4.10.11

The New 52: My top five (and then some)

So, we're on the far side of the New 52 initiative, of which I ended up reading 40 titles (plus two I would have read if I could ever have found copies), and I have to say it aside from some issues that cropped up each week it was overall a positive experience. There were a handful of standouts, but I liked a lot more of the total than I expected to, and I intend to stick with a bunch, albeit a month late after the price drop for most of them. In lieu of writing forty reviews, which I probably would have done if I had time between actually reading my 20-odd-books-a-week pull (urgh), I'm just going to pick out my five favorites and a few honorable mentions and focus on the ones worth reading.

22.8.11

The Best _____ This Week for 8/17/11: Whole lotta fighting going on

Ughuguh. Never found the time to write anything this weekend, so you get super-quick picks for the week, just so I can say I put something up. Which is a tragedy because of how good some of the books were this week (Two great Man-Thing books! TWO!). In lieu of lengthy, loving write-ups, just trust me on these and go buy 'em, okay?

19.8.11

This Week In Rant for 8/17/11: Full Of Itself

This week, the subject that permeated most of  my pull was: Event Fatigue.

I've never been a huge fan of events from the Big Two. They have their place in concept, but they've grown into these massive beasts that take up most of a year's comics, and whose fallout will pervade a good number of titles  for the rest of the year, until the next event rises up. The old mantra "nothing will never be the same" is only true thanks to the fact that this flow and ebb never lets up long enough for something to settle and stay the same, as room must be made for the new status quos, the dying-for-sales characters or the reality-altering time-quakes.
To DC's credit, not a whole lot will be the same after this current event wraps up. Flashpoint is being used to usher in the new DCU, which is a fine idea in itself, but the odd part is proving to be how insular the various Flashpoint series have been, mostly being stand-alone mini-series and one-shots. While the majority of DC's books are, within the narrative, not being affected by the goings-on in Flashpoint, they are contradictably being affected in the real world with their being relaunched or cancelled to make room for the fresh-and-shiny continuity being moved in. It's not a new point to bring up, certainly, and I am excited about a great deal of the new books, but it's hard to forget what's being left in the wake. All problems with the story of the book aside, Flashpoint is, in a lot of ways, a very good example of how to handle an event, providing a mostly-contained story without permeating other books and disrupting their rhythm, as is often the case with an ongoing title's event tie-in. However, at the same time it is the current DCU's death-knell, a tool to hew out this new continuity. While the event itself has been mostly contained to its own titles, with the rest of the books ending every week (some for good for the time being), every title becomes intrisically tied to the fallout of Flashpoint, for better or worse, and in a major way. And a lot of the books' stories have been forced to rush and alter plots to wrap them up, if not because of the event then because they simply won't have another chance to do so. As I focused on last week, every Wednesday we're saying good-bye to something because of this event, even if Flashpoint itself is just a puppet for this greater mandate.

A bit on the nose, there.

Marvel, on the other hand, is doing a pretty terrible job organizing their events. And I have to emphasize the plural there, we are now dealing with multiple crossover events. We are smack in the middle of Fear Itself, which currently has the entire world panicking as the Serpent and his Worthy are at the height of their powers,  with the heroes of Earth coming together to stop this seemingly-omnipotent, existence-wide threat. Meanwhile, New York is infested with normal citizens possessing spider powers and the X-Men are battling a global Sentinel threat and a reformed Hellfire club, neither of which seem to be showing any signs of being in the midst of or on the far side of the events of Fear Itself. The main draw we keep coming back to these events for, whether we like it or not, is to see the effect they're going to have on the shared continuity, and it becomes hard to take this kind of thing seriously when said shared continuity is going to pick and choose what it's going to observe. It wouldn't be such a problem if, like Flashpoint, the events themselves were more insular and/or staggered out a little better. A large part of the event fatigue is the sheer amount of books I'm getting devoted to them. Out of eleven Marvel books I picked up this week, one was the Schism main title (which also had a Generation Hope tie-in come out), two were Spider-Island tie-ins and five were Fear Itself tie-ins. Of the three remaining books, one is just getting out of its Fear Itself arc that, for all intents and purposes, could have missed those two issues and not missed a beat. Specifically, I'm talking about Hulk which, while one of the issues was pretty fun and I can't fault it for that, had to take a break from the story in progress for two issues to inconsequentially check in on how Fear Itself was doing.
This is admittedly a bad week to just complain, however, since even if it did throw a wrench into their intended plotworks, Uncanny X-Men and Thunderbolts both put out some great issues for their tie-ins and Deadpool and Fearsome Four were both fun issues that need Fear Itself to exist in the first place, while Journey Into Mystery has been one of the standouts of the Fear Itself crop since Gillen started his run alongside the event. Both Venom and Spider-Girl's Spider-Island books were very strong, as was Cloak and Dagger's first issue last week. And I have some small problems with Schism, but the good far outweighs the bad and I'm enjoying the series quite a bit more than even I expected to. At any given point in an event, you can take things book by book and find some great comics, almost by law of averages, and the problem isn't one of quality. The problem, in the end, comes to primarily to timing and volume. We are given the core Event series and it's closer tie-in mini-series. Then that spins out into the ongoing series touched by the event. As those move on, series have to move on and they fall off the main event and, in the case we're currently seeing, spinning out into their own, smaller events. However, that first event is still going, and as the initial minis start to dry up, we start getting the "impact" series and one-shots (which I think Fear Itself has been mostly free from but I remember Civil War absolutely drowning in). Eventually, the series ends and the fallout books start coming out, which today Marvel announced for Fear Itself, including Fear Itself getting issues 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 among other titles, and surely some of the ongoings will swing back around and comment on what happened, now the the world has been forever changed somehow until sales dictate it returns to normal. And between inevitable delays, shipping issues, etc, by the time we've actually gotten past this event, we'll probably be seeing the prelude books for next year's event getting solicits. When all's said and done, we'll have seen a seven-issue series spawn damn near a hundred individual issues, and the wheel keeps turning. This is probably the best thing about the DC relaunch, that they're giving themselves to break that cycle and start fresh, even though we'll still have to wait and see if they seize that opportunity. Marvel, on the other hand, seemed to have taken a bit of a breather with the whole Heroic Age movement, but it looks like it's headed right back down the event-hole, remaining mired deep down as the tentacles cancerously spread through their titles without reprieve.

Ah well. There's always Image.

12.8.11

The Best _____ This Week for 8/10/11: Cloak and cowl

The Best Part Of This Balanced Breakfast:
Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #1, written by Nick Spencer, art by Emma Ríos, colors by Javier Rodriguez, letters by Joe Caramagna

The Best Thing We'll Probably Never See Again:
Batgirl #24, written by Bryan Q. Miller, art by Pere Pérez, colors by Guy Major, letters by Dave Sharpe

Red Lantern Damien? Why you gotta tease me, Miller?

