CREATURE COPS: SPECIAL VARMINTS UNIT #1

Writer: Rob Anderson
Artist: Fernando Melek
Publisher: IDW Publishing (Comics Experience)
Reviewer: Optimous Douche

I’m going to start this review at the 30,000 feet view. IDW has a new imprint that promises to make budding writers like the schmuck writing this review and a million other people with fingers and a thesaurus very happy. As indie overtakes mainstream books, Comic Experience could prove to be the next AA league before someone graduates to the bigs.

CREATURE COPS is an example of getting in a warm up season or two before trying to graduate to the big show. Anderson has a fresh take on animal-oriented comics that’s rife with the problems of today slathered in sci fi sauce. He also takes a very brave approach of addressing a global issue at the myopic level through a small town police precinct. In his bravery, though, he may have shorted himself on the grandiose grab that number ones need these days to jump a title off the shelves (especially in enough sales numbers to be anointed a second arc). I’ll let you all decide, after my very subjective presentation of the facts…ish.

In this tale of our world askew, 20 years ago China skipped sending us shitty manufactured goods as their chief export, instead giving the world genetically spliced pets. When we got Ling Ling and Sing Sing in our world, Anderson’s idea delivers us panda-dogs, gator-snakes and a host of other animal amalgams both benign and brutal. To deliver the parables of today’s problems like dog fighting, animal cruelty and the idea that our destiny is way beyond our own hands in this world, the Special Varmint Unit cast of characters comes to deliver. This host of small town cops must not only deal with animals gone genetically goofy, but also the cavalcade of issues that come from being a human being stuck in a dead end job in a shitty small town. Yes, this city boy who went country for college is not a fan of rural America and its ability to darken the dreams of the brightest talent. When one feels trapped in a country as free as this one, it makes me quake with anger. Victim blaming? Maybe. However, I’m not sure that my anger at seeing lost potential from someone afraid to dream is the same as blaming a victim of a violent crime for their attack, but the fact Anderson’s tale of F’d up animals made me think that long about the people is a testament to the complexity he gave the characters.

I don’t balk at tropes or clichés; they resonate because they carry truths. The old adage about the grass always being more purple never caught on because the grass was never fucking purple to begin with. The idea that small towns trap people and make them victims of their own entrapment is an idea this dude will roll with. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but a fuckton more people fester in these one traffic light twilight zones than actually escape. That’s not me being a cityist, it’s a fact that can be found in the last census. So when I see a small town police force of the lovelorn, the oppressed and of course the drunkards, I can’t balk. Yes, you can have one or two of the enlightened, but if you get too fancy in elocution or ideals, you’ve stopped writing believable fiction. My only complaint with the seven or so police officers we meet is that we meet seven police officers in this issue. Compound the introductions of these people with the introduction to the world AND several cases for the police to solve and it adds up to too much too quickly. Yes, the issue is jam-packed with ideas circumventing the oft number one complaint these days of too little information to entice readers, but too much of a good thing is still a concern. The stories of life are also a bit extraneous to the hook of the title. A rookie cop with the hots for a force veteran was a nice moment, but over before it came to fruition. Now, I understand that God invented the second issue to add meat to the bone, but personally I will come back for the eagle-lion rather than amputee lust (the one cop is missing an arm, so yeah, I had to at least mention the handi-able officer).

On the art side, again this is a valiant freshman effort with potential to make it to senior year with honors. The animal hybrids are fierce, but Melek needs to work on his action fluidity. There’s a stiffness to most of the creatures with the exception of the King Rats overrunning a series of tenements in one of the book’s many side sojourns. Those little fuckers--excuse me, king size fuckers--were scampering cesspools of nasty. On the five-o front, Melek did a GREAT job. No person was the same, even the usually homogenized white male (looking at you on that critique, WALKING DEAD). Also, his rendering of the depressed fat chick was a great distinction from her similarly colored but far more svelte fellow officer.

