Damn You, Immune System!

In the war between me and every single virus on Earth, my immune system has turned traitor and joined the enemy. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I have the Sumatran Death Flu or whatever the hell it is that's going around, and so I won't be blogging as much as I had planned to this week.

Which really torques me off, but oh well.

Bullet point reviews for last week's comics:

• Nextwave #1 = Excellent fun
• Green Lantern Corps #4 = outstanding
• New Avengers #15 = better than expected (very nice Warbird that Bendis writes) but still not good
• Elk's Run #4 = finally got this. Still good.
• Fallen Angel #2 = solid issue, but am still somewhat lost
• Defenders #5 = nice job waiting until the last issue to produce a decent one. Awful series.
• OHOTMU #1 = relentlessy pointless unless you're a relative of one of the guys who wrote this I guess
• X-Men: Deadly Genesis #3 = a misstep here as nothing happens and the pace slows to glacial

More on my travails after I've healed.

PS2 USM: BBS (Big Ball of Suck)

Maybe I'm becoming too cynical a blogger as my first instinct when I sat down to write this review was to find a way to blame Brian Bendis for the awful final product that is the Ultimate Spider-Man video game. Honestly, Bendis's contribution gets listed in the "good" column of the game's traits.

Like so many crappy entertainment experiences, USM is all style and no substance. The vastness of Queens and Manhatten alone, complete with recognizable landmarks both real (Empire State Building, Times Square) and fictional (Baxter Building, Latverian Embassy, Dr. Strange's house), makes the game worthy of a rental. The physics of Peter's webswinging is impressive and the dialogue (provided by Bendis) is amusing and adds a level of depth to the city. Swinging from rooftop to rooftop, you'll hear little snippets of conversations like, "Yogurt is for little girlies!" or "How do I look in this outfit?" that makes you feel like every day life is going on beneath you while you're saving the world.

Unfortunately, the world saving is where things go sour.

Supposedly, Spider-Man has a plethora of moves you can access in combat by pressing varied combinations of punch, kick, and jump. Regardless, you only need one: jump-jump-kick. Every fight against every major bad guy boils down to the same formulaic scenario.

Spidey finds out some villain is on the loose. You have to chase him through the labyrinthine city streets and alleys, making sure to keep within a certain distance lest he get away. Eventually, the bad guy will make a stand and fight. You jump around waiting for whatever opening is presented and jump kick him a few times until he throws you off. Repeat about twenty times until the bad guy is sufficiently hurt to run away again, then chase him to another place where he'll take another stand and you do the "jumping around waiting for the opportunity to attack" thing again.

Part of the problem is Spidey can only punch and kick, so when you go up against someone like Green Goblin, you have to punch and kick him roughly two-hundred times to defeat him. Compare this completely sarcasm free estimate with the fact Green Goblin throws fireballs (with miraculous accuracy) and jumps on top of you with his fire-engulfed body or that Beetle throws grenades and shoots a laser, both of which will kill you in about 8-15 hits.Take the battle against Rhino (or R.H.I.N.O. as the Ultimized version is known) as an example. It begins when you go to school and Mary Jane tells you she heard a news report about a big rhinoceros tearing up the city. You go hunt him down by following the path of destruction, saving people left in its wake. You finally catch up to him in a construction yard where you have to jump around, eventually landing on his back, and beat on him. He charges you and the your goal is to lure him onto the wet cement of a building foundation. Once he's stuck, you leap over to a crane with a wrecking ball and knock him out.

Only he isn't knocked out, he's knocked about two hundred yards down the road. You have to chase him again until he gets to a used car lot. This time, there are sparks flying from the hole you smashed in his back. He smashes up the cars and charges around while you jump and dodge him, waiting for the sparks to go away. When they do, you jump on his back and punch as many times as you can before the sparks come back. Then you jump and dodge him, waiting for the sparks to go away. When they do, you jump on his back and punch as many times as you can before the sparks come back. Then you jump and dodge him, waiting for the sparks to go away. When they do, you jump on his back and punch as many times as you can before the sparks come back. Then you jump and dodge him, waiting for the sparks to go away. When they do, you jump on his back and punch as many times as you can before the sparks come back.

Yawn... where was I?

For Green Goblin, replace sparks with firey aura. Beetle flies around out of your reach so instead of waiting for something to go away, you have to wait for him to show up. With Venom, if you stay too close to him for too long, you get a migraine and become vulnerable. There are variations, but the upshot always winds up being that you have to jump around and avoid the bad guy while they attack with a much more potent weapon than your fists and feet. Also take into account that when you get hit once, Spidey lays on the ground long enough to get hit at least once more.

Playing as Venom is fun. He's all about power. However, much as Spidey's only really effective move is the jump kick, when Venom is in a fight, anything other than a tentacle attack is a waste of time (which is a shame because the move where he grabs people by the back of the head and smashes them face first into the sidewalk is awesome). Unfortunately, the Venom sequences are always too short. They all involve some immediate threat, never allowing you to roam around the city as Venom, and as soon as you defeat that threat, you go back to being Spidey.

Overall, this game has a lot of potential to be great, but lives up to very little of it. Rent this; buy X-Men Legends 2.

Ten Random Thoughts

1. I may not care much for Michael Turner's bulimic Supergirl, but my inner Zombie cannot wait to get this cover in color. Ignore Millar's senseless hype and Cap's spindly legs. I think it's a great showpiece for kicking off Civil War, unlike the sleepy pastels of House of M.

2. Speaking of Civil War, I am very excited to see Not Bendis writing this event.

3. The other big event, 1985, looks downright awful, though.

4. If you haven't done so lately, go to Newsarama, find any article concerning a DC or Marvel comic, and read the responses. I swear, things haven't changed a bit --- going from the excellent, thoughtful, good-natured community that is the comicsblogoweb to reading Newsarama posts is like going from Shakespeare to this. There are a few who try to discourse rationally over there, but by and large it's "DC pwned Marvel this month, ____!" or "Infanate Crsiis is the ___!"

5. I've got a busy week next week; the Batman Elseworlds piece, a response to Chris Tamarri's analysis of All-Star Batman and Robin, a neat idea that I'm not telling anyone about yet, a couple more Marvel and DC Mailbags, and of course reviews a mile long. Should be fun.

6. Essential Dr. Strange, Vol. 2 is crazy good, even if it does have the silly issues where he changed his costume because Asmodeus stole his visage, so he couldn't get back to his dimension to get the Book of the Vishanti, so Clea and Strange use the Cloak of Levitation to escape the Sons of Satannish, and Nightmare uses the Winds of Watoomb to send Strange to the Dream Dimension, where the Ancient One and Sligguth....See what I mean? Crazy good. Definitely one of my top 5 Essentials.

7. I am not looking forward to getting three copies with variant covers of Red Sonja as per Randy's instructions since he's out of the country and having to explain that they're for "a friend".

8. What in holy hell is this? And how did they get Bart Sears, Bob Layton and Gene Colan, Master Of The Universe™ in on it? I'll be back with a report on this later.

9. I read somewhere that they shot the Hulk into space this week. While on general principles I think it's a fundamentally sound idea that should have been done years ago, I feel the need to ask...how does the Hulk breathe in space?

10. Flash OYL, Wonder Woman OYL, and Batman OYL are three comics I am curious about. The only question left: who's writing Olive OYL? HAR!

OK, I got nothin'.

What Would Randy Buy, 25/01/06

Or rather, what will Randy ask Chris to kindly ask the LCBS owner to add to Randy's box so Randy may purchase them from whence he returns from once again doing research on cricket and non-American football.

CATWOMAN #51
I liked 50 alot. I want to see where it goes. Looks interesting.

WONDER WOMAN #225
And when it was decent, they end it. Screw you DC.

BOOKS OF DOOM #3 (OF 6)
I started this one, and since I like Doom, I"m sticking with it. I'm waiting for more of the mystical stuff. Bought a GN a long time ago w/ Doom and Strange, and it was REALLY well done. Good mystic stuff, so hoping that Doom will start that soon.

DAREDEVIL #81
Hoping it has Elektra and Widow, but I doubt it. Now I just gots to see what happens though.

NEW AVENGERS #15
Because I'm dumb. I'm just hoping the new team that is supposed to start shortly actually has a couple more ACTUAL Avengers.

X-MEN #181
Chris, I think I forgot this one. I think that this is the one I buy. If its not, oh well, another $3 down the tube. But I think this is the right one.

RED SONJA GOES EAST ONE SHOT
Chris-- this wasn't on my pull list for you either. I'll send you more info, as I'm hoping that our LCBS gets the cover I"m looking for.

RED SONJA VS THULSA DOOM #1 (OF 4)
Chris- Please see the previous Red Sonja note.

And its Pakistan vs. India in cricket matches currently.

What I'm Buying 1/24

I'm not above shamelessly stealing features from others. Plus, I'm lazy and need a column for Wednesday, so here it is. Oddly, only one DC book and quite a few Marvel, although two of them are final issues for me.

OCT050247GREEN LANTERN CORPS RECHARGE #4 (OF 6)$2.99

OK, issues 3-5 are usually where miniseries start to suck. The last issue of this deftly avoided that fate. Here's hoping this one will too. This is a really great series thus far, chock full o' Green Lantern goodness.

SEP051924DEFENDERS #5 (OF 5)$2.99

I hate, hate, hate this series. It's only funny in the same way that knock-knock jokes, puns, and spoonerisms are funny, i.e. not at all. It's lame. The art is serviceable. Unfortunately, I had it preordered already, and I'm not going to stick my LCS with the tab just because I backed the wrong horse. What a misfire. Inexplicably, a number of people seem to like this comic.

NOV051974NEW AVENGERS #15$2.50

This is it! This is the issue that sets me free! I promised myself that if this issue continued the trend of being sucky then I'd put down the crack pipe and stop buying New Avengers. I have no reason to believe this issue will be good....which is usually right about the moment that Bendis pulls something good out. So it's a win-win either way.

NOV051973NEXT WAVE #1$2.99

Reliable sources have informed me that this doesn't suck. This is probably my most anticipated book this week. I'll let you know what I think.

NOV052002X-MEN DEADLY GENESIS #3 (OF 6)$3.50

This series has surprised me so far by being good. Also very much looking forward to this.

NOV052988FALLEN ANGEL IDW #2 (OF 5)$3.99

So, the owner of the bar is supposed to be Hitler? I'm still not sure I have any idea what's going on in this book, and the art is waaaaay too close to fumetti for me, but still I'm intrigued. I wasn't in some opium-induced dreamlike tesseract when Peter David said this was now an ongoing, was I?

In addition, I've got two Essential volumes waiting for me, the Essential Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and Essential Avengers Vol. 5. Mmmmmm. Avengery goodness. Avengers-Defenders War, Thanos, Dormammu, and Loki. Yes, sah!

The lack of DC books this week means I've got a little cash left over for a couple books I'm not currently reading. Feel free to comment with suggestions as to what I might want to pick up that I'm not currently reading.

Nothing Today

I'm not posting today, at least not substantively. Instead, go read Chris Tamarri and Ed Cunard's breakdown of the 2005 Comic Bloggers Poll.

More Wednesday.

A Cliff By Which to Hang

Lately, I've been writing about stuff I found in Operation: Reorganize and Purge that had been tucked away in my long boxes for years, and I haven't talked much about the new stuff I've gotten in the last three or four weeks. I can't remember a week of comics that has so made me look forward to next month's offerings due to the proper usage of cliffhanger endings that actually grabbed my attention. In recent months, this is what's passed for "make sure to pick up the next issue" fodder:"Whoa! Morlun?!?! Holy shit, dude, this is gonna be epic!" What a big, steaming pile of "who the hell cares?" that is.

The fact is, more often than not comic creators rely on the completist in us to buy the next issue. God knows I should have dropped Daredevil about a year ago. I'd planned to drop it during the midget demon story arc, but the only reason I've continued to pick it up is the promise of Bendis and Maleev leaving. Knowing I was going to pick up Brubaker's run, I couldn't bring myself to have that seven to eight issue gap in my collection.

Granted, not every issue can end in a cliffhanger or the cliffhanger loses all meaning, just as the Silver Age comic covers that promised Superman killing Lois Lane or destroying Metropolis or revealing his secret identity on a monthly basis ceased to have any impact. Sometimes we need something as simple as "Next Issue: Ultimate Silver Sable!"--well, maybe we don't need that exactly, but you get the point--but when a good cliffhanger comes along, nothing makes you look forward to the rapid passing of the next 27 days more.

*** Spoiler Warning: I'm discussing the final panel of each book. ***

WALKING DEAD #25
Things have slowed way down in this title, not meaning nothings happened, but rather that I just realized recently that the last six issues or so took place over the course of a week or so. Since the characters reached the prison, the carving out of a community, capable of sustaining them long term, has been the main priority.