The Best Satanic Familiar:
Ghost Rider #2, written by Rob Williams, art by Matthew Clark, inks by Sean Parsons, colors by Rob Schwager, letters by Clayton Cowles
And now, onto the real categories:

This Week In Rant for 8/10/11: Odds and Endings

So in a bid to artificially inflate my post count break up these increasingly-long weekly post a little, I'm going to split up the usual Best Of post into three parts: the "little" spiel that normally goes up top here getting its own post, the main Best Of the week post that it was originally meant to be, and finally the Best of the Rest reviews, which are what I started the post to avoid doing in the first place because now I feel bad about not mentioning some books. Just goes to show how bad I am at long-term planning.

Starting At The End

So if every week has some kind of running theme I can pull out of it, the impending relaunch of the DCU has made the entire month of August feel like there's been a running theme of books coming to their end. And, given the staggered nature of three-through-six issue story arcs coming out, every week something is coming to an end, but I can't remember anytime so many major titles have reached their end within so tight a time-frame. Even if we remember most (mrr) of these books are coming back next month, the whole comic zeitgeist feels permeated with a sense of finality. The endings of other books, not even remotely related to DC's relaunch, feels more impactful just because its all hitting in the middle of this massive fall-off of titles.
Last week, my pull saw the end of two books facing vastly different fates: Gail Simone's Secret Six and the current run of Jonah Hex. The former went out, deservedly, with a bang, but left some glimmer of hope for continuation, even if its continuity has been warped and reshaped like Playdough in the interim. Hex on the other hand, by virtue of its nature to stay further disconnected from the greater DCU, did not have the same sense of concluding things. It was, however still laid out in such a way that it  could serve perfectly well as a last issue without putting any kind of cap on things. It, like seemingly the Batman and Lantern books will be, is going to be able to start back up in September without missing a beat regardless of the new quota of making all the books, even the fringe titles like All-Star Westerns, actively connected to the publisher's shared continuity. Especially since the creative team is not being particularly shook up, with Palmiotti and Gray still handling the writing.
Batgirl #24, cover art by Dustin Nguyen
This week, I picked up two more books cut down to make way for the DCnU, Batgirl #24 and Detective Comics #881, Detective Comic's first last issue ever since it started back in 1937. Batgirl sees the end of Stephanie Brown's tenure as the character, with the Simone-penned Batgirl next month putting a de-wheelchaired Barbara Gordon back in the costume. Bryan Q. Miller has done an excellent job on this series, taking a character who probably wasn't the handled the greatest over the years, and proving the adage that there aren't any bad characters, just ones who haven't found the right writer yet. Miller put twenty-three of the most fun Bat-books in years out on the shelves, and he wraps it up with this one, a pitch-perfect issue and a wonderful, touching good-bye to the character. And as sad as I am to see this incarnation of the series and the character go, I can't read that last page without smiling.
Detective Comics, on the other hand, is about as tonally different from Batgirl as you can get. Wrapping up the hanging threads Snyder has been working on since taking over the title. It is a strong, classic Batman tale mixing the superheroics and detective work that Detective Comics at its best has always utilized, but in a lot of ways placed secondary to the family drama and turmoil the Gordons find themselves going through. Like Hex, though, while it is a good wrap to this particular story, it doesn't feel in any way like this is a last issue. This could make any changes that do occur in the shuffle that much more abrupt, or if the changes are negligible making the whole relaunch/renumbering feel that much more pointless.
Hellboy: The Fury #3, written by Mike Mignola, art by Duncan
Fegredo, colors by Dave Stewart, letters by Clem Robins
Outside of DC, the other big ending this week was obvious Hellboy. Both Hellboy's three-part The Fury and B.P.R.D.'s Hell On Earth: Monsters came to a close, and within the former we see the end of Hellboy's seventeen-year macro-arc, facing down the very end of the world we've been teased about since the series began. It's hard to say Hellboy or BPRD ever truly ends, as each arc builds off the previous and sets up the next all while being its own stand-alone story, and Fury is truly no different as it ends with a teaser for next year's Hellboy series; somewhat negating the impact of the final scenes here but in no way taking away from the series itself. The only thing I really noticed was, with all the hype Dark Horse and the blogs were putting on The Fury, Monsters seemed to slide by relatively unmentioned. Which is a shame, because this is a good bridge series (and Crook's ability to draw expressions in particular has completely won me over at this point, the man can draw a smirk). And with my attention mostly directed towards Hellboy, the ending here came entirely out of left field, and was very impactful, especially with no clue as to how permanent its going to be.

Girls, Girls, Girls

B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth: Monsters #2, written by Mike Mignola and John
Arcudi, art by Tyler Crook, colors by Dave Stewart, lettering by Clem Robins
This is obviously not a new topic, but certainly one that also got a fire lit under its ass by the frenzy surrounding DC and their handling of the relaunch and is spreading out to other areas of the comic consciousness, is women in comics, both characters and creators. As such, this week's pull had its fair share to chime in on about the subject, for better or worse (but for once mostly better, I think). In the above-mentioned comics alone, Monsters focused almost entirely on Liz Sherman kicking some ass, and when it wasn't it shifted over to Kate Corrigan for a couple of scenes, who has always been two of my favorite characters in comcis regardless of gender.
Over on Batgirl and Detective Comics, we got to see two of the women to wear the cowl have their proper send-offs from the current status quo, including a trip through Stephanie's subconscious and Barbara having the chance to play horror-movie heroine when kidnapped by a serial killer.
Batgirl #24, written by Bryan Q. Miller, art by Pere Pérez,
colors by Guy Major, letters by Dave Sharpe
Also from DC, the Batman 80-Page Giant special had a short Catwoman story that I loved, and also featured Renee Montoya's Question, a great and greatly-underused character, in a Riddler story, which is delightfully fun in concept but can't say I quite enjoyed the execution. On the other hand, it also features a Zsasz story about a doctor at Arkham who falls in love with her patient and adopts their psychosis to impress them. Which is, what, the fifth, sixth time they've done that premise? They've done it with just the Joker at least twice, and this was easily one of the clumsiest handling of an already-weak plot.
Marvel had the potential to do something with their Ghost Rider book, as the current host of the Spirit of Vengeance is a woman, but as of yet they haven't done much with her, depicted more as a tool than a character, and despite his depowered status, the book has so far still mainly focused on Johnny Blaze. I'm starting to get worried the new host is merely a gimmick for this first arc instead of a viable character in her own right. I'll wait until its actually over to pass judgement, but if this is just a vehicle to get the fire back in Johnny, I'll be more than a bit disappointed.
Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #1, written by Nick Spencer, art
by Emma Ríos, colors by Javier Rodriguez, letters by Joe Caramagna
Where Marvel did get things right, however, is the new Cloak and Dagger. I'm going to be discussing this one at length in the next post, but needless to say this is a book featuring main characters who are a) a woman, b) a minority character and, most importantly, c) not written like these two things matter in defining who these characters are. These are two characters who have endured for years but never truly caught on, and here, with Nick Spencer doing possibly the best job of writing them to date and Emma Ríos providing some absolutely stunning work with the art, this book is in danger of getting lost in the Event shuffle. Don't let the Spider-Island banner turn you off; at least so far as we've seen in the series, you can pick up and enjoy this without any prior knowledge of Spider-Island, or even Cloak and Dagger themselves, as their recap is deftly covered, mostly in one amazing two-page spread and gotten out of the way immediately to jump into the story. As Spencer himself has said, speak with your dollars and pick this up. Whether you're concerned with the issue of racial and gender representation in comics and their creators, or you're completely ambivalent and just concerned with picking up a great book, this is the one to get.

