He will put an end to Gotham's suffering, once and for all, no matter who he has to go through...
BATMAN, THE GOTHAM KNIGHT
VERSUS
JACK HAWKSMOOR, THE KING OF CITIES...
Second Printers, YOU DECIDE...
Friday, April 29, 2011
Versus: Batman (DC Comics) Vs. Jack Hawksmoor (DC Comics)
Gotham City has seen plague, quake and infestation. The Joker, once again, poisons her waters. Gotham can take no more, the rivers turn red and with one last gasp, Gotham cries out for healing. Meanwhile, secluded in The Batcave, Batman, unable to stop The Joker's rampage, is hard at work on a cure. Somewhere, deep within The Bleed, a lone figure hears Gotham's plea.
He will put an end to Gotham's suffering, once and for all, no matter who he has to go through...
He will put an end to Gotham's suffering, once and for all, no matter who he has to go through...
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Dissipating disappointment
Back when I was a kid buying my comics off the comics rack at the book store or lottery shop in the neighbourhood plaza, unaware of shipping schedules or even release days, it was not only common, but rather expected that I would miss an issue of some series I was reading. It was ever so frustrating, that hole left in a series run.. it would natter away at me, taunting me, a big gaping void longing to be fulfilled, subsequent issues only a bigger tease at what I might have missed. Thus the completist mentality was born, lists were made and the hunt began.
Once I discovered there were actual comic book shops, and was old enough to earn my own money and convince my mother to take me to the brick and mortar stores (aside - the only one in town for a long time was a used book store, run by a chain smoking couple and you had to walk past their dirty magazine section to get to the comics section, so I understand her reluctance. In 1991 three or four new shops opened and the cleanest one became my home away from home for a decade), I came to understand the cycles of publishing, and also made sure I would never miss anything again by having a pull-list at the shop. Every so often though, despite having the pull list, an issue would be scooped out from under me, sold out before the shop got around to filling subscription (in the heyday of the speculator boom, this often happened with guys buying multiple copies of things). Frustrating and disappointing, but now familiar with the ways of the direct market and back issue diving, few gaps in collections were ever left remaining (one I never did find, and still haven't gotten around to: Batman: Shadow of the Bat #4 of all things).
I haven't had a regular pull list since the turn of the century/millennium. I went primarily trade-only for around four years but for the past six or seven years I've been working only a block away from a comic shop and have been frequenting it every New Comic Book Day (NCBD) at lunchtime ever since (becoming a firm ritual after meeting my now-wife while she was on her own NCBD outing). In the past decade, to my knowledge, I've only missed out on smaller-press/indie titles that I was interested in but the store doesn't regularly stock or only come out sporadically and are thus harder to track. For example, I have a few gaps in my Tales Designed to Thrizzle collection and I'm behind a few issues on Big Questions and I'm still searching for the last issue of SLG's Tron series from a few years back, but missing out on any of these has caused me any real disappointment. Truth of the matter is in this day and age, you can get pretty much any mass-produced product you want with a few clicks of a button, so I know that I can start closing gaps whenever I really, really want to.
But genuine disappointment, the kind that comes after unbridled anticipation, is so rare these days. We're so used to consuming, and consuming a lot, that any disappointment is generally mild and can be supplanted by consuming something else. Like last week, for the first time in I don't know how long, neither my wife nor I were able to make it to our NCBD rendezvous. By the time I made it to the shop on Friday I discovered I had missed out on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Infinity one-shot. I was disappointed, sure, because I'm a big Johnathan Hickman fan and I enjoy the series, but I wasn't that disappointed because it's Marvel, afterall... I'll be able to find the book at another shop or when my store reorders it or whatever. It'll be around. I still had six other books I picked up last week to fill whatever void there might have been for digesting new material.
But this week... good god... this week I nearly threw a temper tantrum like the ones my almost-2-year-old has recently started throwing when I discovered the store had ordered a measly four copies of Black Dynamite: Slave Island and sold out of them in the 2 hours it had been open.