CREATURE COPS is an original concept that needs a little more room to breathe. As much as I hate prequels to the core of my being, I think the team missed a golden opportunity to present a broader world askew. The whole deal with China and the twenty year phenomenon was presented in a one page write up. Now, I said this happened twenty years before today simply because outside of the animals everything was the same as our world right now from cars to clothes. How cool would it be to travel back to the late 80s or early 90s to see the importing begin with Clinton signing CAFTA instead of NAFTA, or a “Gremlins”/”Little Shop of Horrors” curio shop-style invasion of our homes? Even if my ideas are shit, the spirit of what’s needed for added investment in the world should not be lost. And if a prequel makes one squeal in agony, at the very least I would like to see what this world looks like outside of Mayberry. Let’s venture to a larger metropolis inhabited by much larger animals (even if the eleraffes are living in a zoo).

When Optimous isn't reviewing comics he is making the IT words chortle and groan with marketing for MaaS360, Enterprise Mobility Management. He also has a comic coming out sometime soon, for updates head to robpatey.com.

AXIS #9

Writer: Rick Remender
Artists: Jim Cheung, Terry Dodson, Leinil Francis Yu and Adam Kubert
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man

So the party's over, folks--another crossover event is in the history books, all ready to be collected for its trade paperback and hardback editions while we are left to ponder the merits of our purchase with lighter wallets and speculate on the next crossover event. For those of you who enjoy lasting consequences in your crossover events, you'll be surprised to learn AXIS actually has some.

First let's break down this final issue. We got the Avengers trying to kill the X-Men, and the X-Men trying to kill the Avengers, with the Axis team (supervillains now good guys) trying to save everyone by reversing the Inversion spell (which made the heroes bad and the villains good). The action is all reasonably well done, with Remender constantly pulling out last minute rescues on every other page. As Power Man is about to kill old man Captain America, Spider-Man appears, repeat. So too are the hopes of casting a re-inversion spell. All seems lost until the Red Skull, Dr. Doom and Brother Voodoo team up to save the day, but Tony Stark doesn't want to be saved--nor do either of them, really, but Tony actually does something about it. You see, at the end of this issue Tony Stark, the Superior Iron Man, is still an amoral jerk, as is Havok, while Sabretooth is still a decent fella. So it seems AXIS will have some lingering consequences, and not just a typical death.

So what works? All of it, pretty much--everything comes together well. The best part of the whole series remains the inverted personalities of the characters. Just as the heroes now enjoy being moral-free, and will kill anyone who wants to make them heroes again despite all the passionate speeches thrown at them, the villains realize that saving the heroes will turn them into villains again, something they'd rather not be. Still, like true heroes, they must fight the good fight. The best sequence here is easily (spoiler here) Loki lifting Mjolnir (as he is now worthy) and beating the crap out of Thor with it.

Things I didn't like so much: cosmetic stuff, like what exactly happened to the Hulk? Why did the Red Skull change colors? Why did Evan/Apocalypse's appearance change so much? And why did Steve Rogers say he wasn't dumb enough to fight new Captain America, then limp around like the fight actually did happen? I also find it odd that now that Havok is an amoral jerk, he's all buddy-buddy with Cyclops. I guess I wasn't completely hip to Cyclops actually becoming a villain after A VS X. Also, Havok fans must be ticked off at Remender. First he messes up his face, now he turns him into a villain.

As a series, I'm still pretty impressed that Remender actually pulled it out of the complete nosedive it was in when the series started. That said, those first three issues are still really awful. While the series got good with the middle three issues, it was just average in the last three issues, and nothing really made up for the early mess, not to mention the seemingly rushjob artwork of all the issues--makes me wonder if Marvel moved up the schedule on this book to get it out of the way before the return of SECRET WARS (I mean, look at all the artists on this issue). Therefore, on the Masked Man's scale of CRAP, POOR, DECENT, GOOD, and GREAT, I must give AXIS a POOR.