5.8.11

The Best _____ This Week for 8/3/11: A good week to be bad

Since it doesn't really come up in the superlatives, I'll talk about it up top here: I am real excited for Miles Morales to be the new (Ultimate) Spider-Man. I will be even more excited once I see enough of him to establish him as more than a palette-swapped Peter Parker. I picked up Ultimate Fallout #4 in spite of myself, just because I got swept up in the wave of (positive) hype and wanted to get a taste of the character. And a taste was about all it was, seven pages of him fighting Ultimate Kangaroo. Calling him a copy of Parker is a bit of hyperbole, especially given so small an amount of time to differentiate himself, however, he is not so different from what came before that, if you weren't aware of what led up to this, you might not even notice a difference. The differences are present, however; he definitely seems meeker and less sure of himself than Peter ever did in the suit.
It seems the intended impact of the reveal at the end, which may have worked if it wasn't all over the newsoblogosphere, was removing the mask to reveal a non-white kid, but I kind of hope this was not the case. Especially with as many eyes turned to diversity in comics as there are right now, that we have a non-white character to be carrying his own book, especially as high a profile character as Spider-Man, regardless of universe, is inarguably a good thing, unless you are a Horrible Person. However, to make the reveal "Oh we have a (half-)black Spider-Man, BET YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING" (although I think everyone did) smacks of sensationalism and glamour, and putting that diversity up on a pedestal strikes me as more of a public relations move. Maybe that's unavoidable right now, but I think artist Sara Pichelli said it best, "Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal." In the meantime, it's a talking point.
What I did actually like, however, was the age. He definitely looks young; I believe it was announced that Miles is thirteen although I couldn't really source that beyond Miles' own unofficial Twitter account. That would probably place Miles in middle school, substantially younger than Peter ever was in any iteration of the character, I think. If accurate, how Bendis uses this is one of the aspects of the story I'm most interested in; it'll certainly be a fresh take on the character and how he manages to pull off the superhero lifestyle.

And while on the subject of diversity in superheroics, I really have to question what I read versus what I saw in Flashpoint #4. In this issue, Element Woman, aka Emily Sung, joined the team of freedom fighters. As far as I'm aware, Sung is almost exclusively a name of Korean or Chinese origins. To look at her in the issue, she does not appear particularly asian:

Flashpoint #4, written by Geoff Johns, art by Andy Kubert, inks by Jesse Delperdang, colors by Alex Sinclair, letters by Nick J. Napolitano

Granted, I'm just going on the name, and for all I know she's not meant to be, or she is meant to be and I'm just interpret ting the art wrong (speaking of Kubert specifically here but she still looks similarly Caucasian to me in Jim Lee's JLA promo art). That weirdness aside, I do like this character so far and hope she retains her manic personality through the relaunch. And hell yes, I want a juice box.

Now, onto the Best Whatever I Read This Week:

29.7.11

The Best _____ This Week for 7/27/11: Conventional

Didn't grab a whole lot of comics this week, at least not new ones, so unlike last time I don't have a whole lot to talk about. As such, in lieu of the usual first round of superlatives I'm just going to do a special first round of announcements that came out of SDCC this past weekend. Since I wasn't in attendance, this is all just the news that filtered down to me, and then managed to catch my eye, which is fairly impressive as overall the

Best News From Comic-Con International (In Not-really-particularly-ordered List Form)


4. The Amazing Spider-Man panel
Now if you read my post about the Amazing Spider-Man trailer, you know I wasn't exactly won over. The panel went a long more to alleviate my worries, hearing Spidey described as "quippy" and the Lizard looking Ditko-esque (or like Killer Croc, depending on who you talked to). But I think the highlight, or at least the thing that got the most buzz, was Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker)'s entrance to the panel:


And if that wasn't enough, the Lizard's human half, Rhys Ifans was arrested after the panel for his apparent drunken and beligerent behavior as he tried to enter the hall. Though I suppose if he really wanted to channel his inner Lizard, he really should just eat some kids.


3. The book announcements
Aside from DC, who had announced pretty much all of their upcoming books before the con, most major publishers had something to showcase. As for what stuck out to me, amongst their Fear Itself fallout titles, Marvel announced of a Defenders book from Matt Fraction, and Jason Aaron taking over The Incredible Hulk. IDW talked about a Dunwich Horror adpatation that should be "more action-packed and exciting than Lovecraft readers might expect". Dunwich being one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, I'll definitely be picking up this four-issue mini. They'll also be putting out a crossover of their Star Trek licensed comics and DC's Legion of Superheroes, and splitting the license for KISS comics with another company, which will result in the craziest crossover announced during the con: KISS meets Archie.

Among the top picks for me, however would have to be Archaia Comics' Cow Boy, by two of my favorite creators, Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulis, about a ten-year-old bounty hunter in the old west. You can see a few preview pages over at the books' Tumblr now. Also, Image had their share of promising announcements, including a Chew spin-off Secret Agent Poyo, about the continuing adventures of the deadly fighting chicken, the squee-worthy news of another Witch Doctor series coming down the line from the Skybound imprint, and Brian K. Vaughan's new creator-owned series Saga, including art from the incredible Fiona Staples.


2. The TV announcements
I think I came away from this con's news cycle more excited about the TV news than the comic stuff, and especially where the two intertwined. Marvel had a lot of news, with live-action Hulk, Jessica Jones, Mockingbird and Cloak and Dagger series coming to ABC, as well as Ultimate Spider-Man and a Hulk-family series, Agents of SMASH coming to the animated front. DC did not have as much, but they did release an extended preview of the new Green Lantern series, which I am slowly warming up to:


The animation... is not pretty, the broad Timm-ian character designs don't translate terribly well into that medium. and besides when they're in the void of space the backgrounds are textureless and lackluster, reminscent of computer-animated series from twenty years, which is something I'd have hoped we'd moved away from long ago. Once you get accustomed to the point that you can tolerate it, however, the rest of the show shines through. The acting and plots seem fine, albeit obviously targeting a younger audience, much in the same way The Brave And The Bold does, and that is one of my favorite animated series in years.

My absolute favorite animated series in recent years, however, is without question Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I was already excited knowing there's a new series coming to continue the series. The trailer for The Legend Of Korra released at the con, though, managed to blow away every expectation I had.


It looks like they've ramped up everything from the original series, from animation quality to action, and for the hell of it dumped in a dose of prohibition-era American gangster film. I've honestly lost count of how many times I've watched this trailer at this point.