That's led to an internal focus rather than an external one. Since the zombie threat has been largely held at bay by the prison fences, the stories have centered instead on cheating boyfriends and power struggles and the concept of law. I'm all for character development, but the book is called The Walking Dead so having it be largely zombie-free kind of defeats the purpose. Granted, I know the case has been made that the survivors of the plague or whatever it is are the ones who are the "walking dead," but people reading this book want the constant threat of a zombie chowing down on Glen and Maggie while they're gettin' it on as much as they do the debates over whether capital punishment should play a role in their new society.

One issue that hasn't been addressed in nearly a year is that of what caused all the people we've seen get zombified and whether this is a problem localized to the Southeastern United States or if it's a worldwide phenomenon. After twenty-five issues, we may be nearing an answer.A helicopter uses a lot of gas, so there's no way someone's been flying one regularly for the last six months, syphoning gas from abandonned cars whenever he gets low. A helicopter has to be a part of something bigger. Whatever it is will likely force them to make a decision between the new society they're building and the prison they've finally made completely safe or what the helicopter offers. That seems to be the format of this book, once we think we're safe things change.

As much as I like this book, I'm wishing Robert Kirkman would declare a finite end to it. I enjoy, for example, Y: The Last Man much more knowing the story is planned for sixty issues. Even if things slow to a glacial pace, I know each issue is steadily working toward the conclusion of the story versus something like Spider-Man where there is no overall über-plot to resolve, but rather a series of small stories that occur to the same character. When Spidey takes eight issues to fight Doc Ock where it could have easily been done in four, it makes me think Marvel just wanted twice as much money from me rather than that the writer had something specific in mind to set the tone for the entire series.

EX MACHINA #17
This issue treads some dangerous ground in addressing the Iraqi War circa February of 2003. It would be easy for Brian K. Vaughn to grant Mitch Hundred three years of hindsight, predicting there would be no weapons of mass distruction found or doubting the administration's promises that U.S. soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, but he avoids that, opting instead to have Mitch remain completely neutral.

The story centers around Mayor Hundred's decision to allow anti-war protesters to march on the United Nations while the majority of his constituents support the war. Hundred is seen as a peacenik in the press, though he tries to make it clear his job is to worry about New York, not national issues.

Journal, his Advisor on Youth Affairs, wants to take part in the march, but Mitch insists his staff remain neutral. In response, Journal resigns her post and marches, a decision she may not live to regret after a mysterious gas is released at the protest.If the gas hasn't killed her, she's going to be trampled. I can honestly say that if Journal lives through this, I'll be disappointed.

What kind of gas was that? Who released it? Terrorists? Pro-war hawks? How will Mitch react? What will be the public backlash?

PUNISHER VS. BULLSEYE #3
Again, I have to acknowledge this series is much better than I predicted. Issue three is a quick read. The Punisher has the drop on Bullseye and Nico's gang so Bullseye figures out there's only one way out: killing a bunch of innocent bystanders.

From there, it's nothing but Punisher chasing Bullseye, who hijacks a bus and crashes it into a bar that serves as a mob hangout. The Punisher shows up and gets a little too involved mowing down goombas to search for Bullseye.

When the cops show up in full riot gear, Punisher is cornered and finds what he figures is the only way out. Crawling through the basement window, however, he leaves himself vulnerable and pays the price. Fortunately, Bullseye is too busy eluding the police himself to take advantage of Frank's temporary inconvenience, but someone else gets the drop on him instead.Okay, we can be pretty sure she's not going to pop him in the head in cold blood, but how's he going to get out of this one? Punisher won't kill a cop and he's not in any position to make a quick getaway.

While they may not qualify as "cliffhangers" exactly, the other two books I picked up also had strong endings that had me looking forward to next month (or, in one case, "next whenever the hell Ellis and Cassaday get around to putting out another issue").

CONAN #24
Conan's finally feeling some heat for all his success. His daring robberies have the city's guards on high alert, making life miserable for the rest of the thieves. He slept with the city magistrate's wife, and his bragging about it is angering his girlfriend. By the end of the issue, everyone hates Conan and they're ready to join forces if that's what it takes to catch him.

I'm much more interested in the Conan tales of swordplay, stealth, drinking, whoring, and fighting than I am those of sorcery. This is building up to be a good, old-fashioned knuckleduster where Conan will either have to kill a lot of people or get the hell out of town. Maybe both.

PLANETARY #24
For twenty-three issues, we've been handed pieces, usually just two or three a year if we're lucky. Finally, Snow is helping us put them together.

Drums, Snow, and Jakita go to the basement to discuss the purpose of Planetary. Elijah begins referencing everything we've seen thus far and giving it all a frame of reference. For the first time in a long time, I was actually more interested in the story than the art.

In the end, the remaining two members of the Four blow up the building our three plucky adventurers are in, killing hundreds of people and reducing everything to dust. The basement, however, is sufficiently strong enough to withstand the attack. When they emerge, it's clear we've entered endgame.

The only downside is that Snow references so many former issues and I can't remember most of them. I recall there was an issue that took place in Japan, but I couldn't tell you what it was about if you promised me $100 for every detail I recounted. Oddly enough, I actually do remember reading it while on the Stairmaster at my ex-girlfriend's apartment, which would mean it was 1998 or '99. I've promised to sit down and read all 27 issues when the title comes to an end, but until then I'm not going to attempt it.

Synopsis Review Before India

Yet another trip overseas means no comics for three weeks. THREE WEEKS!!!! NO spoiler posting please. Pretty Please?

So, I bought some DC comics last week too, but I did not get a chance to review them, so I'll do some quickshots on them. No photos. I know, boring, but I'm procrastinating packing my bags, so I have to pretend that I am at least trying to leave.

Red Sonja #4
This has been good stories so far, and good art. At least the women in this book don't look like stick figures. That must be some REALLY hi-tech material though to keep her what-little-clothes-there-are on her body the whole fight.
On a side note, I picked up some of the Conan too...it was pretty decent, though the art has started to go a little downhill.
3/5. Its fun.

Seven Soldiers:Mister Miracle Part 3/4
I don't mind the whole New Gods thing. Its different. But this book. This book sucked. Probably because I really do not like Shilo Norman. I miss Scott Free and Big Barda. Its the Multiple Man all over again. It gets really tiring after awhile with all the multiples. And boring. And OLD.
Terrible book. I am very disappointed in this mini. Its pretty bad when I think that the Bulleteer is better than this, and it ain't that good.
0/5. I could not stand this. It ranks right up there with that last Uncanny X-men.

All-Star Superman #2
Oh, this is sooooooooo far better than All-Star Batman I-Am-Frank-Miller-I-Am-Comic-God-And-Can-Trash-As-I-Please. Its very quirky. It sets Superman up as someone who is different and really is pretending to be "normal". It wasnt' the best book in the world, but it was fun. I thought the end was very goofy, much like the comics of 'yore.
3/5. It took me a couple of reads to get it all.

Exterminators #1
It was ok. I did NOT like the racoon scene. That was just wrong. Thats kind of like kicking a dog (see Chris's IC #4 review). It was interesting to read. But I don't care one bit about any of the characters. So I probably won't read anymore.
2/5. The characters are asses. Not worth my dime. Or three bucks in this case.

Manhunter #18
Its finally picking up some steam. I'm looking forward to this story arc to be over and I think it'll be a little more fun read. At least she's finally back in the suit after a few issues of non-suit action.
2/5. Its getting there. It does have some good history though. Just for that, I"m changing my rating from a 2/5 to a 3/5.

Firestorm #21
Important back story. New direction coming. He has a smart guy as a partner. That should help alot. I liked how it went. Looking forward to the next ish.
3/5. Solid storytelling.

JLA #124
Why do I still buy this crap? Oh, because only one more til the end. That's why. Why do I buy this crap still? Man, this is really bad. End this already.
0/5. Bad. WAY BAD.

Infinite Crisis #4
Good read. Flash stuff was great. Batman/Nightwing stuff was great. The Superboy stuff was great. Was nice to see who the new Spectre is going to be. Great shot at the end.
4/5. The next one looks even better.

That's it gang. My LCBS did not have any Sgt. Rock, as the shippers "lost it." So he gets them this week. I dont' get them until Feb 13.

Sux Rox.

Later all. I will still make fun and/or rude comments on Chris' posts though.

Chris' Reviews 1/18

Back with reviews for 1/18, kids! As always, Massive Spoilers Ahoy!



MISTER MIRACLE #3

In this issue, Baron Bedlam and his Plastic People show up, kick the living snot out of Shilo Norman, and turn all of his friends against him, followed by Darkseid whispering the Anti-Life equation and Shilo being reduced to a burned and bandaged cripple who pees himself. Guest appearances by Granny Goodness, DeSaad, and Metron.

Start your flames now, because I'll admit right up front that I have no love at all for the New Gods, the Fourth World, or pretty much anything Jack Kirby did at DC. I didn't like it as a kid, and I don't like it now. Having said that, I absolutely understand why a lot of people do like that stuff --- it's whacked out, cosmic opera on a grand scale, and I can see that. It just inexplicably leaves me cold.

(Although to be fair, Harvey Jerkwater's post on why he loves Mr. Miracle was absolutely goosebump-inducing, and may have convinced me to at least reread some Mr. Miracle comics. Maybe.)

So there, I've said it.

And that probably explains why I'm not liking the Mr. Miracle chapter of 7S as well as I theoretically should. We're 3/4 of the way through, and so far it's been entirely a case of "Look how we make the New Gods look like normal people in this world". And that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not very compelling for me, and there's been ZERO mention of the overall 7S plot in the series (you know, the one where the mosquito fairies are taking over the world).

(I just realized that Grant Morrison has constructed a 30 issue series about mosquito fairies taking over the world. Sweet.)

Best Moment: The sequence of Shilo practicing an escape trick while having an unrelated conversation. It's very natural, and struck me as, "Yeah, that's exactly how Mr. Miracle would spend his off time."

Worst Moment: The panel where we're led to believe that Darkseid's men took a pair of bolt cutters to Shilo's yam bag. Ew.

Comic Book Goodness: 2/5 for reasons listed above, although those with a fondness for New Gods will probably enjoy it much more than I did.



THE FLASH #230

This is the last issue of Flash until the relaunch, and that's probably a good thing. I'm tired of this Vandal Savage story arc (which I've helpfully retitled Wally West: Moron), which is clearly just filler until Infinite Crisis came along.

So in this issue Flash figures out how to beat Savage and the Summoner machine he's using to pull an asteroid down to Earth. Guess how he does it? No really, guess. Seriously. I'll tell you: by running really, really fast. I did NOT see that coming!

Then Vandal Savage shoots himself into space to be one with the asteroid, or something. No, it didn't sound very smart to me either.

But all that is prologue to the final scene in the comic, where Jay Garrick inexplicably harasses Bart Allen for two pages, sounding for all the world like the stereotypical Old Man Jenkins. Seriously. Jay expounds upon those wacky remote controls these days that don't have any words on them (!?!), video games, and Commie villains. I half expected him to bust out the "And get the hell off my lawn, hooligan! Dagnabbit!"

There's a final page where Wally expounds on family, raising kids, maybe his time as the Flash is coming to an end, blah blah blah, but it's way too heavy handed and rushed (HAR!), the art sucks throughout, and this so should have stopped with Rogue War.

Best Moment: "Please don't get the idea...that the Rogues Gallery holds a cattle call for rookies...Hey, this is a new one. It may get this guy a call-back." Sorry folks, it's the best I can do.

Worst Moment: That forced "family" scene at the end was so...bad.

Comic Book Goodness: 1/5, and that's being generous. Did I mention the art sucked cover-to-cover? Let's just pretend the last 4 issues of Flash never happened, mmmkay?



IRON MAN: THE INEVITABLE #2 of 6

Joe Casey's miniseries continues as the Spymaster hires the Ghost to break into Stark International headquarters, a psychologist taps into the Living Laser's consciousness at Tony's behest, and Iron Man (or an Iron Man suit, anyway) and the Ghost throw down.

I enjoy the storytelling as done with snippets of text messages, emails, and instant messages as done by Casey here. It's a believable way to communicate the events we're seeing on-panel, and adds to the realistic corporate environment.

I also enjoy Frazer Irving's art the more I see it. It's totally grown on me, although the coloring and shading may be a little too idiosyncratic for some.

So why didn't I like this issue as much as I thought I would?

Well, mainly because not much happens. The talky-talk between Spymaster and Ghost is entertaining enough, but then we spend most of our time with the psychologist Tony has hired to rehabilitate the Living Laser, and she's just not very interesting. The battle at the end between the Ghost and a remote-controlled or automated Iron Man suit is too short and ends with a whimper.

Oh, and depressingly, this seems to be an official part of Iron Man continuity now, if several silent panels in this comic are what I think they are.