BUTTERFLY #4

Writers: Marguerite Bennett and Arash Amel
Art: Stefano Simeone
Publisher: Archaia Entertainment/ BOOM! Studios
Reviewer: DrSumac

I like Marguerite Bennett. In full disclosure, it helps that the first time I met her was this year on Free Comic Book Day where she offered me a slice of pizza and we effectively had lunch together. As a New Yorker I am honor-bound never to turn down pizza, and although the next time I saw Marguerite she said that pizza is the same everywhere, I have forgiven her for that.

More importantl,y she was very open about the difficulty she had trying to become a published novelist as a woman and how fortunate she felt she was that Scott Snyder helped her get into the comics industry. Unfortunately, she seemed to have had a bit of a bumpy start as many of the titles she worked on at DC were plagued by controversy or editorial changes that clearly made the process more difficult. That said, I, like many readers, see Marguerite as a rising star, which is why I was happy to check out what I believe to be her first independent comic, BUTTERFLY.

BUTTERFLY is the story of a girl named Rebecca whose father died as part of the military when she was young, which inspired her to follow in his footsteps. However, about halfway through each issue the perspective changes to that of her father, which goes further back in time with each issue to explain the background of what Rebecca has to deal with.

The double narrative is a good gimmick and interesting at times, but the father's story is definitely the weaker of the two and that's a huge problem since the whole thing really revolves around him. Dad's story of the guy trying to do good in a job that makes him do very bad things just fails to be more compelling than Rebecca dealing with the world she inherited from him. I feel like the comic would have been better served if it was mostly Rebecca's story with an issue or two here and there that went into her dad's past.

One thing I did like was I believe in issue #3, where Rebecca laments that she feels like she is essentially trapped in her father's story since everything that happens is because of him and she is really only a victim of that. Maybe I'm reading more into that than I should, but it seems to be a fitting allegory to popular fiction as a whole where male leads are more common and women tend to just be there to support their dudes. It's refreshing to see a character aware of the narrative they are in, and by doing so we the readers feel her pain to an extent.

That aside, even though Rebecca aka Agent Butterfly is the title character and an interesting one the story really isn’t about her. The first issue opens with an explanation of how effective she is as a spy, and yet past those few pages she is mostly on the run with her tail between her legs. To top it off, dad's story involves a few instances of fridging (killing off female characters simply to advanced the male protagonist's story), which is an all too common and an incredibly degrading plot mechanic for women.

Issue #4 is the last issue in the miniseries, so one might expect it to have been wrapped up nicely with perhaps a little cliffhanger, but instead due to the dual narrative the dad's story actually ends well while Rebecca's leaves us with far more questions than answers. It's the sort of ending that is meant to keep us guessing as to what has really been going on, but the way it's done coupled with the fact that half of each issue is largely uncompelling exposition makes it particularly infuriating. It makes me wonder if this was originally written to be a longer series and got cut down to four issues. That might also explain why the dual narrative was used, since it packed more information into each issue.

One wild card for me on BUTTERFLY is the involvement of screenwriter Arash Amel, who gets top billing over Marguerite with a “Story By” credit. It seems likely that this was a failed screenplay that my pizza pal was hired to adapt to a comic, in which case I feel like she did the best she could with what she had to work with.

Although I am the type of person to focus on the story more than the artwork, I will say that the art is one of the highlights of BUTTERFLY. My favorite part of the book may very well be the covers by Phil Noto, which work both as a single image and as separate covers for the front and back of each issue. That is in the fact the best depiction of the dual narrative inside, particularly the cover of issue #4 which is at once beautiful, poignant, and powerful on its own.

I gave BUTTERFLY a shot to support Marguerite for her kindness and friendliness, but ultimately I feel like it suffered from the same problems that she experienced at DC. Hopefully sometime soon she'll get to create and write a story on her own terms so that she can prove to the industry what she can do.

How did you like this comic? Please comment below or contact drsumac at drsumac.tumblr.com!

THE JUNGLE BOOK: FALL OF THE WILD #1

Writer: Mark L. Miller
Artist: Michele Bandini
Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man

The JUNGLE BOOK as you've never seen it before, begins its final chapter (er, miniseries), written by Aintitcool.com's illustrious editor Mark L. Miller. The power struggle for control of Kipling (the Island everyone lives on) grows even more frenetic as a new danger emerges for everyone to deal with.