Additionally, it was announced Cullen Bunn's Sixth Gun will be getting a series on the Syfy network, which I'll remain cautiously optimistic about until something more has been released about it, and an extended trailer for Walking Dead season two was released:



1. "Retractable pants"
I'm assuming when Cliff Chiang said this at one of the New 52 panels DC held throughout the con it was as a joke, but that doesn't make it any less awesome a phrase.

And now, onto the regular comic superlatives:

22.7.11

The Best _____ This Week for 7/20/11: In the details

Small pull for me this week, tricking me into thinking I should branch out some more until I remember last week by comparison. It's seemingly even more myopic of a cross-section of books because one title basically sweeps the superlatives here. I think the most surprising thing is half of what I grabbed is Fear Itself tie-ins, as the two I actually want to read both came out (Deadpool and Fearsome Four), and the books I'd be reading otherwise are into or kicking off their tentacles of this particular eventopus (Herc, Hulk and Huncanny X-Men).

Similarly weak this week was the digital pull, which is a damn shame because I just upgraded my reading experience. I had up 'til now been reading my digital comics either on my phone or my iPod Touch but this week I finally broke down and picked up a tablet (the Acer Iconia, if curious) and I have to say, suddenly I get it. That is to say, presented in this format, digital comics seem like at least a viable alternative, albeit not a preferable one, to print. The forced use of Guided View on ComiXology on the smaller devices was infuriating  and browser viewing never felt quite natural but with a screen roughly the size of a normal comic that I can read normally, or browse and zoom when so desired in ways that feel intuitive. I still prefer my hard copy to the digital, and this doesn't eliminate issues like the licenses or price points, but I can see ways this nascent format may come into its own somewhere down the line. But this could be its own post, instead let's look at The Best Whatever I Read This Week.

20.7.11

Amazing Sadder Man

Trying not to nerd-rage about this, but I think I'm going to have to, for my own sanity: the Amazing Spider-Man trailer looks atrocious.


I'll emphasize, the trailer looks atrocious. I am well familiar with the concept of a trailer setting a particular tone that may not reflect the film itself accurately for marketing purposes, so I understand trying to make you film look like a parkour-infused Twilight, that is a fresh source of disposable income to tap into for your film. But this isn't the week to do that. With San Diego Comic-Con kicking off, if you have anything true to your character, frankly any fun at all in your movie, this is when you'd need to showcase it. Instead, this reeks so heavily of Team Edward's influence that I wouldn't be surprised if a glitter-dipped Morbius showed up. The appeal of Spider-Man for me has always been overcoming the angst and the drama, not wallowing in it. Peter here is so dark and brooding he comes off more as a villain than a hero, for all this trailer puts forward this could be a reboot of the Fly instead of Spider-Man. This is a trailer so devoid of fun and whimsy that even the webswinging, once a beautiful, soaring sequence in the earlier films, feels flat and spiritless here.

I can't debate that Spider-Man 3 was not a very good movie, but to go back to a time before we knew that, to watch the trailer still provided some hope in the movie being good:



In hindsight certainly, the clues that this was going to be a muddled mess were all there, but at the time it had the uplifting tone, the humor and the action I wanted from the series. And for the record, muddled mess though it may be, SM3 was not devoid of its good parts. Like the equally-maligned X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there was a lot of good elements to the movie. It just happened that what wasn't good in it was instead so bad that it became toxic to the rest of the film, destroying the good will built up by what had been working. The Amazing Spider-Man crew could be going in another direction with their movie, tonally, and that's fine for the people who'd want to watch that, but for my personal taste that doesn't bode well for my enjoying the film at all. And as a lifetime Spider-Man fan, having to wait another couple of years for the next reboot cycle to come around and maybe undo what was done will just be wearisome.

The last movie that completely ignored the source material's light-hearted and fun side in favor of a more serious, dramatic storyline? The Last Airbender. I'm not saying it's going to be that bad, but for now this has made me retroactively come to the defense of Spider-Man 3, and both it and I are going to have to live with that.

15.7.11

The Best _____ This Week for 7/13/11

Man, I would seriously love to write on here more than once a week, especially something more original than this. Doubly-especially since I got kinda-mentioned on Awesomed By Comics this week and it's basically the same thing they do (I'll readily acknowledge this, although I tried to make it somewhat different where I could there were some frantic IM sessions with friends while I tried to assuage myself that I wasn't biting as hard as I presumably am). Time has not been kind to me lately, however and among where I've split my attention I've been focusing more on drawing than writing or even reading the comics in the first place. If you've been following the Tumblr (which as intended I do manage to update far more frequently, albeit far more inanely), you may have seen some of these, such as my recent obsession with pants and Darkseid.

That said, let's move on to the superlatives.

8.7.11

The Best _____ This Week for 7/6/11


And now, the best of the stuff I picked up this week. Facing down a fairly large pull, and a lot I wanted to cover, so I added in a couple of new categories in order to give every book a fair shot.

1.7.11

The Best _____ This Week for 6/29/11

Okay, in lieu of actual reviews (for the most part), I figured I'd try something new for at least a couple of weeks. Since I don't even come remotely close to reading most of what comes out in a week, I can't really comment on how good certain books are on the whole, but I can sure as hell rank them in relation to whatever else I read this week. So I cooked up some superlatives, including some quick ones that occur to me while reading and some basic categories to write more in-depth about for the comics that really stuck out from my pull in a given week. Let's just see how this goes.

28.6.11

Branching out

In a fit of writer's-block, I started a Tumblr as a companion for the blog, if only because that'll be easier to update regularly with the art dumps days and stupid, quick entries than the longer stuff I try to write for here. Check it out at The Punishipstumblr. That's right, a TRIPLE-PORTMANTEAU. This way, I'll feel better posting something more frequently, and less self-conscious about only posting on here when I actually feel like writing until I can get what I actually want to write squared away.

To start with, I've already posted the horrible mash-up of my love for Man-Thing and my enjoyment of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic that frankly I'm surprised I didn't get to sooner: THE MANE-THING.

I've never been prouder.

26.6.11

Art dump: Venomsaurus, The Worthy

Another drawing I finished lately. Based on something Matt Fraction off-handedly said on the most recent episode of War Rocket Ajax, I felt compelled to doodle up the image of the Venomsaurus Rex from Millar's Old Man Logan getting one of the Serpent's hammers from Fear Itself:
Click for larger dinosaur-with-hammer-ness

Art dump: Dex-starr Triumphant

Getting back into posting on here is comparable to driving my car back when the gas pump was acting up: I'll get a little ahead, the thing'll die on me, wait a bit, start it back up, drive about half a mile before it dies again, repeat. Now I'm a stubborn enough asshole that, following that pattern, I got my car home to central CT from Providence, RI, and I'll apply the same stubbornness to this blog. Posts may be sporadic, but for the foreseeable future it won't go away. Can I buy a new gas-pump for a blog?

Anyways, in the interest of getting some content up here, I'll post some of the drawings I finished lately. First up, as a fan of the Red Lanterns (and maybe one in particular), a Dex-Starr piece:

Click for larger kitteh-ness

14.6.11

Rebootin'

Not sure if I'm going to be coming back to this as regularly as I would like, but if I was waiting for something to come back and talk about, it'd be the DC universe rebooting in September. There is good, there is bad, there is good ideas being executed poorly; the only short version is that it's a thing that's happening. Until we actually live through it, there's no way to tell if it's going to work or not so there's almost no point in speculating. What I can do, however, is break down my reactions as a fan to the information we do know at this point.


