adamantium is set, it is UN-BREAK-ABLE in every way. Thor's Hammer (Just one of THE most powerful weapons in existence in the Marvel multiverse) cannot even scratch it.
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...my point about the historical context is that guys who had been in World War II had experiences involving real death. Stan never saw combat, but Kirby was either a Marine or an Infantryman in Europe. He saw friends and foes killed and probably had to kill to survive. Violence and death had meaning as did life. Guys like Bendis and Millar are just like me and most of you: they've spent their fucking lives on couches, channel surfing or in movie theaters or classrooms. Death is a plot device, a way for their sensation avoiding audience to feel badass. Why does reality in comics always have to go toward the negative? Would a middle class, intellectual kid like Peter Parker be a killer? I think he'd be the way we've traditionally seen him, given his origin: he wants to protect the innocent as he once failed to do. The Hulk? That's a little iffy, but I'll state my personal view on one of my three favorite Marvel characters: the Hulk is an emotional outburst. If that emotion is anger, it can be positive, righteous anger. Remember, Bruce Banner can be considered a rough analogue to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was a leftie, even tormented by HUAC. He felt terrible guilt about the Bomb and hadn't wanted it used on civilians. He wanted it demonstrated so that the Japanese could see what it could do them. Like most early comic creators, many of the scientists who worked on the Bomb were Jewish, many from Europe. Early on, a student of Einstein's, a Leo Szitler (forgive my spelling, smarter guys) was in Prague, realized what the Nazis were going to do and immediately thought of what was a rumor in the physics community: nuclear chain reaction. He knew the Nazis would be all over it, so he had to get it to the British or the Americans. Eventually, when a contingent of fellow European Jewish scientists were ignored by FDR's White House, they turned to their old teacher, Professor Einstein, a guy who couldn't be ignored. You picture Bruce Banner as one of these kind of guys. He understands the menace but he understands the horror of the Bomb. He is a man with a conscience. He is a man with morals and can be morally outraged. His form of moral outrage involves turning green and being able to level a mountain. But that outrage and power doesn't make him any less moral. It just makes him able to do something about it. Power. Kind of like in SCHINDLER'S LIST when Liam Neeson tells Ralph Fiennes that power can be exercised by not killing. The Hulk doesn't have to kill anybody. We only need a killer Hulk for reality when we are cut off from reality. We only need a killer Hulk when we are so cut off from our own feelings and our own power to change things that our anger is suppressed until it comes out in Postal-Columbinal-Disgruntled Murder. The Hulk was created in the 60s by guys who were young in the 40s, two eras where people DID things to make changes.
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And in retrospect, I guess the questions were a little long, but, hell, Bendis answered some slightly involved questions from me when Vroom interviewed him a few years back. Question #1: So, okay, back when ULTIMATES first kicked off and I had some beefs with it, I was tut-tutted and told to remember that, hey, this team wasn't the Avengers, wasn't supposed to BE the Avengers, and shouldn't be giving me the vapors 'cause, hey, the regular Avengers were still being published. Righty-o, I can deal. But...is it just me or is 616 Marvel beginning to seriously echo its Ultimate counterpart? We've now got Hulk explicitely named as a mass-murderer (ala Ultimates), we've got Nick Fury going from straight-up ally to a manipulator of heroes (ala Ultimates), and just in general, the Illuminati storyline seems to reflect the stepped-up paranoia of THE ULTIMATES. Not talking about 1-to-1 correlations here, but it does seem that Ultimate cynicism is creeping into the more traditionally heroic 616 setting. What up with that? ******* Question #2: I think exchanges like the S.H.I.E.L.D. back-and-forthing over Spider-Man's culpability in the Green Goblin's murders undermine the most basic conceits of the long-running superhero comic. The real reason villains like Green Goblin and the Joker recur, of course, is because they're great villains that readers want to see again and again, writers want to write again and again. I like to think that's pretty unassailable, so why turn it into a failing on the part of the characters in the stories? Is it perhaps over-literalizing to begin counting against them the fact that they've been published for decades, and so, of course, will have faced off against major villains scores of times?
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As someone that
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can be found every other week in Ultimate Spider-Man. In other news, yay for the Young Avengers trade coming out tomorrow...I can finally jump onboard.
