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.
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.
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.
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| A bit on the nose, there. |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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| 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:
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:
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| 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).
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
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!
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
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