If you haven't seen Black Dynamite, you honestly don't know what you're missing. I could say it's the funniest film of the past 10 years and I'd still be underselling it. It's an absolutely genius homage to Blaxploitation and 70's kung-fu movies that rivals, if not surpasses in hilarity the early works of the Zucker Brothers parody films like Airplane and Naked Gun. I'd weaned myself off of my buy-everything-I-like-on-DVD habit for about 2 years, having gotten very good at satiating myself with renting and not owning, but after renting Black Dynamite (and watching it twice in the same evening) I knew I had to own it. I've watched it multiple times since, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and I'm more in awe of it every time. As much as I love it, I have a huge appetite for more, and when I found out about this one-shot comic about two months ago, I've been tracking its release ever since, patiently waiting. Seeing it in the "upcoming release" list last week has made the past 7 days excruciating, as the anticipation has been building to a boiling point where I was bouncing in my chair, counting down the minutes 'til lunchtime today, and immediately jumping down my wife's throat to head out the door the moment the clock struck noon.
Hey, I know that there's a chance that it's not going to be any good, as there are ever only a few movie-tie-in books that measure up to their source, but even in my aging objectiveness, I can still succumb to pure, unrefined geek fandom. It is so rare, however, which is what made this disappointment all the more crushing. I quite literally was ready to leave the store, trying my hardest not to take my frustration and disappointment out on the staff who I call friends. Fuck Green Lantern and X-Factor, screw Classic GI Joe volume 11, I want Black Dynamite or I want nothing at all.
And my wife stood next to me, patiently, as I worked through my problems, and ultimately I did pick up the rest of this week's books but I'm still seething and they're not filling that void, that black (dynamite) hole that reminds me there's something out there I really want to read and can't, at least not right now. Amazon isn't shipping the comic until May 3rd, and I'm not certain that any other local stores (easily accessible) will have copies on hand, because, truth be told, it's a pretty niche book spawned from a still-developing-cult-status film put out by a small-press company that doesn't get a lot of traction against even the mid-sized publishers like Boom or IDW. I suppose I'll do what I have to do to make it through these difficult times, while my life is so empty outside of the love of my family, relatively secure job, good friends, and all the other good stuff I got going for me.
Once I discovered there were actual comic book shops, and was old enough to earn my own money and convince my mother to take me to the brick and mortar stores (aside - the only one in town for a long time was a used book store, run by a chain smoking couple and you had to walk past their dirty magazine section to get to the comics section, so I understand her reluctance. In 1991 three or four new shops opened and the cleanest one became my home away from home for a decade), I came to understand the cycles of publishing, and also made sure I would never miss anything again by having a pull-list at the shop. Every so often though, despite having the pull list, an issue would be scooped out from under me, sold out before the shop got around to filling subscription (in the heyday of the speculator boom, this often happened with guys buying multiple copies of things). Frustrating and disappointing, but now familiar with the ways of the direct market and back issue diving, few gaps in collections were ever left remaining (one I never did find, and still haven't gotten around to: Batman: Shadow of the Bat #4 of all things).
I haven't had a regular pull list since the turn of the century/millennium. I went primarily trade-only for around four years but for the past six or seven years I've been working only a block away from a comic shop and have been frequenting it every New Comic Book Day (NCBD) at lunchtime ever since (becoming a firm ritual after meeting my now-wife while she was on her own NCBD outing). In the past decade, to my knowledge, I've only missed out on smaller-press/indie titles that I was interested in but the store doesn't regularly stock or only come out sporadically and are thus harder to track. For example, I have a few gaps in my Tales Designed to Thrizzle collection and I'm behind a few issues on Big Questions and I'm still searching for the last issue of SLG's Tron series from a few years back, but missing out on any of these has caused me any real disappointment. Truth of the matter is in this day and age, you can get pretty much any mass-produced product you want with a few clicks of a button, so I know that I can start closing gaps whenever I really, really want to.
But genuine disappointment, the kind that comes after unbridled anticipation, is so rare these days. We're so used to consuming, and consuming a lot, that any disappointment is generally mild and can be supplanted by consuming something else. Like last week, for the first time in I don't know how long, neither my wife nor I were able to make it to our NCBD rendezvous. By the time I made it to the shop on Friday I discovered I had missed out on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Infinity one-shot. I was disappointed, sure, because I'm a big Johnathan Hickman fan and I enjoy the series, but I wasn't that disappointed because it's Marvel, afterall... I'll be able to find the book at another shop or when my store reorders it or whatever. It'll be around. I still had six other books I picked up last week to fill whatever void there might have been for digesting new material.
But this week... good god... this week I nearly threw a temper tantrum like the ones my almost-2-year-old has recently started throwing when I discovered the store had ordered a measly four copies of Black Dynamite: Slave Island and sold out of them in the 2 hours it had been open.