To his credit, Miller turns in an entertaining set-up issue. Even with this series being a part 3, Miller still takes the time to explain who everyone is, what their basic relationships are and gets the plot moving forward as well. To bring you up to speed, none of the animal tribe can live with each other, so they pound the crap out of each other whenever they can, or at least plot to. Getting into a spoiler (and as this comic comes out today, it really is a spoiler, people), Kipling itself is about to have a volcanic temper tantrum. In some ways it reminds me of a Rob Reiner joke when he was portraying the director of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, saying his next movie was going to be “Kramer vs Kramer vs Godzilla”. Who will get the child? The Dad? The Mom? Or no one, as Godzilla kills them all?

Anyone reading the previous miniseries should have no problem enjoying this one, as Miller hits the ground running with everyone well into the action. Mowglii as ever is caught in the middle trying to do the right thing, and even Baloo is having trouble trying to keeping the Bada Dar in line. Any new readers, like myself, might have a hard time shaking images of the Disney movie from their head as the level of blood and violence is clearly not G rated, but it's not done for shock value, either--it merely illustrates the severity and reality of the situations.

With a lot of smaller books like this, one of the biggest weaknesses is often the art. Unfortunately, Bandini is no exception. There is an overall pleasing charm to his work and he handles all the animals well enough. Still, it's missing a level of sophistication, one you'd expect from a more primetime artist, and any sexy 'special sauce' you thought you might get with casting Mowglii as a girl ain't happenin’. On the plus side, colorist Grostieta does a great job getting more action and drama out of Bandini's pages (although the color saturation could be varied here and there). And I should mention Zenescope got David Finch to do a rather nice cover.

In what might seem like a backhanded compliment, the best thing about this issue is the straightforwardness and simplicity of the plot and execution. I've read far too many comics with writers trying to breathe new life into old characters and stories, which often results in just a complete mess, top to bottom. Miller doesn't overthink THE JUNGLE BOOK. He's not trying to fix it, or make it hip for new readers; he just jumps into it with slam-bang action, with a touch of humor and a touch of gore.

MASTER KEATON: THE PERFECT EDITION VOL.1

Writers: Naoki Urasawa, Hokusei Katsushika, and Takashi Nagasaki
Art: Naoki Urasawa
Publisher: Viz Media
Reviewer: DrSumac

Manga is a strange thing. We in the western world often think of it as either over the top action-filled stuff, silly relationship stories, or porn. The truth is, though, that the Japanese seem to take their comics and animation much more seriously than we do, and that includes western comic readers as well. This seems to result in a polarizing debate over which side of the world is doing a better job, which just seems silly to me. However, even hardcore manga fans seem to prefer to stick to the popular series like NARUTO and BLEACH even when they have a huge variety of stories to read in a way that western comics can't quite match.

Manga is known to be filled with many different genres, but an important one that seems to go unnoticed is Seinen. Seinen are the manga that actually target people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s and therefore are more mature in a variety of ways than stories about 15 year olds saving the world in giant robots. Now I'm hardly an expert on manga, but for me the master of this genre is Naoki Urasawa. I've previously read his series MONSTER (which is being developed into an HBO series by Guillermo Del Toro), 20TH CENTURY BOYS, and PLUTO in the past and they completely changed the way I look at manga and anime. These stories are filled with well-developed characters and complex yet tightly woven together storylines in a way that is truly unique and brilliantly done.

MASTER KEATON is one of Urasawa's earlier series, which Viz Media is now releasing after the success of his previous titles listed above. There is apparently some controversy over this series in that it started with Hokusei Katsushika handling the writing and Urasawa only on art, but due to conflicts between the two of them and Katsushika's declining health longtime Urasawa collaborator Takashi Nagasaki was brought in to help write and develop the story. With no offense to the late Katsushika, the result is that the series starts off very weak. The first two stories in this volume feel rushed and campy, but after that things really pick up.