16.5.11

Dusting off

In case anyone's wondering if the blog is dead, the short answer is kinda.

Originally started this as a place to work out some of the mental backlog I'd been building up, and an outlet to just write something. As I started struggling a bit to come up with topics, I found I had less to write about at any given moment, and more time occupied by more important things. Eventually, when I found I had nothing better to squeeze into a week than reviews, I decided to back off a bit and reconsider what I want to do. I'll eventually want to write again, and when that happens I'll remember this is here, maybe with a little more structured idea of what I want to put on it (hopefully sooner rather than later). In the meantime, I'll be working on other things and if any of those take hold hopefully it'll be more regular and more substantial than just saying how much I like Dan Slott every week (which, by the way, continues to be A Whole Lot; Amazing Spider-Man still killing it every time it comes out).

22.4.11

Comics reviews 4/20/11

Running a bit late this week. Pull had a nice mixture of books this week; a bunch of books with dinosaurs, a few books I've come back to after dropping off for a while, surprisingly a couple of books full of interview scenes.

Comics for 4/20
Avengers Academy #12
Doctor Who: A Fairytale Life #1 (of 4)
Mass Effect: Evolution #4 (of 4)
Power Girl #23
Iron Man 2.0 #4
Hulk #32
Super Dinosaur #1
Fables #104
Thunderbolts #156
Black Dynamite: Slave Island

18.4.11

Issue Forth - Week of 4/13/11

No true #1 issues in my pull this week, but a new event kicked off over at IDW, a couple new story-arcs started over at Marvel, both helmed by Kieron Gillen and one of which with a freshly re-re-branded title, and there were a couple of excellent one-shots starring two of comics' greatest Nazi-punchers.



15.4.11

Comics reviews 4/13/11

Ten reviews. Three (horribly run-on) sentences each. GO!

Comics for 4/13:

Cobra Civil War #0
Carnage #4 (of 5)
Batman and Robin #22
Uncanny X-Men #535
Captain America: The Fighting Avenger one-shot
Journey Into Mystery #622
Batgirl #20
Iron Man 2.0 #3
Hellboy: Buster Oakley Gets His Wish
Amazing Spider-Man #658


12.4.11

A Few Space-Dollars More

Perhaps I'm a bit biased as a fan of both western and space stories, but the space-western is a genre that I think has been woefully underdeveloped. That's why I'm always thankful when iTunes starts downloading a fresh episode of Sparks Nevada, Marshal On Mars.


Since 2005, the Thrilling Adventure Hour (formerly Thrilling Adventure And Supernatural Suspense Hour) is a monthly comedy show currently performing at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles. The show consists of a series of scripted sketches done in the style of old-timey radio serials, such as paranormal dectives/lushes Frank and Sadie Doyle (Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster) in Beyond Belief and The Adventures Of Captain Laserbeam featuring John DiMaggio as the eponymous hero, with a rotating cast of regulars, and a crazy-impressive list of guest stars. Being stuck on the east coast, I've missed out on the live shows, but thankfully, starting this past January they've begun posting a weekly podcast of rotating episodes, available on iTunes and through SoundCloud. Easily my favorite of these is the two(-robot)-fisted pulp tale of Sparks Nevada (Mark Evan Jackson) and his somewhat-loyal sidekick, the native Martian Croach (Mark Gagliardi).

Playing the western pastiche to the extreme, America has expanded "ever westward to the wildest west all, outer space", and Sparks roams the Martian wasteland, righting wrongs and wrangling hyper-cattle. Featuring guest stars such as Samm Levine, Chris Hardwick and Comedy Death-Ray's Scott Aukerman, the episodes so far have been telling one-off stories of Spark and onus-bound Croach's adventures in the Martian frontier, encountering aliens, robots, rustlers and mad preachers, as well as competing for the affection of the Martian-raised vigilante, the Red Plains Rider (Busy Phillips), and an over-arcing story of an impending doom coming to Mars in the tail of Haley's Comet.

The first episode, recorded at the Thrilling Adventure Hour's first show at the Largo, is available here, along with all their other currently-released episodes. The series is fun, with dry wit and over-the-top stories, a great play on the old serial tropes, and every episode opens with a damn-addictive theme song by Eban Schletter and Andy Paley. I think Sparks himself put it best: "I'm from Earth."

9.4.11

Maybe I'm just being Space Paranoids but...

Whether we admit it or not, I think a lot of us were worried how Marvel getting gobbled up by Disney would affect things. I think at this point we can admit it's been fairly negligible so far, other than, say, the quarterly deaths for sales thing. So I imagine some eyebrows were raised back in December when Spider-Man debuted this outfit the same week Disney's Tron Legacy opened:

Art by Humberto Ramos, colors by Edgar Delgado
Now, even though that costume was discarded a couple of issues later, it's been said that this was a coincidence, and I'm willing to believe it, especially since Marvel was already openly promoting Tron with a series of variant covers around the same time. And this could just as easily be a coincidence like the Spider-Man thing, but seriously, this is the grand villain reveal you debut the day after Tron Legacy comes out on DVD?

Left: Fear Itself #1, Art by Stuart Immonen, colors by Laura Martin, Right: The Worthy concept art by Marko Djurdjevic
Granted the Worthy concept art has been circulating for a while longer now but c'mon, that's just pushing it. However, for the time being I'll remain skeptical of any underhanded cross-promotion, at least until May brings us the X-Pirates.

8.4.11

Issue Forth - Week of 4/6/11

So I'm guessing this might get repetitive quick, especially on top of the reviews, but figured I'd try a feature of looking at the first books in a series that came out in a week, at least the ones I picked up. This week, my pile included the initial issues of Identity Wars and Fear Itself, and the first issue of Herc, all from Marvel, as well as the start of the new B.P.R.D. flashback story, The Dead Remembered.

Nothing Will Ever Be The Same: Infestation review

After ten issues and eleven weeks, IDW's crossover event, Infestation, came to a close this week. I originally saw some promotional stuff on it at NYCC last year, promising some zombie mayhem across a handful of mini-series. Unlike the Marvel/DC events that tend to dominate the market, the premise here saw several franchises of IDW's liscensed comics, not sharing a common continuity in the slightest, coming together; Star Trek, Transformers, Ghostbusters and GI Joe, along with original IDW properties Zombies Vs Robots and CVO (Covert Vampire Operations). In the end, the books delivered what was on the tin, and for the most part they were pretty fun, but in the end the detached nature of the separate stories may have hurt the series overall.