If you haven't seen Black Dynamite, you honestly don't know what you're missing. I could say it's the funniest film of the past 10 years and I'd still be underselling it. It's an absolutely genius homage to Blaxploitation and 70's kung-fu movies that rivals, if not surpasses in hilarity the early works of the Zucker Brothers parody films like Airplane and Naked Gun. I'd weaned myself off of my buy-everything-I-like-on-DVD habit for about 2 years, having gotten very good at satiating myself with renting and not owning, but after renting Black Dynamite (and watching it twice in the same evening) I knew I had to own it. I've watched it multiple times since, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and I'm more in awe of it every time. As much as I love it, I have a huge appetite for more, and when I found out about this one-shot comic about two months ago, I've been tracking its release ever since, patiently waiting. Seeing it in the "upcoming release" list last week has made the past 7 days excruciating, as the anticipation has been building to a boiling point where I was bouncing in my chair, counting down the minutes 'til lunchtime today, and immediately jumping down my wife's throat to head out the door the moment the clock struck noon.
Hey, I know that there's a chance that it's not going to be any good, as there are ever only a few movie-tie-in books that measure up to their source, but even in my aging objectiveness, I can still succumb to pure, unrefined geek fandom. It is so rare, however, which is what made this disappointment all the more crushing. I quite literally was ready to leave the store, trying my hardest not to take my frustration and disappointment out on the staff who I call friends. Fuck Green Lantern and X-Factor, screw Classic GI Joe volume 11, I want Black Dynamite or I want nothing at all.
And my wife stood next to me, patiently, as I worked through my problems, and ultimately I did pick up the rest of this week's books but I'm still seething and they're not filling that void, that black (dynamite) hole that reminds me there's something out there I really want to read and can't, at least not right now. Amazon isn't shipping the comic until May 3rd, and I'm not certain that any other local stores (easily accessible) will have copies on hand, because, truth be told, it's a pretty niche book spawned from a still-developing-cult-status film put out by a small-press company that doesn't get a lot of traction against even the mid-sized publishers like Boom or IDW. I suppose I'll do what I have to do to make it through these difficult times, while my life is so empty outside of the love of my family, relatively secure job, good friends, and all the other good stuff I got going for me.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Flashpointless?
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it
Second Printing presents: a quick recap of the legacy Flashpoint carries forth.
'Cause I'm old, I remember Armageddon: 2001, DC's 1991 annual event, the first to take place entirely across their Annuals rather than interrupting their monthly titles. Genius that, I say, the idea of running an event through Annuals, not necessarily the Armageddon series. Armageddon: 2001 had two bookend issues between which all the other annuals appeared, and each annual was, by and large, a stand-alone excuse to tell an out-of-continuity story set 10 years in the future about the characters and teams holding their own titles. The Plot? A character named Waverider was checking every superhero to see who would possibly become the world-conquering Monarch, and in a famous pre-internet spoiler foil, DC changed the big reveal from Captain Atom to Hawk (of "& Dove"), something which kind of pissed off a lot of people (especially after Hawk had already been ruled out in the H&D annual). Superman had three or four different futures, which just went to show that you couldn't really trust or believe anything you read in the other issues.
The Annual-based event format was great, in essence making the event its own thing, and leaving the ongoing series to do their own thing uninterrupted, keeping writers and readers happy. They repeated the annual event at DC twice more with Eclipso: The Darkness Within and Bloodlines, and in 2004 had a thematic "event" whereby each Annual presented an Elseworld story (or two) of the title characters. The Elseworlds stories, like those in Armageddon: 2001 were stand-alone, which meant readers could pick and choose or go all-in with equal enjoyment (although, re-reading them, most of the stories in both series were either uninspired or hastily executed, or both).
The mid-1990's, at the apex (or perhaps just past the turning point) of the comics boom, spewed forth the Amalgam Universe, where DC and Marvel heroes smashed together in puntastic ways for two series of one-shots. Then in the late-1990s DC had the "skip-week" events. To explain, every month consists of four weeks, but every three months there's kind of an "extra" week on the schedule which DC used at the time to have self-contained mini-series or mini-events. One skip week brought forth the "Tangent Universe", a new bundle of heroes in a shared universe with familiar names and not at all else. Both the Amalgam and Tangent Universes had solid creative teams, but investment in the characters was low (since they were essentially one-off creations) and thus so was enjoyment (even though the Tangent universe has reared its head a couple times since).
It would appear that with Flashpoint what is old is new again and we, the DC readership/fanbase are getting treated to new alternate timeline versions of the DCU, with our heroes being recognizable but definitely not the same.