Don't get me wrong, this is still a decent Iron Man fix, and I still think the series will turn out to be very good. This was just something of a case of maybe too-high expectations on my part. Joe Casey's still in the will, though.

Best Moment: The opening 4-page conversation between Spymaster and Ghost, showing that Spymaster is clearly appalled with Tony's flaunting of superhero conventions and traditions and Ghost being the disinterested, arrogant asshat he's always been. Loved, loved, loved the whole scene, and the character poses depicted complement the words perfectly.

Worst Moment: Not a moment per se, but a comment: Irving is not at his best when depicting action scenes, as a lot of them are muddled, which seems strange because there's only two people fighting.

Comic Book Goodness: 3/5. Still a good read, with enough groundwork laid to get to the series proper. I really liked the storytelling method here, and it's still the best Iron Man around.





GREEN LANTERN #7

Hal and Ollie are back up to their old tricks in Coast City, as they engage in some friendly banter while saving some dude from falling to his death. Hal gets a call from the Corps to go fight Mongul since, you know, he's the one that made Coast City kablooey in the first place, and he and Ollie fall victim to the Black Mercy plant.

Along the way, we get Captain Exposition telling us that the power rings record events as "evidence", Despero's a mean guy, and Guy Gardner is a jackass.

Hal's also in full-on asshat mode, as he blows off his brother (who, I might add, relocated his family back to Coast City at Hal's request) when said brother asks Hal to drop in on the family and just spend a little quality time with them. What a jerk.

I'm going all self-referential in this post, but this comic is a perfect example of what I meant here. It's straight-line, perfectly serviceable, workmanlike, and...dull. Apart from the semi-neat reveal at the end (that we all saw coming anyway, thanks to it being telegraphed 3 pages in advance), there's nothing here that completely sucks or that rises above the average.

And for the record, I think they played the "Hey, everybody! Hal and Ollie are back together again!" card waaaaaay too soon in the relaunch. But that's just me.

Best Moment: "Ring. Ignore Guy Gardner."

Worst Moment: Hal's "I'm too busy to save the world to visit with my family who just relocated against their better judgment to a deserted city because I laid a Kilowog-sized guilt trip on my brother" attitude.

Comic Goodness: 2/5. Not horrible, but not much there. Next issue could be interesting, because of the Black Mercy plot device, and I'm a GL fan in general anyway, so I think this comic always has a shot at being interesting.




INFINITE CRISIS #4 of 7

Well, well, well.

So, in this issue, Bludhaven gets gassed, Superboy-Prime fights a lot of people, Alex Luthor's plan comes to fruition as Earth-2 rematerializes, Crispus Allen gets a new gig as the Spectre, and we learn that Luthor's actual plot involves mastery of the entire universe, not just recreating Earth-2.

Hm.

Damn you, Johns. Damn your cold, black heart, for pushing the fanboy buttons and delivering some really well done moments. And I mean, REALLY well done.

To me, there are three key components to this issue.

1. Superboy's childish, petulant rage and self-centeredness that ends up with him going "Kill Bill" on a few heroes, including him kicking Krypto the Superdog, and if you don't think there's a special place in hell for those who kick dogs --- much less Kryptonian Super Dogs --- then you, my friend, are sorely mistaken.

2. The destruction (I think) of the Speed Force. This happens when Wally, Bart Allen, Max Mercury, Jonny Quick, Jay Garrick and Barry Allen (yup) combine forces to drive the rampaging Superboy back to...somewhere. Anyhoo, it's a nice Speed Force family moment, and I was actually really, really sad when Wally said goodbye to his wife and kids. Then I was really, really touched when Linda and the kids decided that wherever Wally was going, they were going to follow. And they did. I thought that was just exceptional.

3. But the money shot in this book is the conversation between Batman and Nightwing, where Bruce basically admits that he's been a complete dick (HAR!) to those that matter, and goes with his hat in his hand to Nightwing. It's a conversation that has the ring of truth, the smell of foreboding, and the texture of forgiveness that only comes with unconditional respect and love. I freely admit that I actually got choked up over this. And I'm a 30 year old man who didn't even cry at my own wedding.

Overall, the series is still meh. Story be damned at this point; I couldn't care less how the series ends up, because I'll still be buying DC comics whether there's a multiverse or not (and DC knows it). Just keep giving me moments like these in comics.

Well played, Johns. Well played.

Best Moment:

Bruce: "The early years. I've forgotten if......they were good for you, weren't they?"

Dick: "The best."

Worst Moment: OK, I could have done without seeing Superboy decaptiate, dismember, and incinerate other human beings. Really. It was over the top.

Comic Book Goodness: 4/5. I don't care that I'm being shamelessly manipulated by corporate concerns. The moments absolutely made this book worth picking up, whether I care about the Infinite Crisis or not. Those moments push the book from mediocre to pretty good, though on an individual issue basis I'd probably still give the series a 3/5 overall.

Eh...a review or two

So here I am waiting for this beta game to download...and I'm like 566/618 in line waiting. What better to pass the time than a couple of reviews. I'll dig right in, and as usual, no or very few spoilers. I try for very few.

Ares: God of War
Part I of V

Lets just say that my Bachelors degree is in Classical Archaeology. Because it is. That may be one of those other reasons why I seem to be drawn to those books that involve mythos and gods and the like. So I did not pick up Ares the first week. Read a few things about it, and people seemed to like it. Alright, fine Marvel, here's my $3. Lets see how this one goes. (Yes, I WAS DUMB enough to be suckered to buy many of the House of M tie-ins.) HEY CHRIS- can you compare Iron Man- House of M and the Warren Ellis crap? Now yer talking. Anyways...ooops, 485 out of 748 in line now...progress.

Ares. It was decent. Was it too hyped by other readers? Yep. But it was a good tale. Some fun "history" reading on Ares. And then Oeming brings him to the now world, kid in tow. That will be a whole 'nother storyline at some point. I do love the little snippets and how-to's he passes on to his son. Must be Ares. It was a great setup for the rest of the series.

The art- oddly pastel. But that was fine. I didn't expect pretty for this. The beginning pages were very nicely done though.

And, as Chris references how "Ares will find a way to squiggle into the New "LameAss" Avengers", I disagree. I think that the way Oeming sets up Ares in this book, he has no place being in a group, being a hero or, even being in Olympus. But, he IS still better than lame-o Sentry.

I'll give the next one or two of this a try. Not like Ghost Rider, which I gave up after issue 2. That went south fast.

Overall Rating: 3/5. I thought about a 2. But it wasn't that bad. The first few pages really made the book for me. And the teachings to his son made me laugh.

415/810. Sigh. I'll get this downloaded eventually.


Uncanny X-Men #468
Deathmark: Grey's End
Part 3 of 3

I bought this book by mistake. I buy like one X-Men book. I thought this was the right one. It wasn't. Now, before I begin, to be fair, I don't buy this one. I don't know the storylines. This is a part 3 of 3. That said:

What a pile of shit. The writing was so bad I had to start skimming the pages hoping this crap would finally end. Sometimes, with an in-the-middle book, you could figure out what was going on. Enjoy some of the art at least. The most enjoyment I had from this book was: a.) putting it down & b.) writing up how bad this crap was.

Now, there were Shi'ar. There was a Skrull. So, my first question was, where are Earth's Mightiest Heroes? Oh yeah, that book doesn't exist. I have a bunch of Newbs. Shi'ar are cool, hell Skrull warriors are cool. They have no business being wasted in this book.

Now, I feel a bit bad for those of you dedicated readers who do enjoy this book, who like Chris Claremont, who do know the storyline.
The characters bored me, the cool aliens were wasted in this trash book and, from he who has nothing against Chris Claremont, seems a waste of talent.

Overall Rating: 0/5. I liked nothing in this book. I don't care that I wasted $3. I do care that I wasted 10 minutes of my life on this. Hell, if I wanted to waste 10 minutes and $3, I coulda at least gotten a book with like skimpy babes or something. Hmm....

247/799...I"m getting there.
I just realized I have no wine glasses. I have to drink my wine from a pilsner. Its just not right.


Son of M
Gene Pool
Part 2 of 6

This is the only Decimation series that I am actually buying. Chris has kindly let me read Deadly Genesis, which I have enjoyed. And, I am enjoying Son of M. Including this one. He's always been an ass. He always will be an ass. I'd like to say I can relate to that, but I'm not an ass....most times.

And, the Inhumans show up. I like the Inhumans. I can't explain why. They fascinate me I think. And, when Crystal was in THE Avengers, those were actually a pretty good read, though kind of a f'ed up team at that time. They were still THE Avengers at least. This book was Pietro at his usual, being an ass.

I like where the book is going. I do like how the Inhumans, rather some of their umm..technology fit into the scheme suddenly. The story flows well. The accompanying characters, here such as Luna and Crystal, really stand out.

One thing I did notice is that almost everyone has no expression, or the same expression, which goes back to none. Only Luna, the innocent child, has a smile in this entire book. Its kinda spooky.

Overall rating: 3/5. I am enjoying this series. And, I think its funny seeing Flash DVD sales on Marvel books. I know its not the first or last time, but its still funny. Ah marketing. We are all slaves to marketing.

That's all for the Marvel for now. Been very slow in the Marvel world for me in the last couple of weeks. Depending on where I am in line, maybe I'll get to pop on and do a couple of DC reviews.

140/836....soooo close...

And You Thought The Name "Spider-Man" Was Kind Of Hokey?

So, I recently acquired Marvel's Classic What If... TPB, Volume 2. As a kid, I remember loving What If stories (and to a large extent still do today).

In this volume, we get 5 stories of varying quality, mostly written by Don Glut, with a notable exception being a Jack Kirby written and drawn issue. Since I couldn't get my regular comic books today, I'll settle for reviewing one of the stories in this little gem. Apologies in advance to Dave's Long Box, which is the absolute apex of this particular kind of blog entry.

Anyway, on to the review!

What If...Someone Else Besides Spider-Man had been Bitten By The Radioactive Spider?

(Note: This is not the same thing as saying, "What If Someone Else Had Become The Amazing Spider-Man?". The reasons for me pointing this out will become clear.)

This leads off the book with Spidey doing his usual bitching and moaning about how nothing goes right for him, loneliness, et bloody cetera. He saves a Hispanic kid from falling to his death from leaning out a window, and said kid thanks "El Hombre Arana". Then the Watcher, looking like an irradiated baby, shows up to tell Parker to quit whining about how his life sucks, because if he hadn't become Spider-Man then...well...we'll get there. You'll see. It's a big cheat at the end.

Cue the What If... !

It's basically 3 vignettes theorizing about what might have happened if someone besides Peter Parker had been bitten by the Spider Heard Round The World, and it's impressive how freaking morbid the whole experience turns out to be.

First up is Flash Thompson, and Flash muscles Pete out of the way and gets chomped by the spider. So what does Flash do? First discovering his powers of spider strength, spider sense, and wall crawling, Flash proceeds to save his two girlfriends (who are cooing over him like vampire succubi) from being run over by an oncoming car.

Now there's out-of-the-box thinking! Instead of hurling the endangered Brides of Dracula out of the way, Flash chooses to throw an occupied automobile across the street.

Flash then decides that he's going to enter the wrestling contest against Crusher Hogan. While administering the sleeper hold, he breaks Hogan's neck and kills him. Whoopsie!

On the run from the police, Flash Thompson atones for his sins by using his powers to fight crime and do good as...Captain Spider! I am not making this up.



Two things about the panel above:

1. I seriously thought upon first glance that someone had lit Captain Spider's head on fire, until I realized that it was just a case of Flash's hair peeking out of the costume.

2. "...the cape makes it!" Yes, Flash. The cape makes it stupid.

Captain Spider enjoys a life of beating up the Chameleon, the Tinkerer, and other classic foes, until he decides that he's going after the Vulture.

Long story short: Captain Spider grabs on to the Vulture, Vulture takes flight, Vulture kicks Captain Spider off, Captain Spider falls 500 feet to his death.

For you see, True Believers...Flash Thompson was a spider without a web, never having been smart enough to develop webshooters or webbing of any kind. This particular vignette is notable for Peter Parker's man-crush on Captain Spider as he watches from afar, even crying like an angry, psychotic lover at discovering the corpse at the end:

Next up is Betty Brant, who gets the her mojo on as Spider-Girl after she's bitten. She confides in Pete, who helps her realize the nature of her powers and who, perhaps having had nightmares about the heartbreak of losing a certain Captain Spider, graciously develops webshooters for Betty to use.

Betty takes the next logical step, which is designing a trampy costume:



"He may even pay a few extra bucks for the 'leg-art' angle!"

Apparently the Daily Bugle, in addition to having a News, Sports, Life, and Money sections, has a Sunday Porn Supplement?!? Yes, sah! That's just wrong on so many levels.