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but for some reason it's still tuesday...and once again...HELLER VS. LOGAN...CRISIS on infinite FOX affliates...
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Jesus Christ Ana Lucia shot Sharon! It was amazing, and then the preview for next week's episode was great: The camera's stationed on the beach, pointed towards the water, everything's calm...and then suddenly the back of the plane comes crashing down. This is especially exciting to me because one of the things that keeps me awake about Lost is the fact that we never saw the plane actually crash, survivors just woke up in the island post crash. Anyway no one's listening to me cause i'm the silly man who's 4 months behind schedule. *sob*
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Maggots, Michael. You're eating maggots. How do they taste?
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I like Ana Lucia. Just played catch up on 24 last week, too. Good LORD the twists can be silly! But if I watch the show with the proper camp appreciation, it's still a damn fun ride. I'm still broken up about Soul Patch, though. Even the Hobbit got a better last stand.
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...I loved watching that spineless weasel twist in the wind. He was almost like a Bluth character ("I've made a terrible mistake..."). Will I still be able to love him now that he might just've been the slyest manipulator of them all?
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Logan does remind me of a Bluth! (On the next, 24 - "Dammit!!! It's a matter of National Security!!!") Ditto : ( for Soul Patch. I think a lot of us are in denial of his passing
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It was
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I'm not sure I buy the whole "morally righteous anger" thing. Now as we all know, the Hulk has been portrayed in many different variations of "Savage Hulk" and "Smart Hulk" over the years. But at its core, Hulk the metaphor works best as repressed anger set free and given voice (and by voice I mean smashing stuff). Just like Stan the Man said himself in Mallrats. I really don't think when Bruce Banner's aware of some injustice in the world he gets so angry about it that he turns into a big Grey/Green monster. The Hulk is an angry child who wants to be left alone with his anger, and will lash out at anything that bothers him ("Mountain/Abomination make Hulk angry, Hulk SMASH mountain/Abomination!"). One thing he is NOT is a superhero. He's not a crusader for justice. Hulk may know right from wrong, but he's still a child having a hissy-fit. And I think one of the most interesting things about the character is Bruce Banner's relationship with his alter ego. The horror and shame and guilt he feels over not being able to control his emotions and therefore his transformations. And here's the point of this post: The wife and I were talking about The Hulk as a murderer thing and how dumb I thought it was. Having a pure outsider's perspective, though, she goes: "But wouldn't that be such a great story, to have The Hulk accidentaly kill someone as a result of one of his rampages? And then have Bruce Banner wracked with guilt and the unfortunate consequences of him being the Hulk? Like, The Hulk is his curse?" And I think that sounds like a good story, but only if it's a full fleshed out thing, not an offhanded comment about 26 people dying (this time) made by a shield agent. Anyways, is anybody even around to read this...? *crickets*
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I'm here and I hear you, Shig. Fully fleshed out (heh) it could be good, but not in someone's hands (double heh) like
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Check your mofo email for 1/2 of the SW pics! Heathen said "fleshed out"!
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Did you read Azzarello's Banner? Cause that mini was essentially the story you're describing: Banner wakes up after having leveled a city, there are hundreds dead and injured and he just can't live with the guilt so he tries to kill himself...but the Hulk won't let him. Later, i believe, he is used as a bomb by the military, they just drop him off an airplane. Recommended reading, and if you hate the story you can always drool on the Corben art.
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Yep I read it (remember when Marvel had all those comics free online? They had that whole thing there) and I loved it. It was great. Hulk: The End was good too.
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I was thinking about Slott's take on Hulk and i'm about to indulge in some good old fashioned suspension of disbelief, but it's all based on Slott's theory so bear with me here for a couple of minutes, i mean come on, i'm your friend! "In Bruce Banner's eyes, no innocent life is more-or-less important than his own. If an innocent person did die by the Hulk's hand, he could never live with himself. He would FIND a way to end his life beforre that would happen again. It can't really be rationalized away by saying he'd TRY to kill himself. Bruce is smart. He'd figure out a way" Alright, but working under this logic, doesn't it make sense that right after the very first time he leveled his first building, and THANK THE LORD, no one got killed, Banner would feel uneasy about the possibility of putting people's lives in danger every single time he throws one of his tantrums? Is he ok with maybe causing millions of dollars in property damage, destroying people's homes and risking their very lives? Is that heroic? Is that what a good guy would do? Does my hair smell good? I'm trying a new shampoo.