Would it be rude of me to yawn?
I've seen this before, multiple times, and the potential for fun is there as it always is in alternate past/future stories. But at the same time the sprawl of Flashpoint, with over 15 titles per month (Booster Gold, I might add, is the only current ongoing series tying in) means it's not going to be a cohesive story, and knowing what's the meat and what's just fat is hard to tell from the outside. Even at a "drawing the line" price of $2.99, that's still around $50 monthly to buy into the event in total, so as a fan, if you're curious, what do you do?
Do you pick and choose what you want to read? Those Cliff Chiang covers on Deadman and the Flying Graysons makes that series somewhat enticing or the appearance of Morrison's Seven Soldiers Frankenstein in Frankenstein and the Challengers of the Unknown certainly lifts an eyebrow or the sheer bizarreness of the June-solicited one-shot The Canterbury Cricket threatens to draw me in. But if you do pick and choose, will they be all that interesting on their own, or even as a part of the whole?
Flashpoint is a rather sizable gamble on DC's part, though I did notice they're leaving the bulk of their titles alone, so it's an event that's not a mandatory event. I can keep picking up Detective Comics or Secret Six without having to worry about picking up additional cross-over issues, or, quite frankly even care what's happening in Flashpoint.
But then the question is raised, if Flashpoint isn't affecting the DC Universe titles in any significant way, then what is the point of doling out 15-20 additional books per month, and building such a massive alternate reality for a short-term event? Is Flashpoint the birth of an "Ultimates" style universe, or is it a flash-in-the-pan? (PUN!)
I should also mention that I've been avoiding the Flash since the return of Barry Allen so I've had zero build-up to this event, and I have to wonder if this event is catering to anyone outside of the Flash readership. Obviously it is trying to considering the diversity of characters and titles involved, but will any reader who hasn't been keeping up with the Flash have a vested interest in the series especially if they can keep reading their regular monthlies without interruption?
As you may be able to tell, I'm a little undecided about how I feel about Flashpoint. I'm grateful for it staying out of books like Legion of Super-Heroes and Teen Titans in the same way that the old Annuals events used to, but also puzzled by why I should otherwise care. Curiosity is seeping in a little, mostly on the strength of a few cover images and that old nostalgic feeling I have for Elseworlds tales, but I suspect I'm going to pass on the event in total.
Second Printing presents: a quick recap of the legacy Flashpoint carries forth.
'Cause I'm old, I remember Armageddon: 2001, DC's 1991 annual event, the first to take place entirely across their Annuals rather than interrupting their monthly titles. Genius that, I say, the idea of running an event through Annuals, not necessarily the Armageddon series. Armageddon: 2001 had two bookend issues between which all the other annuals appeared, and each annual was, by and large, a stand-alone excuse to tell an out-of-continuity story set 10 years in the future about the characters and teams holding their own titles. The Plot? A character named Waverider was checking every superhero to see who would possibly become the world-conquering Monarch, and in a famous pre-internet spoiler foil, DC changed the big reveal from Captain Atom to Hawk (of "& Dove"), something which kind of pissed off a lot of people (especially after Hawk had already been ruled out in the H&D annual). Superman had three or four different futures, which just went to show that you couldn't really trust or believe anything you read in the other issues.The Annual-based event format was great, in essence making the event its own thing, and leaving the ongoing series to do their own thing uninterrupted, keeping writers and readers happy. They repeated the annual event at DC twice more with Eclipso: The Darkness Within and Bloodlines, and in 2004 had a thematic "event" whereby each Annual presented an Elseworld story (or two) of the title characters. The Elseworlds stories, like those in Armageddon: 2001 were stand-alone, which meant readers could pick and choose or go all-in with equal enjoyment (although, re-reading them, most of the stories in both series were either uninspired or hastily executed, or both).
The mid-1990's, at the apex (or perhaps just past the turning point) of the comics boom, spewed forth the Amalgam Universe, where DC and Marvel heroes smashed together in puntastic ways for two series of one-shots. Then in the late-1990s DC had the "skip-week" events. To explain, every month consists of four weeks, but every three months there's kind of an "extra" week on the schedule which DC used at the time to have self-contained mini-series or mini-events. One skip week brought forth the "Tangent Universe", a new bundle of heroes in a shared universe with familiar names and not at all else. Both the Amalgam and Tangent Universes had solid creative teams, but investment in the characters was low (since they were essentially one-off creations) and thus so was enjoyment (even though the Tangent universe has reared its head a couple times since).It would appear that with Flashpoint what is old is new again and we, the DC readership/fanbase are getting treated to new alternate timeline versions of the DCU, with our heroes being recognizable but definitely not the same.