Infestation #2, IDW

7.4.11

Super-fast comic reviews for 4/6/11

A decent-sized pull of books this week (and maybe more over the weekend) and not particularly a lot to say, in the end, so going to do a batch of quick reviews again. This time I think I'll limit myself to three sentences, but on a couple books there'll be some things I want to expand on in seperate posts. Specifically, with Infestation ending this week, I'll take a look back at the entire series rather than issue by issue and due to my habit of buying first issues even if I don't intend to follow up with the rest of the series (or even if I do) I'll start taking a seperate look at First Issues of the week and how they are at getting new readers into the books.

Speaking of first issues, among the books on my pull I missed, I really wanted to grab Nonplayer #1 and be on top of these books every other critic, blogger and fan is telling me to read for once. Sadly, though, by the time I got down to the shop tonight there was a nice, big gap in the N section mocking me. If I'm around any other shops over my weekend, I'll try and grab it. In the meantime, I take a look at Doctor Who #3 from last week, which I missed then because I am an idiot and got fooled by variant covers.

Comics for 4/6:
Infestation #2 (of 2)
Nonplayer #1 Doctor Who Ongoing #3
B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #1 (of 3)
Daomu #3
Ozma of Oz #5
Secret Six #32
Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #3 (of 5)
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #38
Herc #1
Chew #18
Fear Itself #1

4.4.11

The symbiosis of Venom and Rick Remender

When it comes to Marvel (and occasionally in DC), I have noticed a trend in my favorite characters: they all tend to be secondary versions of core Marvel heroes. Thor is fun, but Simonson's origins for Beta Ray Bill are the pinnacle of high-concept storytelling. She-Hulk stories may not have the same anguish and angst as her cousin Bruce, but she works great as standard character and even better when she used to break the fourth wall (well before Deadpool became the poster child). And personal favorite Man-Thing is, of course, the result of a failed attempt at recreating Cap's super-soldier serum (that one, admittedly, a more substantial deviation than the rest). However, growing up with Spider-Man in the late 80s and early 90s there is one who will always have a special place in my heart: Venom.


Well, not specifically Venom, and that's why I'm writing this post. Conceptually, I am a huge fan of the Black Costume/Symbiote, but the stories the character has been used in over the past 20 years have mostly been weak or laughable, a victim of the Extreme '90s dark ages. We're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, though, as Rick Remender takes over the character and gives him a chance at redemption.

In Brightest Day, In Highest Def

No trailer shall... escape... my... sef--fuck it, I ain't a poet.

My opinions on the Green Lantern movie have been pretty polarized, swinging back and forth erratically on each piece of information that drops on it and how much I read into them. I want to like it certainly, I'm a big fan of what Green Lantern used to be and I like a fair amount of the Johns-era stuff (wearing my Red Lantern ring as I type this). But, some of the semi-realistic takes on the Corps designs, the chitinous, organic-looking armor, and, while I didn't feel the vitriol everyone else seemed to towards it, that first trailer didn't do much to alleviate fears. Although I do have to concede I hated the suits substantially less (daresay I even liked them) actually seeing them in motion, as I'd hoped would be the case. As they showed new footage at Wondercon this past weekend, however, we also got a new, full HD trailer for the film...

1.4.11

Strange Tales II

The Strange Tales II hardcover dropped this week. Didn't mention it in the main reviews as I didn't pick up the actual collection, I had already grabbed the single issues as they came out. As such, I can't really comment on the hardcover itself and anything unique to that, but still wanted to extol the virtues of the series to anyone who hasn't checked it out yet.


31.3.11

Comics reviews 3/30/11

Accidentally took the week off from here while hashing some things out, both for the blog and real-life things which must take precedence. Hopefully next week I can implement some of the things I was working on but for now wanted to at least keep the reviews streak going to make sure some content's going up.

Pretty small pull this week, but I think I actually enjoyed every one of them. So, spoiler alert, mostly-positive reviews ahead:

Comics for 3/30
Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1
Secret Avengers #11
Detective Comics #875
Spider-Girl #5
Jimmy Olsen one-shot
Amazing Spider-Man #657

25.3.11

Movie review: Sucker Punch

Let me just get this out of the way right off the bat: Sucker Punch is not a good movie. That bit of the review behind us, it is, however, fucking awesome. It has the depth of a puddle, but it is a puddle of oil that someone threw a lighter into and set up a bunch of fireworks around just for the hell of it.


(Full disclosure: As I said on here I planned to see this in 3D, IMAX, the works. I did learn in the eleventh hour, however, that it was a 3D conversion done in post and I cannot in good conscience put my money towards that kind of atrocity, so instead I caught the 2D version we had at work.)

24.3.11

Comics reviews 3/23/11

Facing down a very "meh" week. Grabbed a bunch of books I was only cursorily interested in, and pretty sure on the other side of reading them I feel that way about even more of the pull. Alternatively, there were a couple of good surprises in there.

Comics for 3/23:
Ghostbusters: Infestation #2 (of 2)
Captain America and Batroc The Leaper one-shot
FF #1
Mass Effect: Evolution #3 (of 4)
Hellraiser #1
Batman Incorporated #4
Fables #103
Power Man and Iron First #3 (of 5)
X-Men #9

23.3.11

I'd like to think I'm above the obvious six-armed Shocker joke.

Last night, first details of Dan Slott's Spider Island were revealed, including the absolutely beautiful concept of a six-armed Shocker on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #669:

Amazing Spider-Man #667, by Humberto Ramos
However, this is not actually the first time Herman's gotten his spider on. While in no way canon, I am reminded of the Arachnophobia series of trading cards from the 1995 set of Fleer's Spider-Man trading card, which contained none other than the monstrous DOPPELSHOCK:

BAM! Art by Jean-Pierre Targete
I can only hope this was Slott's inspiration, and that this means in the coming months we see some of the rest of the set show up in some form.

22.3.11

Best of the Batman: The Brave and The Bold voice-cast

Batman: The Brave And The Bold is starting its third and final season this week, and really, that's a damn shame. It started as very much skewed towards a younger audience, even by adults-who-still-watch-cartoon standards; something of a preschool Silver Age primer. However, even then it had a certain absurdist charm that, along with its penchant for dragging up some of the most obscure or forgotten DC characters, it brought in an older audience and seemed to adapt itself in that regard. Somewhere in the second season, it had become a genuinely great, at times completely insane superhero show.

I could look at the episodes, or the characters they've dragged up, or the fact that the Batmobile has on several occasions turned into a giant bat-mech (that is somehow inexplicably not a toy yet) but one of the things that has most impressed me about the show has been the cast. If you look at the talent assembled, it's basically a list of the best voice-over talent working today, plus some random stars from elsewhere such as Alan Tudyk, Wil Wheaton, J.K. Simmons, et al. Today I'm going to look at some of my favorites who worked on the show (turns out most of the clips available on YouTube are not embeddable anymore so I changed it to a link where needed).

Webcomic spotlight: Bucko

While I've been talking mostly about print comics on here, the thing that really got me back into comics a few years back now was the then-burgeoning webcomic scene. As a way to honor that, I'll take a look at some of my favorite webcomics I'm currently reading, or some old ones if their archives are still available. To start, if you haven't been reading Bucko, I think today's panels six and seven provide the perfect jumping-on point:


If you haven't been reading, it's a webcomic written by blog-favorite scribe Jeff Parker, who I know I've already talked about quite a bit on here, and art from Erika Moen (of Dar fame), both members of the amazing Periscope Studios. Not sure if it has a definitive end in its future or means to be an ongoing, but so far it's been a funny and off-beat tale of murder, mistaken identities and failed three-ways. A recently-started venture, today's is only page 17 so it actually is a fairly good jumping on point in that it wouldn't take too long to catch up.