And, Betty, hon? That costume is...bad. My God, it looks like something you'd buy in the "Superhero Fetish" section of Sneaky Pete's Porn Villa.

(Um....let's move on.)

Pete acts as her accomplice, snapping photos for the Bugle and making sure her secret identity is kept concealed, all the while keeping the negatives safe until he can offload them to a publisher in the Carribean who pays up front for....never mind.

It's all steaming along merrily until Betty runs out of web fluid when a robber runs by her.

(If you don't see where this story is going right now, hand over your long box and proceed to the exit.)

Unable to stop him, the two head back to Pete's for a roast beef dinner, where they find Uncle Ben murdered...BY THE SAME MAN SPIDER-GIRL COULDN'T STOP! DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNNNNNN!

Unable to handle the responsibility, Betty throws the costume in the trash and vows never to get involved with superheroing again. Presumably she'll live out the rest of her days as a carnival performer or government assassin. I know I would.

Now comes the weirdest story --- John Jameson, JJ's son, gets the bite. JJ hounds him into using his powers for national glory and triumph, and so is born Spider-Jameson, The Super Astronaut! Sigh. No, that's not me, that's really what they call him.

JJ ends up becoming the foremost champion for superheroes, is very proud of his son, and ends up blaming himself when Spider-Jameson ends up being the meat in a space capsule-and-mountain sandwich:

Like I said, weird. He actually refers to his son as "Spider" in his moment of shock and grief, like it's his new first name! This particular episode revolves entirely around how JJ used his son to sell papers, then ends up a better, more understanding and caring person after John gets killed.

The Watcher wraps things up by explaining that in all three stories, Peter Parker goes on to replicate the spider-bite by concocting a formula and doing naked shuttle runs wearing only his peach-colored socks:



So Peter ends up being Spider-Man anyway! In EVERY SINGLE REALITY! Apparently, there is no reality that existed where Peter Parker didn't end up being Spider-Man, which is a statement with some fairly depressing Nietzchean consequences if you think about it.

But I guess the main point is that:

A) Flash Thompson didn't have the brains.
B) Betty Brant didn't have the courage.
C) John Jameson didn't have the ability to withstand being smushed by a space capsule into a mountain.
D) Peter Parker has all the necessary traits to do whatever a spider can, up to and including naked shuttle runs in peach-colored socks.

Yesterday's News --- Today!

So, I was marveling (HAR!) at what a crappy week last week was in comics --- so crappy that I had only one come in, and didn't even bother reviewing it (Hawkman, and it was Rann/Thanagar nonsense).

When I realized that the April solicitations came out.

I stopped reading Previews awhile back, because I don't like spoilers three months in advance. But I'm going to try something here. Remember February's solicits? No, neither do I. But now that February is almost upon us, I figured I'd take a look at them, because I'm strapped for material and I need something for today because reviews won't go up until Thursday. What better way to fill blog space than to remember the Hype From Three Months Ago! And I'm doing it without cover shots, because A) it takes too damn long, and B) let's judge the prose on its own merits, hmmmm?

Warning: This is going to be a looooooooong entry, because of the meticulous copy/paste job I'm doing. So bear with me, or just faff off if you get bored two paragraphs into the darn thing. Don't worry, I'm not doing the ENTIRE Marvel solicits, just the ones that provoked a thought from me (insert joke here). Also, feel free to tell me in the comments section whether this is worth doing on a monthly basis.

MARVEL SOLICITATIONS FOR FEBRUARY

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #27
"PRESIDENT THOR" (1 of 3)
"A guilt-ridden Reed Richards attempts to undo his greatest failure by using time travel to fix the snag that caused the teleportation accident which resulted in Ben Grimm's becoming the Thing. If it works, Ben will be Ben and the Thing will never have existed. And neither will the F.F. Be careful what you wish for."

I'm going way out on a limb here, but I'm guessing that Ultimate Thing never existing will result in Ultimate Thor becoming president. A perfect example of a crappy preview, because the arc title gives away the crux of the story, while the text attempts to make a mystery of it. Randy really likes this comic. I view it with mostly apathy.

ULTIMATE WOLVERINE VS. HULK #2 (of 6)
"Doctor Bruce Banner. Mass Murderer. Responsible for the death of hundreds in New York City. Now, he wanders the globe in search of inner peace-in an attempt to never again unleash the monster within. Banner travels through Paris, Ireland, India, and finally to the hills of Tibet...where at last he finds Nirvana. And that is precisely when Wolverine shows up. To kill him. Let the games begin. Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and superstar Leinil Francis Yu continue the fight of a lifetime!"

Didn't the game begin in issue 1? And how the hell are they going to make this last 6 issues? Issue 1 was OK, but I'm not really inspired to read issue 2. Which is a shame, because Ultimate Bruce Banner is one of the more compelling characters in the Ultimate U.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #67
"DATE NIGHT"
"It's a hot time in the old town as our young X-Men's romances flair up or fizzle out. And while Cupid is keeping busy there, a solitary Wolverine must face a dreaded foe from the past who comes back to haunt him with unbearable secrets that have been buried for years. Part 2 (of 3)"

Read that last sentence, the part where Wolverine faces a foe from the past who haunts him with buried secrets...zzzzzz....whoa! I'm awake! Really! Given that hoary plot, shouldn't it read "Part 176 of Infinity"?

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #529
"Clothes make the man. At least that's what Tony Stark seems to think. Transformed by his experiences during "The Other" saga, Peter Parker stands poised for the next chapter of his life. And to mark the occasion, Tony has got a very special present: a new Spider-Man costume that's certain to raise eyebrows!"

Hey, Tony's giving Spidey a new costume to "mark the occasion"! What are you doing to mark the occasion? I bet you had nothing planned, did you? Might I suggest pointing and laughing at those who buy this comic?

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #5
"Presenting "Weblog," an off-beat Spidey tale which starts at the very beginnings of Spider-Man's career and goes all the way through to the distant future...as seen through the eyes of a woman who is convinced that the web-slinger has been stalking her her entire life."

This actually sounds halfway interesting, since it's written by Peter David, drawn by Mike Wieringo, and sounds like a one-off not mired in continuity or Mega Event Foundation Laying(TM).

SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #3
"The Hurtful Thing"
"Life seems to be going pretty good for Mary Jane, so naturally that means something has to come along and muck things up. This time, she has to contend with her newest girlfriend, Lindsay Leighton, dating her ex-boyfriend, Harry Osborn! Is Harry using Lindsay to get back at MJ, or is something far more sinister at hand?"

People tell me this is a good comic. Tell you what: take out the focus on Mary Jane, the 90210-like relationships, the manga-esque art, and teen angst. Then I'll start reading this comic. Until I have reliable reports of this happening, this just isn't my bag, baby. No offense to Sean McKeever, who's pretty good in his own right.

ARES #2 (of 5)
"Ares -- The God of War -- is missing. The Norse gods are dead. And now, Zeus, surveying his kingdom from the bloodstained walls of Olympus, finds the great warrior Mikabusi and his forces gathered below, swords drawn, bows flexed, vengeance in the air. The siege of Olympus has begun. And Zeus knows that if his kingdom is to survive, his greatest warrior - Ares - must return. At any cost. Even if it means kidnapping his grandson and lying to his son. You haven't seen wrath until you're standing between the God of War and his only child."

I'm betting Ares finds his way into Not Avengers (TM Kelvingreen) after this is all over. And I dimly recall this exact same plot from a Thor run some years ago. And shouldn't it be part of the job description that if you're a God Of Fill-In-The-Blank-Here that you're not allowed to just "go missing" without nominating a stand-in? What if the God of The Laws of Physics decides to go missing? Or the God of Oxygen? (I know, I know. It's late.)

BLACK PANTHER #13
"Two the Hard Way"
"To every King, a bride -- and that's exactly what The Black Panther is searching for! But first, he's got to travel down South for a rendezvous with Blade, Brother Voodoo, the Next Wave's Monica Rambeau, and an endless horde of good old boy vampires. Jump on board here, True Believer, as BLACK PANTHER revs up to an event of cataclysmic proportions."

Aside from stints with the Avengers, has Black Panther ever been even remotely involved in an event of "cataclysmic" proportions? Unless you want to call the suck-tasticness of the first 6 issues of the BP relaunch an "event". Still, the plot sounds entertaining enough.

FURY: PEACEMAKER #1 (of 6)
Part One: "Kasserine Pass"
"Before he presided over S.H.I.E.L.D., before he ran with the Howling Commandos, Sgt. Nick Fury fought on the blood-stained sands of the Tunisian desert. It was here that he came face to face with the incomparable might of the 21st Panzer Division and its skilled warrior commander -- General Stephen Barkhorn -- and barely lived to tell about it. And it was there that he got a second chance at life...and revenge. In this gripping limited series, Garth Ennis (Ghost Rider, Punisher) and Darick Ropbertson (Punisher: Born) offer a never-before-seen glimpse into the soul of a warrior you only think you know."

Is this the same Nick Fury that Ennis so reverently depicted sleeping with 3 hookers in Punisher? Because I think I know enough about that Nick Fury now, thanks. Also, what the hell is a guy named "Stephen Barkhorn" doing commanding a Panzer division?

WOLVERINE #39
"Origins and Endings," Part 4 of 5
"The secret is out. Wolverine remembers. Everything. The entire blood-stained tapestry of his long, tortured life. And now that's it's been laid out before him in vivid detail, there's only one question: What's his first move? Well, whatever it is, it's brought him to Russia for an encounter with the legendary warrior known as the Winter Soldier. One thing's for sure -- they're headed for a major turf battle. Question is, can they find common ground?"

Because when you think of Wolverine's "turf", you think of Russia. And when you think of "legendary warrior", you think of Winter Soldier. Here's a wild guess: fighty-fight-fight-fight, followed by a standoff where they trade a few words about respecting each other as warriors and then wander off into the mists of what passes for continuity at Marvel. I just saved you all three dollars.

WHAT IS I (HEART) MARVEL?
"Sometimes, your favorite super heroes just need a little love. Help us pay homage to the romance comics of yesteryear with five two-fisted, love-centric one-shots in the Mighty Marvel Manner. They're all perfect to share with that special someone this Valentine's Day."

I (MIDDLE FINGER) Marvel. None of these look even marginally readable.

ALL-NEW OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z #2
"The Handbook from A to Z rolls on - including bios on Bedlam, Big Wheel, the Golden Age Black Widow, Blizzard, the Brood, Bruiser, Bug, Buzz, Captain Universe, the Celestials, Chamber, the Collector and more! While the Handbooks of the past two years focused on specific themes, this twelve-issue monthly series will extend the coverage to all Marvel's characters, teams, objects, events, and places - plus past, future and alternate Earths. The spotlight will fall on more than 600 profiles -including new characters, characters who never received a profile and those needing major updates."

I applaud Marvel for doing this, but I'll stick to my Essential version of this, and why don't they just do a damn encyclopedia like DC?

CAPTAIN AMERICA #14
"THE WINTER SOLDIER"
"Fan-favorite creators Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting bring the most talked-about Captain America story in 40 years to a heartbreaking conclusion. Cap faces down his personal demons, in a hand-to-hand battle with the Winter Soldier. But he's not just fighting for victory, he's in a struggle for the heart and soul of everything he's ever cared about, and the results will send tragic echoes throughout his life for years to come! Part 6 (of 6)"

40 years. Hmmm. So this is the most talked-about Cap story since 1966? Memo to Marvel: do not make Captain America just another tragic-partner-killing-asshat like Batman. Just don't. Captain America is ten times more interesting when he's not mopey.

IRON MAN: INEVITABLE #3 (of 6)
"The noose begins to tighten as Iron Man's enemies are getting closer to acheiving their goal. As Tony Stark's experiments to save the Living Laser come closer to success, it also makes him a target for another industrial espionage assault on Stark International headquarters. It's Iron Man vs. the Ghost: Round Two!"

I just made Joe Casey a beneficiary in my will.

INCREDIBLE HULK #92
"Savage alien planet. Oppressed barbarian tribes. Corrupt emperor. Deadly woman warrior. Gladiators and slaves. Battle axes and hand blasters. Monsters and heroes...And the Incredible Hulk! Let the smashing commence! PLANET HULK BEGINS!!!"

OK, I'm positive this has been done before in Hulk. Or maybe it's just really bad fan fiction. Or both.

MARVEL MILESTONES: DRAGON LORD, SPEEDBALL & THE MAN IN THE SKY
"Who - or what - is the Wani? And can Tako Shamara, latest in the line of men trained to combat the creature, stay its wrath? It's a question of honor as the Dragon Lord debuts in MARVEL SPOTLIGHT #5 (March 1980). Plus: A colorful new bouncing, brawling crimebuster bursts forth in in SPEEDBALL #1 (September 1988). Also featuring "The Man in the Sky" from AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #14 (July 1962) - the first Marvel mutant story!?"