Would it be rude of me to yawn?
I've seen this before, multiple times, and the potential for fun is there as it always is in alternate past/future stories. But at the same time the sprawl of Flashpoint, with over 15 titles per month (Booster Gold, I might add, is the only current ongoing series tying in) means it's not going to be a cohesive story, and knowing what's the meat and what's just fat is hard to tell from the outside. Even at a "drawing the line" price of $2.99, that's still around $50 monthly to buy into the event in total, so as a fan, if you're curious, what do you do?Do you pick and choose what you want to read? Those Cliff Chiang covers on Deadman and the Flying Graysons makes that series somewhat enticing or the appearance of Morrison's Seven Soldiers Frankenstein in Frankenstein and the Challengers of the Unknown certainly lifts an eyebrow or the sheer bizarreness of the June-solicited one-shot The Canterbury Cricket threatens to draw me in. But if you do pick and choose, will they be all that interesting on their own, or even as a part of the whole?
Flashpoint is a rather sizable gamble on DC's part, though I did notice they're leaving the bulk of their titles alone, so it's an event that's not a mandatory event. I can keep picking up Detective Comics or Secret Six without having to worry about picking up additional cross-over issues, or, quite frankly even care what's happening in Flashpoint.
But then the question is raised, if Flashpoint isn't affecting the DC Universe titles in any significant way, then what is the point of doling out 15-20 additional books per month, and building such a massive alternate reality for a short-term event? Is Flashpoint the birth of an "Ultimates" style universe, or is it a flash-in-the-pan? (PUN!)
I should also mention that I've been avoiding the Flash since the return of Barry Allen so I've had zero build-up to this event, and I have to wonder if this event is catering to anyone outside of the Flash readership. Obviously it is trying to considering the diversity of characters and titles involved, but will any reader who hasn't been keeping up with the Flash have a vested interest in the series especially if they can keep reading their regular monthlies without interruption?As you may be able to tell, I'm a little undecided about how I feel about Flashpoint. I'm grateful for it staying out of books like Legion of Super-Heroes and Teen Titans in the same way that the old Annuals events used to, but also puzzled by why I should otherwise care. Curiosity is seeping in a little, mostly on the strength of a few cover images and that old nostalgic feeling I have for Elseworlds tales, but I suspect I'm going to pass on the event in total.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Definitely Not Reviews (Mid-March-Madness)
Devon and I (and the gang) did some reviews of last weeks comics, but there were so many new comics that it was hard to a thoughtful review to all of them. So how about some knee-jerk reactions instead?
It's back, DEFINITELY NOT REVIEWS:
Adventure Comics #524 - I think I routinely get the Subs and the Legion Academy confused. I love the Subs and have no real feelings either way for the Academy. I was a huge Phil Jimenez fan at one time, which was what brought me on board for this arc. I think my Subs/Academy confusion led me to believe this issue would be a continuation of the futuristic Frat House satire that the first issue seemed to be, alas, it's true to the title and is an actual Adventure. First World Problems.
Fear Itself: Book of the Skull - To distill Devon's review, it's a complete mehss. See what I did there? Anyway, from what I've read about this, Brubaker was originally supposed to co-write the Fear Itself event with Fraction, but had to bail and took what he was going to do (this quasi-Hellboy inspired retro-WWII arc) and turned it into a bland one-shot. Some nice art and a few decent action pieces, but inessential, less than inspiring, and not so revealing about the overall Fear Itself to-do.
The Guild: Tink - This reminds me that I've not been watching Season 4 of the Guild. I've enjoyed all of the Guild comics so far, but this one kind of pisses me off, mostly because self-entitled princessy bitches like Tink just annoy the piss out of me. I guess Felicia Day has done her job well in establishing such a character for us all to loathe.
Red Robin #21 - Red Robin (yummm) takes on the Mad Men, but Don Draper is nowhere to be seen. Zing! Bet no one thought of that one yet. Anywho, Nicieza reinvents the old Blue Beetle villains as living server farms after being experimented upon by Dark Side's acolytes during the Final Crisis, now they're an integral part to the Unternet. This whole criminal internet business has actually been a pretty fun nerdist-meets-superhero ride so far.
