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

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.)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Art day: Hipster Zombies

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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