I thought this was a joke. Seriously. I can only assume this is a "milestone" in the same way that getting your first felony conviction, your first sexually transmitted disease, or your first execution as a traitor can be considered "milestones".

MARVEL LEGACY: THE 1960s
"Here it is, True Believers! You knew we'd do it sooner or later! From the Venerable Vaults of Marveldom, it's the Mighty Marvel Handbook -- 1960s style! Just what is the 1960s Handbook, you ask? Imagine a Handbook written at 11:59 p.m. Dec. 31, 1969. The profiles within cover everything published by the hallowed House of Ideas up until that point. So if it's from a comic that has a December 1969 cover date or earlier, you'll find it in this magnificent mag! From the Acrobat to Zota -- with the Avengers, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, the Sub-Mariner, Thor and the X-Men as they were in the 1960s, as well as '60s-era characters such as Factor Three, the Beasts of Berlin, Chili, the Infant Terrible, Mogul of the Mystic Mountain, the Painter of 1000 Perils, the Living Brain, Patsy Walker, the Blackie Drago Vulture, the Ringo Kid and more!"

This will either be a fun bit of kitsch or completely irrelevant and overpriced. I'm betting on it being both, but hell yeah, I'm buying it.

NEW AVENGERS #16
THE COLLECTIVE: Prologue
"A very special prologue issue introduces the biggest NEW AVENGERS arc yet! After the horrifying events of House of M the planet Earth has changed beyond description... and thus the Collective is born. That's right! Its a brand new Marvel threat for the brand new Avengers. Plus, this issue Guest Stars Alpha Flight... in their final battle!!"

"Very Special Prologue Issue" = Nothing Much Happens. You know, if there's a surefire way to spice up a boring Avengers book, it's to include Alpha Flight, in their 142nd Final Battle!! Stupid Marvel. And I'm assuming that "biggest arc yet" means 8 or 9 issues. The book gets dropped this month, because I can't pay for this train wreck anymore.

NEXTWAVE #2
"This Wednesday, WEDNESDAY, Wednesday!! Witness the fight to end all fights!!! (Well, until next issue.) Aaron Stack (just don't call him Machine Man) takes on Fin Fang Foom in a knock-down drag-out slug-fest! While his robotic body digests in Fin's belly, the rest of the NEXTWAVE squad has to defeat the deadly Human Resource Department of their former bosses, the Highest Anti-Terroism Effort (H.A.T.E.)! PLUS: Things explode!! Pick up the comic that had Albert Einstein saying, "I haven't had this much fun since my college days at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule!""

Please, please, please don't let this book suck. Please. The potential-O-meter is very, very high here, I think, and you can take that any way you want to.

SENTRY #6 (of 6)
"In order to come to grips with the madness that has been tearing him apart, the Sentry must trace the roots of his forgotten origin, to learn who and what he truly is!"

Didn't we do this already? Seriously. We did this already. It was in Not Avengers.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE/DRACULA #1 (of 4)
"One is a villain that has been plaguing civilization since the time of the Pharaohs. The other is the deadliest vampire to ever walk the earth. It's the battle to end all battles as Apocalypse confronts Dracula! Enemies since the Crusades, they've met again in 19th century London. It's four issues of Victorian mayhem, and it starts here!"

When this was originally solicited, someone on the comicsblogosphere said that this is either the best or the worst idea Marvel has ever had. Couldn't have put it better myself. If Marvel have any stones at all, they'll give Frank Drake or Rachel Van Helsing a cameo appearance.

AVENGERS: GALACTIC STORM VOL. 1
"The Kree are one of the Fantastic Four's oldest enemies; the Shi'ar, one of the X-Men's oldest allies. But it's the Avengers who are caught in the middle when the two alien races wage a war to re-write Marvel's map of the universe! As two-legged WMDs land on Earth, the Avengers end up as alien invaders on wartorn worlds of wonder, both as a unit and individually! Featuring the Imperial Guard! Starforce! Deathbird! Thor vs. Gladiator! Super heroes from three galaxies and more clash in the first half of the story that shook the team to its foundations! Collects CAPTAIN AMERICA #398-399, AVENGERS WEST COAST #80-81, QUASAR #32-33, WONDER MAN #7-8, AVENGERS #345-346, IRON MAN #278 and THOR #445."

It's about friggin' time! This is some good comics. Read it and remember when the Avengers were, you know, cool.

Whew! Well, that's what caught my eye for next month. Again, let me know if this was worth doing at all or just rehashed pap. I'll probably do the same for DC next week, unless there's an overwhelming "I Say Thee, Nay!" in the comments section.

But It Always Lands Buttered Side Down

I made this point on the Marvels and Legends blog a few weeks ago in the comments section, but I feel it bears repeating. So Calvin Pitt can probably skip this entry. Kay? Kay.

Geoff Johns is a a piece of toast.

Let me explain.

I like Geoff Johns. I've never met him in person, but he seems a decent sort and obviously he's a good enough writer to be handed the reigns of comicdom's most venerable universe. He sells a lot of books, has a way with sorting out convoluted continuities and generally doesn't pee in the punch bowl while doing it.

Geoff Johns is comfort food.

See, let's say your stomach is rumbly. Something's not quite right. A little nausea, a little of the urpies. Maybe you've downed your fourth pizza today, maybe you're nervous because you have a big meeting at work to sell the CEO on the idea of the Bumper Dumper. Whatever. The point is, you need a calming influence.

So what do you do? You make some toast in an attempt to calm the rebels waging war in your lower GI. You eat the toast, and everything's better.

Geoff Johns is toast.

Here's the thing about comfort food: it's guiltless, and you generally eat it to make you feel better. There are times when you MUST HAVE comfort food, because nothing else will do. But you don't want to eat it every day, and you certainly don't make it for dinner if you're trying to impress friends. At the end of the day, toast has its place in your life, and it's a solid stalwart in times of need.

But comfort food is rarely outstanding. Toast alone does not a great snack make. But if you add a few ingredients to the toast, it can become nothing shy of culinary brilliance. A little butter, a little jam, maybe even a pickle and some cheese, and you've got a decent sandwich.

Geoff Johns writes competently, can tell a story, and does a decent job with characterization. I just don't think he's (so far) done anything worth raving about. (No, not even JSA. He's made it readable, not great, and those are two very different things.)

Let's go back to the stomach analogy. Let's say your tummy hurts. We'll call that "continuity" or "poorly written comic that should sell more because of the characters involved but doesn't". You eat some toast, which we'll call "Geoff Johns". After awhile, the tummy starts to feel better, returning to normal. And that's fine.

But you can only eat toast for so long before you'd like, say, a salad, or a hamburger, or something that has some actual flavor to it. (We'll call that Grant Morrison, Kyle Baker, or Mark Waid.) And you remember what it was like to eat something that really made you think, "Man, that was a good meal."

(On the flip side, Frank Miller has turned into the week-old meatball sandwich you left in the fridge but have convinced yourself will still be good after a few minutes in the microwave, then spend the next two days regretting it in a variety of stomach-content-expelling ways.)

There's a reason why Johns was handed the DCU but Morrison is Supreme Director of Ideas and Magick, or whatever the hell title they handed him. Johns I think is an above average writer, but hasn't taken the next step, which I think is taking chances, doing something different, and pushing the envelope. I think the dearth of great writing in Big Two comics today elevates Johns' rep higher than it probably should be.

And a lot of us who read comics like comfort food. I know I do. (Hell, that's why I read superhero comics from DC and Marvel). But I'm starting to feel sort of a rote, middle-of-the-road, groove to Johns' books that just tastes bland at this point. He needs to shake out of the groove and do something...else with his comics. I can't quite put my finger on it, and I don't want this to seem like a hatchet job, because I really do think he is one of the better writers out there. But when was the last time you picked up a Geoff Johns comic and thought, "Maybe something will take me completely by surprise?"

I think Geoff Johns has a brilliant story in him somewhere. Infinite Crisis will not be it, because Infinite Crisis is a giant plot device, as pointed out on Comics Should Be Good.

Personally, if I was DC, I'd take him off of everything after this Crisis hoo-ha is over with and give him Starman. I think his Golden Age sensibilities fit perfectly with the character. And the character's not so property-driven that he'd have to conform to merchandising rules or cautions about how the character is depicted, so that DC doesn't have to worry about kids carrying lunchboxes that depict a child-abusing paranoiac stalker. (URP---sorry, looks like that meatball sandwich is coming back for round 2.)

Anyway.

Maybe it's hoping too much to expect anything new from DC or Marvel, but that's the easy way out, and I don't believe that, either. So, come on, Geoff! You can do it, man! You're in as close a position as anyone at DC to write your own ticket at this point and take some chances!

And I'm really getting tired of toast.

Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge

Due to its numeric nomenclature, 2 Guys Buying Comics is a bit restrictive to the number of writers we can add to the roster. This is Chris and Randy's party and I was always taught to leave a party before you're asked to. I was invited to fill in the second guy buying comics role while Randy was off to India, but now he's back, so I should take my cue to fade to black.

However...

While I may show up here to contribute every now and again, my faithful readers--both of you--can continue to read my insights and (more likely) rants at Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge. For the last month or so, I've been posting identical columns both here and there, so now I'm going to just post there and stop copying and pasting over here.

Feel free to bookmark it and add it to your links in the margins of your own blogs. See you there.

Let it go, Rob. Let it go.

Taking shots at Rob Liefeld is the comic blogger's equivalant to when TV reporters cover the "breaking news" that a lot of people go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. It's not news, everyone else is doing it, you're pretty much a hack when you resort to it, but if you don't do it, readers/viewers wonder what's wrong with you.

I'd hoped I could put off Liefeld mockery for a while, but as mentioned in previous posts, until about two weeks ago, I hadn't organized my new comics in more than a year and a half and found several things I either have no recollection of picking up in the first place or that I can't believe I've held on to for this long. In that latter category falls Youngblood: Bloodsport #1.

First, I bought this at the 2004 San Diego Con while in line for a sketch from Rob Liefeld because there Rob was doing "free" sketches for anyone who bought at least ten dollars worth of Youngblood books. Semantics aside, his complimentary sketches were very nice, so I waited in line and bought a copy of Bloodsport and one of Genesis (which credits Kurt Busiek as a co-writer despite Busiek's insistance his name be removed from the book) both of which were a year old and neither of which had yet published a second issue.

I didn't even read the book until a week or two later when I was too lazy to get off the couch and find a decent novel or a magazine. It was bad--not that anyone should be too surprised by that review--and I'm not sure how it wound up back in a short box of "to be filed" comics instead of the trash. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I found it again and leafed through it. I remembered the overall plot, but had forgotten about Rob Liefeld's bitterness toward Marvel that oozes from the book. I explained it to Robby and Chris and when I realized they'd never seen the book, I wagered most decent comic fans hadn't unless they'd picked it up for the sole purpose of meeting a sawbuck quotato get a free Rob Liefeld sketch at a convention.

For those who don't know or don't remember, Youngblood members are superstars in their world. This book opens with Seahawk and Battlestone relaxing in a hot tub on the balcony of a penthouse apartment, snorting coke while surrounded by dozens of top-heavy bikini girls. Battlestone also informs us they are also getting their "cocks sucked by two up-and-coming super-teens." Seahawk, however, is bored.Yes, that subtle reference I've highlighted is exactly what you'd expect. In fact, just a few frames later, Liefeld makes sure anyone who didn't catch the written words doesn't miss out.Yes, Rob, we get it. Marvel's heroes suck your heroes' dicks. Very clever.

The next scene involves Shaft fighting the reanimated corpses of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders who have stolen a strand of Supreme's pubic hair from the museum. It's enough to make even thirteen year old boys everywhere roll their eyes, and, in comparison, the secretary from Fell talking about her husband fucking the dog seems discreet and refined. Once Shaft defeats the bad guys and recovers the... sigh... pubic hair, he heads off to meet with Badrock before they go to a top secret meeting for former Youngblood members.

The meeting is held in a secret underground fortress beneath a porn shop, but not just any porn shop...... a porn shop run by Stan Lee and frequented by Ben Grimm! And what's the password to get in? "Great power requires great responsibility and all that shit, dude."

A short elevator ride later and they are reunited with Wolverine, Deadpool, Cable, Jubilee, Stryfe, shorter Cable, Domino, Firestorm, Domino without a spot on her eye, dark haired Cannonball, Sabretooth, Wolverine/Oberon, Bishop, Boom Boom, Psylocke, and the Thing (sans neck).Actually, to reduce confusion between the Youngblooders and the characters from whom they were ripped off inspired, convenient name labels are attached. Among the things that stuck out to me:

• The girl I thought looked like Psylocke is named Psilence.
• How much do you think the black guy in the wheelchair paid to keep his name out of this?
• There's a Die Hard 2.0?
• Are Seoul and Doc Rocket thrusting their bare ass cheeks toward one another on purpose?
• Seriously, Rubble? I mean, how does Jack Kirby's ghost not go poltergeist on Liefeld's house after that?