Ruse #1 - All I have to say is, do we need another Sherlock Holmes-esque character? Enh, sure, why not.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #5 - Nick Spencer's pacing of the inaugural storyline is very, very unusual, and I've not yet decided if I like how its structured/executed, but otherwise, I'm quite enjoying it, and the guest artists that have been joining Cafu every issue (this issue Ryan Sook) have all been top-tier talents.
Tiny Titans #38 - Aqualad and Lagoon boy meet the underwater Titans. I love when this book goes into seriously deranged territory. It's not necessarily subversive, just deliciously weird. This series will hopefully continue until Balthazar and Franco are in the grave.
Unwritten #23 - Until last week I had so many issues of this series sitting beside my bed, I'd taken to calling it Unread. Badum bum. But seriously folks, I ploughed through 10 issues like a crazed junkie and was itching for more. But oddly enough, reading this issue, by itself, with nothing to follow, didn't feel as satisfying. I highly recommend this series, but I think it'll fare so much better in trade.
X-Factor #217 - this one is boob-a-licious. But as much as I like cleavage, I have to say Banshee's boobs and Monet's boobs and Black Cat's boobs seriously undercut the rather potent and intelligently written debate ol' Mayor J Jonah Jameson had with some Tea Party-like protesters. It was a nice moment for JJJ, which seemed both unusual and out of synch with how I'm familiar with him (which is pretty much limited to the 1960's cartoon and J.K. Simmons in the film).
Xombi #1 - 15 years ago, back in 2005, Milestones' Xombi came to an end. 15 years after 2005, in 2011, Xombi's back, but no one cares because they're all fixated on my incorrect math. And by "they're all" I mean the four people who commented on my date typo in my CHUD review. Otherwise, to quote Dana Carvey impersonating Johnny Carson (I'm old!), "that is some weird, wild stuff."
Yo Gabba Gabba: Comic Book Time HC - for hipster adults with really young children, or stoners who are entranced by bright colours, Yo Gabba Gabba is one of the raddest things going. This very handsome collection of shorts is equally pretty rad, with some absolutely fantastic kid-friendly art and stories from the likes of Evan Dorkin, Mike Allred, and Eric Orchard (whom I introduced you to a year and a half ago, remember?). My 20-month old loves it, and I think I like it more.
Your Highness Prequel - Aye, this dost not bodeth well for the quality of yon cinefilm, as showcased in moving picture houses come April. It's kind of crappy, in facteth.
It's back, DEFINITELY NOT REVIEWS:
Adventure Comics #524 - I think I routinely get the Subs and the Legion Academy confused. I love the Subs and have no real feelings either way for the Academy. I was a huge Phil Jimenez fan at one time, which was what brought me on board for this arc. I think my Subs/Academy confusion led me to believe this issue would be a continuation of the futuristic Frat House satire that the first issue seemed to be, alas, it's true to the title and is an actual Adventure. First World Problems.
Fear Itself: Book of the Skull - To distill Devon's review, it's a complete mehss. See what I did there? Anyway, from what I've read about this, Brubaker was originally supposed to co-write the Fear Itself event with Fraction, but had to bail and took what he was going to do (this quasi-Hellboy inspired retro-WWII arc) and turned it into a bland one-shot. Some nice art and a few decent action pieces, but inessential, less than inspiring, and not so revealing about the overall Fear Itself to-do.
The Guild: Tink - This reminds me that I've not been watching Season 4 of the Guild. I've enjoyed all of the Guild comics so far, but this one kind of pisses me off, mostly because self-entitled princessy bitches like Tink just annoy the piss out of me. I guess Felicia Day has done her job well in establishing such a character for us all to loathe.
Red Robin #21 - Red Robin (yummm) takes on the Mad Men, but Don Draper is nowhere to be seen. Zing! Bet no one thought of that one yet. Anywho, Nicieza reinvents the old Blue Beetle villains as living server farms after being experimented upon by Dark Side's acolytes during the Final Crisis, now they're an integral part to the Unternet. This whole criminal internet business has actually been a pretty fun nerdist-meets-superhero ride so far.
Ruse #1 - All I have to say is, do we need another Sherlock Holmes-esque character? Enh, sure, why not.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #5 - Nick Spencer's pacing of the inaugural storyline is very, very unusual, and I've not yet decided if I like how its structured/executed, but otherwise, I'm quite enjoying it, and the guest artists that have been joining Cafu every issue (this issue Ryan Sook) have all been top-tier talents.