I would describe the main character Keaton as an aloof combination of Indiana Jones and MacGyver with perhaps a dab of Doctor Who as well. Basically, he is good at everything so people ask him for help for various reasons. Although he is great in a fight, we mostly see Keaton solve problems with his knowledge of math, science, and history. I will admit that because of this at points it feels a little like it's trying to be educational with the guise of entertainment, but it is pulled off interestingly enough that I think it works.

Starting from chapter three the series becomes more of an ongoing story that shows more of Keaton's personal life amongst his other adventures abroad. The same familiar Urasawa art style is present throughout, and as usual his characters are very distinct and his backgrounds and landscapes are filled with a lot a beautiful detail. In comparison to his other works, however, this doesn't have nearly the same scope. The ongoing story here is that of his relationships with his daughter, parents, and ex wife rather than cults trying to destroy the world, but that also makes this series feel more grounded as well. The last three chapters in this volume are much closer to what we expect from Urasawa, and to me resembled MONSTER in many ways. It's more than worth reading through the rest just to get to that.

If you haven't read Urasawa before I might recommend that you start with MONSTER or 20TH CENTURY BOYS based on whichever story appeals to you. MASTER KEATON, however is a more lighthearted read compared to the others, but I can tell that as it continues to develop it will become just as strong as they are in its own way. If feels like MONSTER was very much born form the narrative stories developed in MASTER KEATON and taken to the next level, so if you're already a MONSTER fan check this out for sure.

DAREDEVIL #11

Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Chris Samnee
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man

It's been a while since I've heaped praise on Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's DAREDEVIL, so I thought it was time. You know, I'd be really interested to see/hear Waid's pitch for this series, being that it's nothing like what the current format for a hit comic book should look and read like. I can't see how Marvel would ever agree to it! On the flip side, it's everything I want in a superhero comic book.

Mark Waid didn't kill family members, didn't reinvent the concept, didn't kick off some year and a half story arc that builds to the next year and a half story arc. He just wrote straightforward action adventure comics with DAREDEVIL. He made the stories clever, and while the story arcs are all fairly short, he created some personal subplot drama to link all the story arcs together. And one of my early pet peeves, of a boring Matt Murdock, is being handled as he is finally becoming a likeable character.

So, let's check out this issue, as it kicks off a new story arc (spoilers ahoy, mates). An old reformed Daredevil foe, Stunt Master, is back into town, and he wants Matt Murdock's help to sue the pants off a new guy selling himself as Stunt Master on pay-per-view. Of course the original guy sold the rights, but Matt is still willing to help out. Meanwhile, in the drama department, Matt's business partner Foggy Nelson is dealing with his cancer treatment, which Matt is paying for by writing a tell-all book about being Daredevil (his ID is public knowledge). The guy paying for the manuscript is Matt's new business partner/girlfriend Kristen McDuffie’s, dad. I must say having Kristen around, playfully teasing with Matt and getting his goat, like telling him the new Stunt Master is calling himself 'The Man Without Fear', helps make Matt a more likable character (good plots are nice, but if I don't like the character, then it doesn't truly engage me). Now here's the clever twist: the new Stunt Master is apparently getting people killed as they pretend to be him in a stunt. Once they wipe out badly, he then appears safe and sound, leading the public to believe he's a real death-defying stunt man, and his next pigeon in the Stunt Master suit is the original Stunt Master, who is desperate for cash: now queue Daredevil.

Add to this the equally clever pacing, set up by Waid and delivered by Samnee. Both know that story telling in a comic book is a little bit different than on TV, movies or a book and DAREDEVIL is a master class on how to do it right. Using his imagination, Waid keeps things fresh, finding clever ways to use old conventions and characters. Knowing nothing about Stunt Master before this issue, Waid has made me believe in him. Seeing his history is a good thing, and not something to scare away new readers. This straightforward, no-nonsense storytelling works like a charm, and Samnee's equally straightforward, no nonsense artwork makes the whole thing fit together and work really well.