The reason everyone's been called together is that the government has decided to pit them all against one another in a fight to the death. The ultimate winner will join a cross-dimensional super team that will keep a thousand Earths safe.

Seahawk refuses to take part and gets his head blown off, prompting Battlestone to call the government representative who announced the deathmatch a "faggot." It's not often you find a homophobe who's just hours removed from getting blow jobs from two guys, but that's the rich character depth you've come to expect from Youngblood.

The book finishes with a two-page ad for Bloodsport #2 and another ad pointing out that whichever cover you purchased, there are four others, because apparently someone confused the date of publication and thought it was coming out in 1993 instead of 2003. Interestingly, two of the alternate covers are made to look like they are Marvel Ultimate books.

The Day the Powers Died

About halfway through Daredevil #79, something hit me like a Circle K 40-ounce mug full of ice water dumped over the top of the curtain during a hot shower. I had to stop, go back a few pages, and reread to make sure I hadn't deceived myself, but sure enough there it was.

A Bendis sighting. Issue 80 confirmed it.

Somehow, Brian Michael Bendis, the man who'd brought us some of Daredevil's greatest stories, the gritty and dark Alias, the complete reimagining of an icon in Ultimate Spider-Man, and the groundbreaking Powers, had overpowered the hack who's been soiling his good name by plastering it on every mediocre book churned out by the Marvel machine.

It got we wondering when the imposter had first began the ruination of a good man's reputation. What was the point where it all went south for Bendis? The answer was actually much easier than I'd guessed.The fucking monkey issue of Powers.

And for those of you who didn't read it, I didn't say "fucking monkey issue" because I had a negative opinion of the monkeys--though I do--but rather because the entire issue is about apes having animalistic sex with each other.The only possible explanation was that Bendis had been knocked over the head and tied him up in his own basement, kept only conscious enough to endorse the checks sent to him by Marvel. Fortunately, he'd already submitted several issues worth of Daredevil and Ultimate Spidey scripts to artists, allowing those books to remain high quality for months following the assault, preventing many readers from even noticing the change. Before long, though, the Doppel-Bendis to take the reins.

Soon, we had Jean Grey switching Wolverine and Spidey's brains into the others' bodies. Daredevil fought a infant-sized demon. Ultimate Spider-Man substituted new Ultimized characters for plot development. Powers moved to Marvel and Alias became the yawn-inducing Pulse. A secret war was waged over the course of nearly two years. Hawkeye got killed, Scarlet Witch gained the power to alter the entire universe, and the Avengers broke up. When they got back together, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, Sentry, and Echo/Ronin stole the spotlight. All the world was turned on its ear as mutants became the ruling majority, and all the heroes could do about it was talk and talk and talk some more.Oops, sorry about that. My... uh... finger slipped on the mouse.

As I was saying, as difficult as this time has been, there's light at the end of the tunnel. I have seen the coming of the Bendis and He shall rise up, rub salve on our wounds, comfort us in times of unrest, maketh us to lie down in green pastures, and smite our enemies!Okay, I admit it wasn't a mistake that time. Look, all this monkey humpin' is going somewhere. Somewhere big. Somewhere grand. To a height no blog has ever reached before. You just have to trust me. And keep reading everything I write. If I charge you money to read what I write, you should pay whatever it costs to keep reading because, seriously, dude, if you don't everyone else is going to be talking about it and I'm going to win awards for it and you're going to be the only schmuck who didn't read it.

So you'll keep reading? Good because...... now that I know this is all it's going to take to keep you enthralled, I don't have to put forth any more effort than this.

What simian ugly-bumping taught Bendis...'s evil twin was people would put up with garbage as long as his name was attached. Why take the time to craft a good four issue arc about Peter Parker when you can stretch it to nine issues by adding Ultimate Dreadknight, Ultimate Man-Thing (not to be confused with Giant-Sized Man-Thing), and Ultimate Karkas? Why write an Avengers book about the Avengers when you can fiddle around with fringe characters of the Marvel Universe and have Cap or Iron Man make an occassional cameo? Why continue expanding the character Jessica Jones, one of the most interesting original characters to hit Marvel in years, when you can just make her pregnant and whiny? Why concentrate on turning out four high quality books a month when you can crap out fifteen-plus, crossover all your characters from one to another, and plot and write every major event for the company?

More than anything, if readers keep buying every one of those abominations as they get pooped out, what reason is there to respect the readers?

The answer is simple.See you next time, idiots! suckers! morons! True Believers!

In Honor of the Metropolis Dairymen

When you have a problem, where do you turn? 911? Your best friend? Jesus?

Maybe, but what if you have a problem and actually want someone to help you? Then there's only one place to turn:

THE METROPOLIS UNITED DAIRY FARMER'S COLLECTIVE!

These unsung heroes typically tend to their cows, pasteurize their milk, and deliver high calcium goodness to the people of the City of Tomorrow, but you'd be wrong if you thought the service they provide this world ends there. The dairyman's catalog is usually limited in our immediate thoughts to milk, cream, and cheese, overlooking such fine bone-fortifying treats as fruit on the bottom yogurt, sour cream, and cottage cheese. Likewise, the dairy farmer's contribution to saving lives, solving crimes, and generally making the world a safer place to live is overshadowed by the vitamin D richness of whole, 2%, and skim.

Finally, Frank Miller and Jim Lee have taken it upon themselves to make sure these everyday heroes are ignored no longer. Bravo, gentlemen. And bravo again.

Prior to All-Star Batman & Robin #3, we all assumed the best way to get Superman's help in a crisis, personal or universe-threatening, was to scream in terror and hope his super-hearing would pick it up and spur him to response. Instead, apparently the direct line to Supes is through his fridge.

Two issues ago, Dick Grayson's parents were gunned down and Batman swept him away, blowing up about fifty Gotham City policemen in his wake. How does Superman learn the child's gone missing?

From his milk carton of course.

Sure, it may seem like the not-yet-Dynamic Duo has only been driving, flying, and submarining around town for less than 30 pages, but more than fifteen hours have passed. As we can see, however, it took only minutes for the fine dairymen of Metropolis to deliver the news, printed on Superman's half gallon of moo juice.

Hell, even the Daily Planet, the DC Universe's most trusted source for breaking news can't beat the milkman.From what I can tell, Superman, being the all-American boy, starts his day each morning with thirty-two ounces of the white stuff (chocolate on Saturdays). To help him set his schedule and prioritize which of the world's quandaries he should solve, the dairies print a new carton every night, listing the most urgent troubles facing the planet. Someone either beams it up to the JLA Watchtower where whomever is on duty beams it back into Clark Kent's refrigerator, or Krypto comes by the dairy to fetch the carton and return it to Clark's apartment before flying home to Connner.

That carton saves countless lives, reunites lost children with their parents, and has extracted countless kittens from trees.

God bless the Dairymen!

In Defense of Fell

Because it's unofficially become Fell week here at 2 Guys Buying Comics, here's a response to Jake's dissection of Fell a couple days ago. After this, we can get down to something really cool I think you'll all enjoy next week.

OK, so Jake finally finished his thesis on why he doesn't like Fell and thinks it's overrated. Cool. I'm down with that.

To be fair, he makes several excellent points. He also makes some crappy ones, but we'll get to those in a bit.

Ahem.

Now, I confess a deep love for the detective genre, for done-in-one books, and an appreciation for Warren Ellis, his hack job on a certain armored hero notwithstanding. So that's where I'm coming from on this.

And let's remind ourselves that art is subjective, and as Jake pointed out, one man's trash is another man's treasure. I tend to think that the key to art is the ability to make you feel something, whether it be warm fuzzy bunnies or the fury with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. And on that level, I think Fell succeeds.

I could care less about Picasso, Mozart, and Dickens---I don't hate them, I just have complete apathy and think they're overrated. Does that mean, as Jake pointed out, that millions of people are necessarily wrong? No. It's just another reason why we differentiate between "art" and "science". One carries reproducible results in every case; the other is art.

I don't think this is Ellis trying too hard, I think it's him finally giving a damn about something he's written. I have no way of proving this.

Is it way overrated? Maybe. The danger of hyperbole is that you can't pick and choose when and where to spread it --- it's a sword, not a scalpel. Maybe I'm guilty of it too. But I still think it was the best series of last year, for reasons I won't repeat but you can find in the blog here.

"One of my biggest complaints about Ellis (and Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis for that matter) is that so often he confuses "outlandish" for "enthralling." A woman who doesn't listen to a stranger's questions and instead goes off on an unprompted soliloqy of her husband's beastial tendencies is not an interesting character, nor even a believable one."

Jake is right --- outlandish can be confused with enthralling, and as big a Morrison fan as I am, I have to admit that he's probably the chief perpetrator. However, consider the option here: Ellis was trying to give yet another example of the complete disinterest that Snowtown's population has in anything, including the police force. He could have had the secretary droning on about how her gas bill's overdue, or making a grocery list, but he went with something that was way more out there, because it's unexpected and somewhat amusing. Which would you rather he have done? Ditto for the boss.

And yes, the "3 1/2 detectives" line is getting overrated.

"As for the "murder mystery," I find it hard to consider this book very heavy on mystery when the first panel of the second page practically screams "IMPORTANT HINT HERE!""

Yeah, there's overt clue-dropping (less so in the issues that follow). But I don't think the crux of the book (especially a #1 issue) is about having a really clever mystery, otherwise Ellis wouldn't be basing these off of things that actually happened to real people. I think it's setting a mood and telling a story that makes you want to read the next one. I view Fell as a TV show; episodic, small cast, finite beginning and end. And I like that.

If the crime itself you find too outlandish, well, there's nothing I can argue about that. I don't, and I appreciated Ellis filling us in on the background information after the story.

I guess what I'm really getting down to is that the 12 or 13 pages that Ellis spends setting the mood and introducing the recurring characters is the heavy lifting that needs to be done in any #1 issue (or TV pilot) that's trying to do what this one does: change the game and make a viable ongoing book in a format that's different from anything out there now.

If I knew Fell was a limited series with a 6 or 12 issue max run, then yeah, I'd be a little torqued about the first issue being ALL atmosphere. But I have to look at it as it's intended; a done-in-one book that creates an incredible setting, interesting characters, and tells a good story in an ongoing series. The package as a whole just strikes me as really very, very good.

Jake hasn't read issues 2 and 3 yet, but he assures me he will. I can say this: if after reading all 3 issues if you still think that it's not one of the best books on the market, then we'll just agree to disagree.

But you'll still be wrong.

Fell: What am I missing?

Sometimes popular opinion goes one way and I go another. Full House remained on the air for nine seasons, producing 192 episodes, and finishing in the top 30 Nielsen ratings for six of them and in the top 16 for four of them. Even today, more than 80% of 1647 voters at TV.com consider it "superb" or better, yet I've never watched an episode in my life. I thought Star Wars Episode One was poorly scripted, poorly acted, and poorly directed, but its worldwide box office take of $924.3 million shows I was wrong and that Jar Jar Binks is, in fact, a much better character than Sam Spade, Don Corleone, and T.E. Lawrence put together.

Most recently, I've found myself on the less popular side of the internet's opinion of Fell. When Chris declared it his best ongoing series of the 2005 (and Bill Reed of Comics Should Be Good, I responded that it was overhyped, badly written tripe with bad art, and reader markus correctly called me on the carpet for sniping without posting a definitive review of Fell of my own.

Newsarama has posted the entire first issue online, prompting the following comments on the message board:

• So good, why isn't everyone buying this?
  
• The best first issue I've read in a long time!
  
• This is one of my favorite singles of 2005.
  
• My God, that writing is bloody brilliant!
  
• Gang, if you're not picking this book up month-to-month, there is something WRONG.

I've read #1 again, thinking maybe I just missed something. However, that's just not the case. I still see an overhyped, nothing comic. I rely upon you, good reader, to steer me back to sanity and explain what I'm missing.

First off, let me make clear I understand the appeal of a two dollar book and I understand the appeal of self-contained issues that make it possible to pick up any issue and enjoy it without needing to know seven years of canon and backstory. In that sense, I appreciate what Fell is trying to do, but the point I made in my ravaging of Mothspy remains pertinent here: having a new idea doesn't make it a good one. Furthermore, a good idea doesn't automatically work if the execution is bad. For example, sodas with no calories in them is a great idea and could drastically trim down America's bulging waistline, but until I try a diet soda that doesn't leave the taste of carcinogenic chemicals in the back of my throat, I'm not drinking them.