18.3.11

Comics reviews 3/16/11

Back for another late-ish week. Going to try and keep this a little brief for my own sake but not going to limit myself to two sentences per book this week, although I did have fun forcing myself to do that. Have nothing in particular to wax loudmouth about up here this week so let's just jump right into the reviews.

Comics for 3/16:
G.I. Joe: Infestation #2 (of 2)
Doctor Who #2
Iron Man 2.0 #2
Fear Itself: Book of the Skull (one-shot)
Uncanny X-Force #5.1
Batman #708
Knight and Squire #6 (of 6)
Thunderbolts #155
Amazing Spider-Man #656

15.3.11

Art day: Cthuluchadore


And now, this. Past few days have been wearing me down and I haven't been up to writing anything on here but since I didn't want to ghost-town the blog entirely for the week here's a doodle based on a stupid thing I thought of while driving.

12.3.11

From the people who brought you Kangaskhan and Skitty

I'm not playing Pokémon Black and White, largely because I was disappointed in the new generation of the little critters, but I do have to shine the spotlight on one in particular. Number 626, the bison with the magnifigant head of hair...



... called Bouffalant. That is it, ladies and gentlemen, the pinnacle of pun-based names has been reached. No joke, no sarcasm, that is brilliant, especially given that they were given the creature first and the name came second. Although I must also give an honorable mention to Roggenrola, the Pokémon (I will pretend is) named after a Guy Ritchie movie.

Super-fast comic reviews for 3/9/11

For the sake of brevity, since I will not have the disproportionally-large gulf of time I normally devote to write the reviews this weekend, I've decided limit this week's to TWO SENTENCES EACH. My schedule at work is shifting around and I'm finally picking up more hours so in future weeks this may become equally sporadic but I'll keep trying to get at least something up. And this will at least give me a chance at practicing not being such a long-winded bastard.
Side note: Anyone know if the Science Dog Special came out this week? I had it showing up on my release list but didn't see it anywhere.

Comics for 3/9:
Ghostbusters: Infestation #1 (of 2)
Jennifer Blood #2
Guarding The Globe #4 (of 6)
Batgirl #19
Batman And Robin #21
Batman Incorporated #3
B.P.R.D.: Hell On Earth: Gods #3 (of 3)
Venom #1

9.3.11

Art day: Hipster Zombies


Reanimating the corpse of a meme that's already been beaten to death.

8.3.11

Watching Dead: A Wishlist

The key to a good adaptation between incongruent mediums isn't slavish accuracy to the source material, but knowing what to keep, what to cut and what to change entirely. A poor adaptation isn't necessarily the fault of a bad writer, but perfectly competent writer who couldn't pull off the balancing act. In terms of adapting the comic into the television series, the Walking Dead was all over the map, mostly to its benefit. The first episode was almost verbatim to the first few issues, beyond that it bounced between following some aspects of the comic and it's own unique series of events and characters. As such, it's pretty hard to guess how closely the series is going to stick to the comic in the following seasons, and even harder to guess what's in store for the characters. When dealing with the wholly-fictional characters in the comic, they come and go with alarming frequency and no guarantee of any particular lifespan. With actors contracted and making a living, we're probably going to see less of a revolving, expendable cast. I'm sure there'll be deaths, but I can't imagine it'll be quite the same revolving-door roster as the books; prime example being how Shane's role has already been substantially expanded and we're promised to see more of him in the second season.
As I'm writing this, some news of the second season has already been revealed, including that part of the season will take place at the Hershel's farm. Not knowing how closely they're going to keep to the books, or at what pace, I'm taking a look at some of the other things I'd like to see make it from the comics to the screen in the upcoming season(s). I'll be looking at things from throughout the comic run, so anyone catching up beware of potential spoilers.

7.3.11

Watching Dead: Babylon Fields

The first season of the Walking Dead comes out on home video tomorrow, and this got me thinking of the another recent attempt at a serial zombie show that never quite got off the launch pad: CBS's Babylon Fields.

4.3.11

Comics reviews 3/2/11

Actually a pretty full week this time around, with some new books coming out and some lapsed titles worming their way back into the pull. I've only sporadically looked at Green Lantern titles since Blackest Night, and I don't think I've picked up X-Factor since just after Civil War; I loved both books but I think both were getting mired down by their respective continuities.
Speaking of tiresome continuity, thumbed through the Fear Itself sketchbook I got at the shop. Of all the major, "world-changing" maxi-series events, this is probably the one I'm least interested in. Which is a damn shame, because it looks like it's probably going to be the best one. With a team like Matt Fraction writing and art by Stuart Immonen on the main series. However, and I think this is probably the root of my problem, I have no idea what the hell this is about. I've gathered it involves Red Skull's daughter taking over the mantle, and the Norse God of Fear (who, I admit, I have no idea who this is) but have yet to get a clear explanation regarding plot. Alternatively, I'm pretty burnt out on Event comics in general, and I'm against the kind of passive-aggressive threat of them implying that you have to follow all these books to get the full story and how it impacts the comics' universe at large. Can't say I particularly care to really invest in another one, even if it's mildly tame compared to the scope of some of its predecessors. Not to say I'll be boycotting it or avoiding it entirely, which is a tempting threat to throw around. There are some tie-in issues I'll be picking up anyways, and I'll probably get the main seven-issue series of it. It's just all getting wearisome.
Anyways, onto reviews:

Comics for 3/2:
G.I. Joe: Infestation #1 (of 2)
Daomu #2
Secret Six #31
Green Lantern #63
X-Factor #216
Thunderbolts #154
Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #2 (of 5)
Chew #17
Annihilators #1 (of 4)

2.3.11

Batman: Super-intense, even when made out of ice-cream


In keeping with this week's unofficial snack-food theme. From an ad for "Justice League Frozen Novelties" (a disturbingly vague description) that's been staring at me all week from a pile of comics that need sorting.