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"HULK RINSE AND REPEAT!!!"
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Man they're fucking awesome!
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Oooookay, 30 is middle-aged? An uncle who bangs chicks you want to bang is a 25 year old who never grew up? Um, I'm guessing that gestalt fanboy is about 16 going on 13. Listen, little boy, old men like sex, will get some, and probably with your girlfriend. And 30 won't be so old someday. When you are an old man. (So tired of the gerontophobia of this generation -- everyone over 30 is not a pedo if he dates a young woman)
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This is why Stan Lee is still way ahead of everybody else. In '62 or '63, he was questioning what a superhero was (not as overtly as they would today, thank Gawd). He and Kirby created a monster that would have been a villain in a SUPERMAN comic and made him the hero. No one in the Marvel Universe knows the Hulk is a superhero. Even the Hulk doesn't know it, wouldn't care, would deny it. But as created, as portrayed most often, the Hulk has performed heroic acts in spite of himself and often against his will. The Hulk can save the world and he doesn't even know it and neither does anybody else. Remember, there was a time when it was vital to challenge the establishment. No offense to our more militarily minded here, but these days the people who fight the wars for the establishment are 100% volunteers. When the Hulk was created, you turned 18 and if you couldn't find a loop hole they'd ship your ass off to get shot by people who were only a threat to you if you came to their country to kill them for your freedom. Kids had a vested interest in stopping this. Just because the Establishment doesn't like you, it doesn't mean you're bad. Just because they say you're bad, it doesn't mean you're not a hero. And just in terms of comics, look at how little we've progressed. It gets down to: the guy doesn't wear tights, have a supporting cast we don't give a shit about, or patrol for bad guys, so he's not a superhero. The Hulk is as much about pain as he is anger. He's a character in pain. He has awareness that he is Different, Ugly, Hated and yet, oddly, Superior (like a lot of fanboys). The Repressed Emotions angle was good and interesting but I think that we're so repressed as men now that the lashing out is all we can fantasize about (and the Hulk is fantasy, folks). Dig it, it used to be "Germany overruns Europe" you went and joined the Canadian military or Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, you fought back. You worked in an unsafe place for little pay, you went on strike. Somebody bothered you, you bothered 'em back. Now, we just ignore them. We're not supposed to let anything bother us or take anything personally, even if it is personal. Then, all some dick can do is shoot everyone, because he had to be cool about everything. But if you turned into the Hulk, nobody would bother you. I don't think the Hulk (or most superhero comics) was about suppressed anger as much as suppressed power. Superman poses as a wuss; Bruce Wayne is essentially a waste of wealth and opportunity; Peter Parker and Bruce Banner WERE wusses with the power of intellect and character hidden inside them. I've seen tons of Hulk comics where Banner became upset about events going on around him and Hulked out. It wasn't until the TV show that he had to get shoved off a barstool first....And BANNER, or as I like to call it AN EASY, EFFORTLESS PAYCHECK FOR A SLUMMING YET TALENTED WRITER. It was good for what is was, certainly, and I consider it more a Corben book than anything else but all it did was follow the current trend, which is what Marvel does. It's like, would you still be talking about WATCHMEN if it was about a band of heroes who got together because Moloch was back in town? Or, if Batman were a Marvel character and Frank Miller had done a mini-series about a costumed crimefighter with cool gadgets and excellent detective skills? BANNER was a nice looking affirmation of the status quo. For all his faults, Bruce Jones got the Hulk as a hero early on (Jones problem wasn't that he did something new and different, it was that he kept doing the SAME new and different thing ad nauseum, which is mind of my frustration with Mr. Bendis' Marvel superhero work as well). Guys like Azzarello (a guest at Marvel) and Millar (a resident who has over stayed his welcome) don't challenge anything that hasn't already been challenged. In Azz' case, he took the money and ran; in Millar's case, he keeps taking the money. Bendis is sort of different, because even though I don't like what he does, I believe that HE believes in it as did Jones. When it comes to Marvel, if the fans don't challenge them, no one will because there's no room for them to do it themselves until, say, the success of X3 isn't matched by the comics and we get a new editor in chief.
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