Tiny Titans #38 - Aqualad and Lagoon boy meet the underwater Titans. I love when this book goes into seriously deranged territory. It's not necessarily subversive, just deliciously weird. This series will hopefully continue until Balthazar and Franco are in the grave.
Unwritten #23 - Until last week I had so many issues of this series sitting beside my bed, I'd taken to calling it Unread. Badum bum. But seriously folks, I ploughed through 10 issues like a crazed junkie and was itching for more. But oddly enough, reading this issue, by itself, with nothing to follow, didn't feel as satisfying. I highly recommend this series, but I think it'll fare so much better in trade.
X-Factor #217 - this one is boob-a-licious. But as much as I like cleavage, I have to say Banshee's boobs and Monet's boobs and Black Cat's boobs seriously undercut the rather potent and intelligently written debate ol' Mayor J Jonah Jameson had with some Tea Party-like protesters. It was a nice moment for JJJ, which seemed both unusual and out of synch with how I'm familiar with him (which is pretty much limited to the 1960's cartoon and J.K. Simmons in the film).
Xombi #1 - 15 years ago, back in 2005, Milestones' Xombi came to an end. 15 years after 2005, in 2011, Xombi's back, but no one cares because they're all fixated on my incorrect math. And by "they're all" I mean the four people who commented on my date typo in my CHUD review. Otherwise, to quote Dana Carvey impersonating Johnny Carson (I'm old!), "that is some weird, wild stuff."
Yo Gabba Gabba: Comic Book Time HC - for hipster adults with really young children, or stoners who are entranced by bright colours, Yo Gabba Gabba is one of the raddest things going. This very handsome collection of shorts is equally pretty rad, with some absolutely fantastic kid-friendly art and stories from the likes of Evan Dorkin, Mike Allred, and Eric Orchard (whom I introduced you to a year and a half ago, remember?). My 20-month old loves it, and I think I like it more.
Your Highness Prequel - Aye, this dost not bodeth well for the quality of yon cinefilm, as showcased in moving picture houses come April. It's kind of crappy, in facteth.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Your WTF Comics Moment Of The Day
APE Entertainment is bring you an all-new Richie Rich comic and it's basically Jonny Quest meets... Richie Rich, I guess.
Where do you even start with this? Where are the pre-Michael Jordan white short-shorts dude used to wear? Where are the li'l white booties? Where's Richie flashing $100 bills like L'il Wayne on an all-night bender at a strip club? Reggie Mantle wants his hair back.
And Cadbury? Oh, Cadbury... what have they done to you? If you want milk and cookies brought to you, you want this guy bringing them to you...
Not this guy...
This guy's gonna bang your mom, Richie Rich.
Not this guy...
This guy's gonna bang your mom, Richie Rich.
Friday, March 18, 2011
The All-New Wonder Woman
So, last year DC had updated the Wonder Woman costume for a "modern age", showing less of Diana's skin and turning the bustier into something less bustier-like, giving her a street-tough look more akin to Black Canary than what we would typically associate with Wonder Woman. I didn't much care for it. I have to say though, that I prefer it to this: the new television Wonder Woman costume as donned by series actress Adrianne Palicki. The fetish aesthetic is quite obviously back in (I guess in keeping with the origins of the character), as this costume seems like something I would see in the live display window at a certain adult store on Queen West here in Toronto, rather than a superhero. Quite frankly it makes Lynda Carter look ready to greet the Queen in comparison. And nerd quibble: BLUE BOOTS?
Reports about the show have David E Kelly's Wonder Woman it shaping up to be the usual clueless adapt-a-superhero-to-the-mass-market disaster. "The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life"
Bleeding Cool's dissection of the pilot script further damns it to, at best, The Flash-level of television reinvention.
I'm betting that, like the Cape or The Bionic Woman remake, I make it no further than 20 minutes through the pilot episode before flipping it over to watch hockey or something less brain-hurtey.
Reports about the show have David E Kelly's Wonder Woman it shaping up to be the usual clueless adapt-a-superhero-to-the-mass-market disaster. "The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life"
Bleeding Cool's dissection of the pilot script further damns it to, at best, The Flash-level of television reinvention.
I'm betting that, like the Cape or The Bionic Woman remake, I make it no further than 20 minutes through the pilot episode before flipping it over to watch hockey or something less brain-hurtey.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Dwayne McDuffie, In Memoriam
Two hours ago, I heard of the passing of writer/creator Dwayne McDuffie. I, like many, am incredibly sad.
McDuffie had, over the years, become something of a mentor to me. He had no idea, though.