If you haven't tried DAREDEVIL yet, you better hurry, as Waid and Samnee plan to finally leave the book come spring. Luckily, being the start of a new story arc, this is a great issue to jump on board with.

An @$$itorial by Optimous Douche aka Rob Patey!

Dear Rob: what’s your take on all the gimmicks coming out of DC Comics now? You seem to be a fan of DC but their constant stunts are killing me, especially as I feel they are distracting from the core of what makes comics – good story. First a New 52. Then 3D comic covers. Then Selfie comic covers (!) and now a scratch and sniff comic (Harley Quinn). How about writing some good stories? Wonder Woman and Batman (maybe Aquaman) are the only characters that have managed to stay afloat in this new era of gimmicks. Is there hope for change?

Great Question Foiled. I’m taking this into two parts, because cover clusterfucks are a different situation than story!

On covers, c’thefuckmon, dude, you’re a fellow marketing wonk. Surely you know as well as I do that blurring the lines between quality of product and presentation of that product are utterly independent factors. We know this because we do it every day for our masters. We don’t lie, but anyone wearing a marketing hat is most certainly an illusionist. Were this the 1970s, one of us would have a pornstache and be wiggling our fingers like Doug Henning while the other one was picking audience pockets (or we could both have a pornstache, I didn’t mean to limit us).

Are we really going to begrudge our fellow marketing wonks at not just DC, but Marvel, Valiant and a million indies looking to scalp the same success? We get assed up because we love this hobby, but on the same token the marketer in me applauds each of these companies as kids and noobies come stare at these seemingly magic pages that move as you walk past. I’ll also admit, the comic collector in me becomes a bit less jaded as well because if this is the bait to widen our dwindling club, then so be it.

Now, I will says the chance of sustainable interest in the medium varies by cover:

• Valiant 8-Bit cover reminded them of Pitfall, will remember a time when people had to read for fun.
• DC Pin-Up, Monster, Lego, Insert theme month here the person has a modicum of appreciation for art.
• Marvel Wolverine holo-foil will probably keep coming back every time a new “Avengers” trailer is released.
• Looking to scratch and then subsequently sniff Harley Quinn’s beaver is the dude who walked in with his friend and will be blind from either alcohol poisoning or excessive masturbation shortly. Seriously, those fourth wall-breaking HARLEY QUINN one shots revel in awful…

So while the purist in me longs for a time back when covers were:

• Indicative of the story inside.
• Not afraid to use a fucking word balloon.
• Were not a cacophony of color and needless posturing poses.
The marketer in me, the grown up, the suit, the man will not deny the numbers. Scott Snyder’s WYTCHES recently sold 90,000 copies with Image. JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 sold 350,000 copies. “Wytch” was the better story? It doesn’t matter. When you are battling icon to icon, noise and not substance is the key to swift movement.

However, sustained interest and the making of comic collectors comes from quality serial storytelling, and here is where I need to crash the second story in comic’s current house of cards.

Comics are no longer printed for comics’ sake, folks. When Gen X and before were kids, the sustainability of our favorite stories lived and died by how many floppies were sold. Today, floppies are R&D for the widening of dissemination into more lucrative revenue streams.

The fall of story for profit started with BATMAN BEYOND and trade pacing. If you look at today’s current universes and pacing of titles, the patterns are eminently obvious. We feel anemia in some issues because they are made purposely anemic to stretch out the page count. An editor must look at how these things will be collected for sale on Amazon, since so few spinner racks exist anymore. It is the more portable and profitable means to an end. It is also a way to gauge the worthiness of content for animated cartoons, video games or the ultimate score of a movie.

If we look at MULTIVERSITY coming out of DC right now, it is truly the perfect follow-up to the decimation of the universe we saw in play four to five years ago around the time of FINAL CRISIS. The Monitors birthed 52 new worlds, which then instantly disappeared and turned into 52 titles about one Earth.

Huh? Makes no fucking sense from a universal story perspective, does it?