1.3.11

If This Be Snackcakes, Part 2: Stay Golden

Yesterday, I focused on the single-page Hostess ads Marvel ran from 1975-1982, but in 1984 Marvel ran a full issue that could have put any of the shorter strips to shame. While not officially sanctioned by Hostess, it was just as crazy as any of the actual ads, and features one of the few villains who, ostensibly, makes sense to be swayed by the promise of tasty, tasty food. I present now for the approval of the Midnight Society the tale of Golden Oldie: Herald of Galactus:

Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #137, written by Michael Carlin, pencils by Greg LaRocque

28.2.11

If This Be Snackcakes, Part 1: The Top 5 Marvel Hostess Ads

If I could bring one aspect of '80s comics back to modern books, it was be the single-page Hostess ads. Actually running from the mid-seventies into the early eighties , the big two, Marvel and DC, and even some smaller houses like Harvey, had single page comics featuring their heroes stopping one-off supervillains or averting natural disasters using or in the name of delicious Hostess snack cakes or fruit pies. They also tended to be completely insane; even suspending enough disbelief to accept that snack cakes are the world's greatest crime deterrent these things make no sense. A group of extremists subdued by Fruit Pies is one thing, but then take into account that they're called the Phoomie Goonies (which manages to sound vaguely racist without actually meaning anything) and they attack a post office where Bruce Banner happens to be working as a mailman because why the fuck not.
You can find the ads collected on some sites like Seanbaby, who seems to have actually collected all of the Marvel/DC ads, and Tomorrow's Heroes, who have a great deal including the Harvey ads featuring Casper, Wendy et al (as well as a fine selection of other classic comic ads).
For the purposes of this post, I picked out what I think were the five strangest, most inexplicable ads Marvel had put out in their books. DC did had their share, including some featuring villains with names such as giant billboard monster Cooky La Moo and the dread Dr. Sorcery (who, with a monicker like that, I am shocked hasn't shown in up in one of Grant Morrison's nostalgia-heavy, reference-laden books yet). However, up against their famous Silver Age stories these almost felt par for the course. Marvel, on the other hand, had their share of strange tales and amazing fantasies but nothing quite like what was going down to shill for cupcakes.

Honorable Mention: Captain Marvel versus Nitro
As a Hostess ad, this was pretty tame. It is, however, one of the few that used an established villain to sell the goods. And not just any villain, but Nitro, the man who would go on to kill hundreds in the Stamford disaster and kick off Marvel's Civil War maxi-event. Imagine the tragedy that could have been averted (and the time that could have been saved) if the New Warriors had just happened to have a few Twinkies on hand that day.

The Secret Oscars: Triple Threat!

And the nominees for Best Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert Downey Jr. Or Javier Bardem are...


And the winner is...

25.2.11

Two and a Half Supermen

I read Charlie Sheen's open letter tonight, and was immediately struck at the wording. Besides (or because of) sounding absolutely insane, he came off less as an irate actor and more as...

Art by Frank Quitely, All-Star Superman #11 & #12

Comics reviews 2/23/11

This was a light week, and another one without any DC. As I said last week, I'll be the first to admit that between the big two I have a bit of a Marvel bias, but it's still weird to go two weeks without any DC titles whatsoever. I'm not sure if the ones I do read just have been getting pushed back or what, I feel like when I'm setting up my pull the week before (I use Comixology's PullList app, which while handy is a bit erratic with dates) I have DC titles on there but then come Wednesday they've been shuffled away somewhere further down the timestream. Additionally, my shop didn't have one book I wanted this week so until I'm free enough to skirt over to another store I'll just toss a title from last week I picked up.

Comics for 2/23:
Star Trek: Infestation #2 (of 2)
Atomic Robo: The Deadly Art Of Science #4 (of 5)
Power-Man and Iron Fist #2 (of 5)
X-Men #8
Amazing Spider-Man #655
Skullkickers #6 Jennifer Blood #1

23.2.11

All-Star Superman

All-Star Superman came out this week, and while the trailers didn't exactly fill with me confidence about the project, I still rushed out to grab a copy based solely on how much I loved the books. And so I'm a little surprised to say I ended up far happier with the movie than I expected. Telling the story of Superman's last acts before his death, I loved it but have a hard time separating it from the original source material, hopefully managed to look at it both as an adaptation and its own merits.


Substance, Style, Sucker Punch

While I'm writing a couple of other things, figured I'd post this in the meantime:


Sucker Punch is one of the movies I'm most looking forward to this year. Zack Snyder has proven time and time again that he understands how to make a movie look amazing. I don't think I've ever actively disliked any of his movies*, but that is heavily dependent on the fact that he bolsters a mediocre-to-good story with some mind-blowing visuals. Sucker Punch is the first of his movies, though, not being adapted from some pre-existing work, and this leaves me with pretty high hopes for it. Often, a film with an original concept, with origins a visually-oriented filmmaker is more personally close to, is substantially better than same filmmaker's adapted works (see also: Tim Burton). But, like I said, I am psyched to see this film, regardless of content, for how God Damned Beautiful it looks. This trailer, especially, puts its best foot forward. No dialogue, no inkling of plot, no conceivable idea of what's going on, just straight-up pretty things to look at. It may turn out to be style over substance, but dang, that is enough style to make up for it if it is. This is going to be the first film I've seen since this brave new age of 3D that I'm going to actively seek out in an IMAX theater. I want this thing to be presented to me as big and shiny and fine-looking as possible.

*I haven't seen the owl one, and really don't plan to any time soon. But, more to my point, I will admit that at least the trailer was visually stunning.

22.2.11

Because he kind of looks like a horse, you see.


Throw-away Doodle Number Tawoo. I am under no delusions that I'm the first to make this joke.

21.2.11

I can't think of a better title for this than 'Lost In Translation' and that is pissing me off


It's the simple things in life, and I've always been a fan of translation errors. There's the perennial Engrish.com, and Revenge of the Sith becomes almost tolerable when watched as  Star Wars: Backstroke Of The West. So I was especially ecstatic when my friend directed me to Convey This' Bad Translator, a site which will take any phrase and instantly bounce it through up to 56 languages of the Google Translator, which already isn't the most reliable tool at the best of times. And what comes out the other end is at best some delightful butchering of the original content or, more likely, complete gibberish leagues away from what you started with. So, for giggles, I decided to put a few comic-related phrases through to see what I got and post some of them here. Starting with Spidey's oft-repeated catchphrase:


We end up turning it into a sales pitch. Although, a decidedly not-inaccurate one. The skills and proportionate strength of a spider are certainly more advanced security features than you'd find on, say, some pepper spray or a taser, and Spider-Sense is probably far more functional in the case of a home invasion than ADT.

17.2.11

Comics reviews 2/16/11 - The dangers of high expectations

Last week I think was overwhelmingly positive for me, to the point that I had to bring in a book I disliked from another week just to bring in some negativity to balance it out. This week, not so much. Nothing I straight-up hated, but at the very least a lot of high expectations dashed away. Perhaps, then, I'm to blame for this disappointment? Hype and expectations can affect the enjoyment of something so much more than the actual content; wanting so much from something can turn something merely mediocre into garbage and by focusing on not getting what you expected one can become prone to miss the merit that is there. Conversely, not expecting very much from something can make the good in it that much more impactful, although this applies more to movies as I revel in bad movies while with comics I rarely am willing to shell out for something I don't expect to be good in the first place. Of course there are things that hype-proof, some things are just solidly good and, having managed to watch Batman Forever twice this month, I can safely say some things are just outright horrible.

Anyways, let's look at comics.


Comics for 2/16:
Transformers: Infestation #2 (of 2)
Mass Effect: Evolution #2 (of 4)
Fables #102
Silver Surfer #1
Thunderbolts #153
Spider-Girl #4
Amazing Spider-Man #654.1