The first symptom of Fell-fever seems to be the need to point out the cover price and use some variation of the phrase: "Though it's only 16 pages long, it reads like a 32-pager because of the density of the what Warren Ellis has packed into every page."Yeah, that's great writing making the most of every panel. One of my biggest complaints about Ellis (and Grant Morrison and Garth Ennis for that matter) is that so often he confuses "outlandish" for "enthralling." A woman who doesn't listen to a stranger's questions and instead goes off on an unprompted soliloqy of her husband's beastial tendencies is not an interesting character, nor even a believable one. If this dialogue was coming from a schizophrenic homeless person, I'd still label it as uninspired and serving no purpose other than shock value, but at least I'd believe it. Coming from an office worker, I just roll my eyes. The same goes for his boss's "I don't care what you do. I'm going to take a lot of pills" mope-fest that preceded this.

Also, contrary to what every reviewer on the internet indicates, Snowtown having 3 1/2 detectives because one of them has no legs is mildly amusing, but it's not Shakespeare.

As for the "murder mystery," I find it hard to consider this book very heavy on mystery when the first panel of the second page practically screams "IMPORTANT HINT HERE!"Ben Templesmith might as well have put a huge red arrow pointing at those bottles and hoses in the background. I admit I incorrectly guessed the wife had fed the hose down his throat and poured the booze directly into his stomach while he was passed out or sleeping, but that wouldn't be pointessly outlandi--er, I mean intriguing enough for an Ellis story.

Having given us our first and only clue by page two, we wallow through twelve and a half pages of people telling Detective Fell that Snowtown is a bad place full of bad mojo where bad things happen.But how's life in Snowtown?I'm not sure I've got it? Is Snowtown a good place to live?How are the public schools? I'm so in the dark as what kind of place Snowtown is.Well, I suppose I'll never get a straight answer.Why do I have these bumps on my head? Oh, well, I'm still not getting it. If only we had more than sixteen pages to continue the debate over the pros and cons of life in Snowtown maybe I'd finally get it.

With the page count quickly coming to a close, Fell runs into his deus ex machi--er, uh... neighbor in an alley. She is the eighth person he's talked to since arriving in town and the fourth with valuable information on the unsolved murder. Not to disrespect Detective Fell's sleuthing skills, but if 50% of the people I spoke to every day just happened to mention important facts about mysterious deaths, I'd probably solve a few crimes myself.

Off to the scene of the crime for the wrap up where we figure out that the victim's wife usually piped a daily enema of wine into him, but switched to whiskey today, causing him to die of alcohol poisoning.How outlandish and unnecessarily provoc--er, I mean INTRIGUING.

As a sixteen page story, it's about fifteen and a half pages too long. There have been three-panel Garfield strips with as much plot. Frame one: Fell spots booze bottles with enema hoses attached and notes overwhelming scent of whiskey. Frame two: daughter points out dad couldn't drink whiskey. Frame three: Fell accuses mom of murder and eats Jon's lasagna. Granted, we know less about the municipal utilities of Snowtown, but that could be handled the next day while kicking Odie off a table.

Tell me, comicbloggowebasphere, what am I missing?

Back in Heaven

Just how good is the first issue of the new Fallen Angel series? Good enough to prompt me to dig out the full twenty issues of the original series and read them all at once.

Well, one at a time, but all in one sitting. For that matter, technically, I got up from my chair several times during reading them, but you get the point.

That may not seem like that big a deal, but you have to understand the first four issues were in a long box that was at the bottom of a stack of boxes in the back of a closet that had a bed in front of it.

When DC cancelled the original series, I remember feeling like Peter David let it die with a bit of a whimper (note I avoided making a "peter out" pun there), using the final two issues to bring together two of his creator-owned properties, Fallen Angel and Sachs & Violens. In light of the new series, however, I see that David was trying to wrap things up in the final three or four issues, but with loose enough threads to keep the story going strong.

The new series manages to continue directly from the previous without making new readers feel like they have to go back and pick up the four trade paperbacks... though they should. Instead of picking up where things left off, the new series actually takes place at least two decades after #20 ended last summer with the now more significant line, "We got all the time in the world."

It's hard to tell the time has passed, however, until the very end of the issue when we see Lee's fully grown son, now a priest. The last time we saw Jude, he was a newborn being abandoned at a convent in issue #18. He's one of only two characters to have aged, the other being Dr. Juris's son, Jubal, who is celebrating his eighteenth birthday.

How time passes in Bete Noir and whether it passes differently for different people isn't clear, but whatever rules apply have made it possible for Dolf to remain serving drinks at Furor's.It also adds credence to the theories that Dolf is, in fact, Adolf Hitler. There have been clues--the bar name sounding like Fuhrer's, Dolf's self-description of having been "a painter, a writer... dabbled in politics, made some enemies"--but the counter to it all was that even if Hitler had survived and escaped the bunker, he would have to be 115 years old. If Dolf appeared to be in his seventies in the original series, he's have to be in his 90's now, yet he doesn't appear to have aged a day.

The new series also has a drastically different artist. The painted book gives a different, darker feel that's more appropriate for the story, but at times J.K. Woodward's art feels stiff and relies a little much on photo reference, such as Dr. Juris's wife beign played this evening by Lucy Liu.The writing, on the other hand, is beyond any criticism. David's passion for title and for Lee in particular come across strongly and can't help but sweep you up.

The news this book has life beyond the initial five issues IDW promised is a relief as I had forgotten how much I missed it and didn't want to have to cope with losing it again.

Marvel Mailbag, Vol. I

OK, I just had to get this out of system, and in doing so I think I've stumbled upon a regular feature for 2 Guys Buying Comics. I promise after this post to shut the hell up about Iron Man for at least 2 weeks. Really.




To: Marvel Comics
From: Tony Stark, CEO Stark Enterprises

Dear jackholes Marvel,

It has come to my attention that one of your properties has languished recently under your no doubt careful supervision. (Ha! Super Vision! Write that down, Pepper. I'll use it at the next board meeting.)

It seems that your portrayal of my armored bodyguard known to the public as Iron Man has...well...suffered of late. In the interest of maintaining a good business relationship, I felt it my duty to inform you of perceived problems with your current treatment of my close friend and associate.

Shall we begin with the comic itself? I'd love to, but I can't seem to find one! Imagine my surprise when my local comics dealer told me that issue 5 came in yesterday! This wouldn't be altogether so shocking if it hadn't been the one-year anniversary of issue 2. You see the problem? I applaud you for ringing that Ellis chap to chronicle my his adventures, but for the love of Cap, is it really so hard to crank an issue out even, oh, I don't know, quarterly? Adi Granov does some fine artwork, but at the rate he's going I can only conclude that you pay him by the minute. Please, sirs, a little more consistency.

Update: I just read the latest by Ellis. My lawyers will be in touch.

Additionally, it would be swell if you'd get rid of some of these "New" Avengers you keep foisting on me Iron Man. The Parker boy certainly brings some levity to the situation, but I don't trust this Spider-Woman at all, Mr. Cage has a new family to worry about, Echo Ronin can't even hear me when I'm talking (and if you think I'm going back and redesigning Iron Man's helmet for the gajillionth time to include moving lips, you're crazier than that Sentry crackpot you've got us them babysitting). I'll give you fifty million in cash, finance your next two stinky Elektra, Hulk, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, or Namor movies, AND wage a disinformation campaign against DC for you if you'll just bring back Thor, Wasp, and...oh, I don't know, Hawkeye.

Ah, but I forgot. You can't bring back Hawkeye, because you drove poor Wanda insane (and thanks for making me look like an ass at the United Nations, by the way) and KILLED him. Or did. Now he's back, and apparently not at all happy with us.

(In fact, I had a fever-dream that I was in some kind of universe where that archvillain Magneto had taken over the Earth, non-mutants were discriminated against, Clint Barton was alive and well, and for some odd reason I was running about fighting Father and Hank Pym with Johnny Storm and we were all wearing these patently ludicrous Transformers-looking robot suits. I've been told to inquire at your offices with a Mr. Bendis to find out what was behind that silliness.)

I was talking to Steve Cap the other day, and he was quite disillusioned with the fact that the "New" Avengers have so far beat up a few C-level mutants, a gob of ninjas, D-level prisoners, and the Crusher. Gents, you don't use a pressure washer to water your plants. What's next? The Avengers take on Lawyers Who Have Defaulted on Their Student Loans? Pest exterminators? Really.

But back to Iron Man. In addition to the aforementioned lateness, we'd also like to point out that this Ultimate nonsense has to stop. While it may be a fun little diversion, it bears little resemblance to the iconic character that's well established. Additionally, the armor makes me look like I'm in one of those Japanese comics, you know, the ones that have the people with the big eyes and occasional tentacled genitalia.

Ah, the days of fighting supervillains! I remember when the Iron Man would save the world from the Mandarin, the Unicorn, Whiplash, Living Laser, Madame Masque, and of course that nefarious blackguard Obadiah Stane and his diabolical machinations. This may be news to some of your staff, but believe it or not, not every single piece of armor I design falls into nefarious hands, necessitating a 6-issue story arc that lamely tries to recapture the spirit of the Armor Wars. I'm just saying.

I also owe you a kick in the yam bag for refusing to allow me to continue as Secretary of Defense, which was one of the more original ideas you've had for me in awhile.

Now my blood's up. I must calm myself with a whiskey---ah, that's right, I'm an alcoholic. Actually, a recovering alcoholic, but since no one's bothered to even try to paint a nuance with that potentially interesting character trait since David Michelinie, I'm not suprised you haven't noticed. Would it be too much to call Busiek and see what he's up to these days? (What's that, Pepper? Aqua...sword of what? Oh, cripes. Get the lawyers on the phone and help that dear boy.)

This may seem minor to you, but I'd also appreciate it if you would refrain from using that stupid computerized red font and jagged speech bubble every time Iron Man speaks in a comic.

Anyway, I sincerely hope this letter reaches you in time to make a difference in your current Iron Man publishing strategy, as there are many people out there who think that the Golden Avenger, Ol' Shellhead himself, deserves just as much publicity and adventurous chronicling as that teenage waif with blades coming out of her feet, or whatever that Logan fellow's up to (my, how he gets around), or your next Ultimate Nova project.

Yours,
Tony Stark

P.S. I just checked out that Joe Casey's Iron Man: Inevitable issue #1. Bang-up stuff. I think he gets it. More, please.

P.P.S. I just got a letter from Kelvin Thor --- apparently you've turned the Vision into a teenager and given him breasts? Is anyone actually in charge over there?

No One Wants This

Let me preface this column by telling you a little about myself and my friends and acquaintances. When I go to the San Diego Comic-Con every year, I wind up splitting a room with a guy who's into furries. He's copyrighted an anthropomorphic character based upon himself and when he's not attending events where people dressed in plushy animal costumes, he's laughing derisively at me for describing the DVDs he'd purchased earlier in the day as "hentai porn" because, "Hentai means porn. Saying 'hentai porn' is like saying 'manga comic'."

What I'm getting at is that I know there are a lot of different tastes out there and many of them might seem awkward, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that one man's "what the fuck?" is another man's rock-hard erection.

Likewise, I understand "those who can do, and those who can't criticize." Some will argue until I create a comic better than the ones I call crap, my opinions have no value. I would counter that though you may never have cooked a soufle, you probably know dog vomit is not an ingredient you'd put in one and would be able to identify a soufle made by someone else with the inclusion of dog vomit as tasting bad.

Is not at least part of the purpose of art to allow those who cannot express themselves artistically enjoy the artist's expression? I understand my lambasting of Mothspy is harsh and you might think me an asshole by the time you read it, especially if you are Kraig Rasmussen or friends of Kraig Rasmussen and got here by Googling his name. However, I am simply pointing out the truth, complete with evidence. I would argue the assholes are the people who saw Kraig's sketches of a half-moth/half-woman and oversexed lizard people, heard he was planning an erotic, action comic, and said, "Okay, good luck. I think that sounds like a great idea. I believe in you!" It's like those anti-drug commercials where they show kids watching their friends laying in the street while a truck is coming or drowning in a pool about two feet away. As a friend, it's your responsibility to stop your buddy from making a complete joke of himself, especially in front of professionals from the industry in which he dreams of working.

Kraig wraps up the book with a column about a local comic shop closing down. He addresses it as a fan an as an industry professional, declaring himself "on the edge of busting down the doors of the industry." While some of what he says about the lack of interest in comics and the decline of the industry is sad and true, its appearance in this book seems to imply something like Mothspy is what's needed to revitalize the industry.

Mothspy is more a part of the problem than the solution. Much the way the American Dream has convinced everyone they might become millionaires someday, thus making them support tax breaks for Paris Hilton, the myth that anyone with an idea and the gumption can produce a successful comic book prompts people to churn out garbage like this. When it doesn't sell, they in turn blame the brainwashed masses who can't accept something original and just want more of the same cookie-cutter superhero tripe.