However, it makes perfect sense for a scared shitless Warner Brothers suit who got an M-shaped pineapple shoved up their ass when the audiences didn’t give a rat’s taint about any of the 27 plot lines shoved into the GREEN LANTERN movie.

The New 52 was a lifeboat, not a rocket ship, kids. As Mickey launches the Marvel brand into the billions of people served mark, DC needed to youthanize quickly or be euthanized by the WB corporate den of doom. Look at what changed and what didn’t. GREEN LANTERN and BATMAN were allowed to ignore FLASHPOINT because they were selling well and had movies in play. Look at the deluge of TV series that have come out from CONSTANTINE to GOTHAM. Each of these is steeped in the “freshness” of the New 52 to reach across the aisle at those who need imagination spoon-fed to them.

This spoon-feeding not only stymied the real DC New U of MULTIVERSITY, but has also obliterated an oft-debated subject of tight universal continuity. With BATMAN BEYOND and the idea of series that live outside canon, publishers could ensure saturation into every demographic. Dark shit was going down in BATMAN during the late 80s and early 90s, and BATMAN BEYOND served up a younger dude who was way less morose and deathy than the days of broken backs and hunchbacks in the cave.

From that sincere broadening, we have the tainted “choose your own adventure” continuity we see today. Honestly, I truly believe I am a fool sometimes for reading as much of each universe as I do. Outside of Valiant, no one is doing a flawless cross. Now, DC takes the most hits because they made the most noise with their reboots. I look at Marvel as we close out 2014, though, and they are in just as bad of a state as DC was pre-September 2011. AXIS was a train wreck in a long string of who gives a fuck events this year that never interwove, and now characters are being killed off for the sake of cutting off revenue streams from other studios. Wolverine is dead so that when Fox tries to do a movie in 2022, no 8 year old will know what the shit a Wolverine is.

I applaud the examples you used above for your vested DC interest. They are all great titles and if you look at each of them you will see they remained away from the taffy pulls of bringing the universe back to some semblance of good comic booking versus being a cross-media tentpole.

As for my coverage of books, my formula is simple: “Review for those who care about what you say!” When I started reviewing comics for Ain’t It Cool seven years ago, DC showed an earnest interest in promoting my words and interacting with me on the then-fetal social media channels. Geoff Johns would drop me a thanks for a review. Dan Didio accepted my friend request on Facebook and I gathered some true fans for my work in their PR department at the time.
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Despite my reviews being an equal 33% DC, 33% Marvel and 33% Indie, it was always DC giving me feedback and asking for further reviews and forwarding .PDF comps. Marvel from creators to back office have never given two shits about my thoughts so I stopped trying. I’m not needy for affection, I am needy to effect change in comics. That only happens when the right people are listening.

The record will show, I have never pandered because of comps or favoritism. However, I will ALWAYS give you priority publishing the more time and money you spend in trying to get my attention. I may shit all over the book, which I have done from my beloved DC all the way to the ignore me Marvel, but I will cover it with keyword-rich text for SEO awesomesauce.

You say you want good stories? Well then go write them, my friend. I will never be arrogant enough to believe my views have directly affected the choices made in the industry over the past flew years, but I believe I helped trumpet a public zeitgeist of disdain for choices that helped all of our feelings be heard.

Find your story solace where you need. I recommend EARTH 1 for true impact and full Fryetag’s Pyramid for your money. You simply must wait forever between volumes. In the meantime go to Image. DC’s CONVERGENCE in April will be interesting. If MULTIVERSITY is to be taken literally, we could have a serialized version of EARTH 1-like titles in floppy form. Personally, that will be the end of my time with New 52, or Universe Prime, as I believe it is now designated.

Marvel, I can’t tell you. They don’t want to talk to me. So…

Find out more about #ASKROB here

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AICN COMICS Reviews: DAREDEVIL! CREATURE COPS: SPECIAL VARMINT UNIT! JUNGLE BOOK: FALL OF THE WILD! & Opinions Are Like @$$Holes…!