I'd first discovered him as the writer of Marvel Comics' Damage Control mini-series. In an era when every creator seemed to be taking comics by the hair, kicking and screaming, down a dark alleyway, here was this... thing. This very funny... thing. A comic that asked and answered the answer, "Who's gonna clean up this mess?" It was brilliantly written and vibrantly drawn and honestly, a breath of fresh air in an industry hellbent on becoming hellbent. I wanted to write like this man. I wanted to make people feel good about the comic they'd just read.
Later, tired of the Luke Cages and Night Thrashers of the comics universe, he co-created Milestone Comics, a brand formed on the knowledge that characters of color and even different sexualities could and should have just as many chances at heroism as anyone else. From this, we got The Blood Syndicate, The Shadow Cabinet, Xombi and the books he personally wrote Icon (and more important to me, his sidekick, Rocket,) Hardware and Static. Static would later go on to receive his own long-running cartoon series. (McDuffie wrote many of its episodes.) As an aside, I honestly believe a whole generation of young black men watching Static Shock on Saturday mornings wear their hair in dreadlocks in emulation of McDuffie's most enduring creation.
McDuffie went on to write many more cartoons, chief among them, Justice League Unlimited, the Super Friends cartoon we wished for as adults. Watching this show was seeing everything you loved about comics rendered big on screen. In each McDuffie script, you just knew he adored the material he was writing about and it showed in every word. McDuffie even managed to do the impossible and in one episode of Unlimited, wrote the best Marvel animated project Marvel never commissioned.
To me, his greatest contribution to comics and to animation was this: I remember looking into the mirror as a child and came to horrible realization that I couldn't truly be Superman. My hair didn't do what his did. My skin did not look like his.
Fast forward, thirty years and my nephew and I are watching Justice League Unlimited together. The room was filled with nothing but the sounds of the television, when my nephew looks over at me and smiles. "The Green Lantern. His head is bald like yours and he has a mustache and hair on his chin like you do. You look like Green Lantern."
I can't tell you how good I felt at that moment. To my nephew and many other children, men who looked like me could be viewed as heroes. I could be a hero. Just like Green Lantern.
Just like one of my personal writing heroes, Dwayne McDuffie.
McDuffie had, over the years, become something of a mentor to me. He had no idea, though.
I'd first discovered him as the writer of Marvel Comics' Damage Control mini-series. In an era when every creator seemed to be taking comics by the hair, kicking and screaming, down a dark alleyway, here was this... thing. This very funny... thing. A comic that asked and answered the answer, "Who's gonna clean up this mess?" It was brilliantly written and vibrantly drawn and honestly, a breath of fresh air in an industry hellbent on becoming hellbent. I wanted to write like this man. I wanted to make people feel good about the comic they'd just read.Later, tired of the Luke Cages and Night Thrashers of the comics universe, he co-created Milestone Comics, a brand formed on the knowledge that characters of color and even different sexualities could and should have just as many chances at heroism as anyone else. From this, we got The Blood Syndicate, The Shadow Cabinet, Xombi and the books he personally wrote Icon (and more important to me, his sidekick, Rocket,) Hardware and Static. Static would later go on to receive his own long-running cartoon series. (McDuffie wrote many of its episodes.) As an aside, I honestly believe a whole generation of young black men watching Static Shock on Saturday mornings wear their hair in dreadlocks in emulation of McDuffie's most enduring creation.
McDuffie went on to write many more cartoons, chief among them, Justice League Unlimited, the Super Friends cartoon we wished for as adults. Watching this show was seeing everything you loved about comics rendered big on screen. In each McDuffie script, you just knew he adored the material he was writing about and it showed in every word. McDuffie even managed to do the impossible and in one episode of Unlimited, wrote the best Marvel animated project Marvel never commissioned.
To me, his greatest contribution to comics and to animation was this: I remember looking into the mirror as a child and came to horrible realization that I couldn't truly be Superman. My hair didn't do what his did. My skin did not look like his.
Fast forward, thirty years and my nephew and I are watching Justice League Unlimited together. The room was filled with nothing but the sounds of the television, when my nephew looks over at me and smiles. "The Green Lantern. His head is bald like yours and he has a mustache and hair on his chin like you do. You look like Green Lantern."
I can't tell you how good I felt at that moment. To my nephew and many other children, men who looked like me could be viewed as heroes. I could be a hero. Just like Green Lantern.
Just like one of my personal writing heroes, Dwayne McDuffie.
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