No, people want quality comics. Just because your idea is original, doesn't mean it's good. The reason the comic industry is losing readers and leaking like a rowboat made out of one-dollar bills is because the majority of what you find in any copy of Previews is terrible. Even good comics will have differences in opinion. Chris just doesn't like Walking Dead, I think Fell is a steaming pile, and neither of us sees the appeal of JSA. That's not to say those comics are bad, just not our respective cups of tea.

On the other hand, some comics are just bad. Indefensibly bad. Case in point:

MOTHSPY: REPTILES IN HEAT
Watch your toes because the story of how I got this comic begins with Jake dropping names. Robert and I were going to lunch with Darwyn Cooke at Wondercon in 2004 when we met Kraig Rasmussen, who recognized Darwyn and wanted to pitch his comic, Mothspy.

From his backpack, he withdrew some self-published copies of the comic he was pitching, handing one to each of us. I politely and with minimal eye-rolling accepted the book with the hairy-chested lizard person tweaking its nipple on the cover.

If it hadn't been the final day of the Con, I would have certainly taken it back to the room, glanced at it while on the toilet, and thrown it in the trash. Instead it stayed in my backpack and somehow got shoved into a short box where I unearthed it while organizing the last year and a half's worth of comics around Christmas.

We begin with a two page letter from Kraig, letting us know there was much debate between his girlfriend and him over whether he should redraw the first seven pages of the comic, which apparently had been drawn long before the rest and might distract people from the story. In the end, he decided it wasn't our right, but our "privelage" to witness his development as an artist. He ends saying, "This is me, naked, and unashamed." Mr. and Mrs. Rasmussen clearly failed in some parental duties, because otherwise little Kraig would have known there are certain things we should be ashamed for doing in public.

The story opens with a lizard person politely offering to molest a woman wearing a black overcoat and hat pulled down over her eyes.The lizard molester gets taken to task, complete with a punch so hard it surrounds his head with the kind of star first graders draw.Lizardrapist gets up for round two, prompting the woman to shed the hat and coat and go through a completely incomprehensible sequence we later kind of determine was supposed to be her flying up into the air and crashing down on the lizard man feet first. Threatened with getting moreof what he just got, the big lizard reveals he was following Mothspy because she "possess[es] a property which [his] race requires for, uh... survival."

Currently, I have three problems with this. First, the lizard man has had his elbow broken, been punched hard enough to make elementary school pentagrams leap from his face, had a flying woman crash land on his neck, and he's completely unphased. I'm not arguing lizard anatomy or resiliency, but why does he cough up the info? As we'll see throughout this comic, these lizards are veritable punchbags, impervious to the worst Mothspy can dish out and with healing factors beyond those of Wolverine. A few drops of blood coming from his mouth is enough to make this guy crack?

Second, if the lizard dude was following Mothspy because she was Mothspy, why was he so shocked when she took off the hat and coat, revealing her wings?

Finally, and more than the others put together, after he admits he was following and trying to sexually assault her just for the "property" she possesses, Mothspy is disappointed he wasn't trying to rape her for her good looks.It should be noted that Mothspy has long eyelashes and no pupils. That first frame makes it look as though she has two lazy eyes while complaining about not being pretty enough to molest.

She starts to walk away, but the lizard gets her attention by offering to show her his genitalia, but it's really a trap and Mothspy is trapped in some kind of energy field that comes from nowhere and transports her and the lizard to a lizard ship in orbit high above the Earth.

The lizard queen or king or hermaphroditic leader gives her a tour of the ship. Starting with a room full of millions of moths. The lizard queen explains that each moth is "euthenized" and put through a machine that tears off the wings, withdraws all the moth's fluids, and crushes the body. The crushed bodies are used to make moisturizer. The wings are dried and ground into a powder that is like cocaine to the lizard people. The fluid is used as...

Christ on a crutch, I can't believe I'm typing this.

The fluid is used as an aerosol aphrodisiac to fuel non-stop lizard orgies.Finally, it's explained why Mothspy has been brought here. The lizardking's orgy isn't quite drugged up enough, so he/she wants to tear off, dry up, and ground down Mothspy's wings into reptilian blow. Mothspy doesn't take this well, grabbing the king/queen and flying it around the orgy chamber, crashing into things randomly. This, by the way, is the third time Mothspy has put forth a great amount of effort to kick the crap out of a lizard only to have it get up completely unaffected. Her reaction is to kick the crap out of the lizardking again and make her escape while he gets up, completely unaffected.

In her exodus, she frees the moths who help her outsmart the lizard queen. The queen charges Mothspy, only to find she has tried to tackle a Mothspy doppelganger made of moths, resulting in a spine-snapping collision with the wall.This shattering of the spinal column and vertebrae keeps the queen down for almost 30 seconds. Also, where the hell are the king's guards? Or anyone from that orgy for that matter? Or the guys who monitor the moth killing machine? Or the fucking janitor? If some Al-Qaeda operative gets loose in the White House, do you think George W. has to chase him around like a damn Benny Hill sketch while the Secret Service huffs nitrous oxide and fellates one another?

Mothspy gets away again and makes it to the shuttle bay or equivalent before being attacked from behind by the revived lizard leader. Mothspy again fights him/her off, eventually getting it in a chokehold and squeezing the life from the reptilian chieftain before dropping its corspe about three stories on to an umbrella full of gigantic green beans sitting atop a glob of pizza dough below. At least that's what it looks like to me.Having had his trachea shattered, the lizard king doesn't appear again for almost an entire page.But this time, Mothspy doesn't get in her licks. It's all lizardqueen as Mothspy gets beaten like one of those countries where it doesn't snow when they take on Canada in Olympic hockey. It culminates with the lizard pulling off Mothspy's wings in a sequence that pretty much is what you'd expect if you told Kraig Rasmussen, "Draw me a prison rape."The story ends with the lizard queen taking the wings, gloating, and offering Mothspy to four other lizards, whether for sex or for food it is unclear. Mothspy thinks to herself that she is not through and the promise of "TO BE CONTINUED" indicates the story is not either.

However, considering mothspycomics.com is now defunct and Google searchs for Kraig Rasmussen and Mothspy reveals Kraig might have finished 273rd in a 10k Run to Feed the Hungry in 2002 and that there is a band from Kraig's hometown named Mothspy but nothing else, it seems more than likely, despite her final words, Mothspy was, in fact, "going out like this."

Warren Ellis Officially Misses The Point

This is a short post.

I'm so angry I can't even see straight.

Maybe angry's not the right word. Sad, I guess. These are only comics, after all.

I just read Iron Man #5, allegedly by Warren Ellis.

I like a lot of what Warren Ellis does.

I absolutely hate what he's done with Iron Man.

And I should have seen it coming.

Ellis has changed the archetype. Iron Man is now essentially a cross between Mitch Hundred from Ex Machina and Colossus from the X-Men.

I am not kidding.

Tony Stark is now essentially a God of Technology.

Ellis has "merged" man and machine.

Which is what makes me sad, because here all along I thought Iron Man was all about the separation of man and machine, and our struggle to keep up with our own technology, and our increasing dependence on technology.

I just threw Iron Man #5 in the trash.

Congratulations, Marvel.

I can't even talk about this any more.

2005 2GBC Awards: Chris Edition: Best Ongoing Series

On with the ceremonies!

Today we're looking at the awards for Best Ongoing Series. My personal criteria for this award: At least 3 issues published this year. That's it. Just three. Which means that if a latecomer managed to put out a couple of great issues in an ongoing that hasn't been announced for cancellation next month then they're in the discussion whether it's fair or not. Of course, lateness in schedule will play a part too, so if you promised 10 issues and delivered 3 (I'm lookin' at YOU, Iron Man) then you're probably not in the running.

Also excluded are comics I didn't actually buy monthlies of, which is the ONLY reason 100 Bullets isn't in the mix. Once I get caught up on the 8 trades Jake loaned me, though, it'll get on the pull list.

Bronze: Marvel Team-Up

Yeah, you're guaranteed about 1 bad issue for every four. Sadly, that's a pretty darn good ratio these days. Robert Kirkman provides a funny, thoughtful look at the Marvel cast of characters, and while the series overall is still Spidey-centric, we've also seen Nova, Warbird, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Blade, the Ringmaster, Stilt Man, and Invincible. It has a few problems --- usually art-related --- but I don't think there's been an issue yet that hasn't made me laugh out loud at least once. Old-school Marvel, old-school fun.



Silver: Hawkman

I think that Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray's work on this comic has been nothing short of excellent. Yeah, I know Geoff Johns did the heavy lifting with the origin stuff. But quite frankly, I had lost all interest in Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders for many years until Palmiotti and Gray took over and embarked on their revitalization of the Hawks' rogues. What's more, they didn't forget that part of the reason Hawkman works is because he's so darn good with a mace. The Joe Bennett art was perfect for this book as well. The story, the characters and the plots made this my most looked-forward-to book every month. Too bad DC foisted Rann-Thanagar crap on these guys, as the Charley Parker story felt rushed at the end, and the title's getting renamed Hawkgirl after Infinite Crisis is over. (The good news: Walt Freakin' Simonson is on it. Let's see...I seem to recall him doing an OK job with another quasi-religious/spiritual/cosmic warrior hero...who was that?)Two thumbs up, and go get the "Farewell, My Enemy" trade when it comes out.


Gold: Fell

Gotta do it. I know there's only been three issues so far. I don't care. I've already raved about this Warren Ellis book on the blog, but I'm gonna do it again. Let's run down the benefits, once more for the newbies:

• It's a 16-page story that each month includes 6 pages of text from Warren Ellis on the process behind that month's issue
• It's a 16-page story that reads like a 32-pager
• It's $1.99
• It's done-in-one mysteries
• There's a creepy ominous air over the whole thing because of the city that serves as much, much more than a background
• Ben Templesmith is a much better artist on this than you might think. It works very well.
• The cast is small and interesting
• Just pick one up already

I would rather read the 3 issues of this book than the entire year-long run of any other comic, which is why it gets the gold from This Guy Buying Comics. I could not be more impressed at the value and the quality of this book.

Honorable mention: Elk's Run, Conan, Jonah Hex

2005 2GBC Awards: Best Ongoing Title

BRONZE MEDAL: Y: THE LAST MAN
Read the following list and tell me what elements of the past twelve issues of Y: The Last Man are not to like:

Monkeynapping, a ninja named Toyota, hot girl-on-girl action, pirates, a one-eyed spy, full frontal nudity, tabloid journalism, sea battle, aboriginal dreamtime, big explosions, a rogue Israeli commando, sibling rivalry, and the captain going down with the ship.

Put all that in the now-too-familiar post-apocalyptic world of women living out the end days, trying to fill the roles traditionally filled by men while trying to ignore the nagging fact there will be no future generations, and you have a book that is simultaneously dreary and humorous, hopeless and hopeful, and educational and action-packed.

2005 saw Yorick reunite with his sister and try to kill her. Ampersand, whose poop we'd learned in 2004 was responsible for Yorick surviving the plague that killed every other Y-chromosomed being on the planet, was stolen by a ninja. In pursuit of the monkey, Yorick and his crew wound up on a boat full of smugglers, who in turn had been infiltrated by a spy for the Australian navy, which in turn wound up torpedoing the ship and nearly killing them all. Yorick got himself photographed in the nude and 355 had to put her life on the line to get the film back.

All that aside, every issue manages to address some aspect of women's issues in a way that's so much more compelling than anything the Lifetime Network has ever done. Who knew Australia's was the only navy to allow women to serve on submarines? How would devoted Catholics react to the church's barring of women from the clergy if there suddenly were no men?

After a strong 2004, Y: The Last Man remains one of the best books published every month and with just 20 issues left on its run things look even more promising as things build to the big finish.

SILVER MEDAL: PUNISHER
As I indicated yesterday, I'm a little biased here because the Punisher is one of my favorite characters. A year ago, I would have named this book as the most disappointing of the year. The Marvel Knights era of the Frank's adventures ended weakly, low-lighted by the tale of the guy who lived under a pile of dead bodies in an abandoned part of the subway tunnels (I'm going to have to write a review of that one sometime soon). The move to MAX gave us a good opening story arc, but 2004 brought us a story of Irish gangs at war featuring Punisher as a supporting character and the "Mother Russia" arc which limped to a halfway decent conclusion.

Garth Ennis, it seemed, had run out of gas.

2005, however, began with the Punisher launching a nuclear missle at Moscow. That was followed by "Up is Down and Black is White" which I already named the best story arc in comics for the entire year. The year ended with "The Slavers," pitting the Punisher against Serbian gangsters running a sex slavery ring, while the NYPD acknowledges it can't catch the Punisher and instead runs a negative public relations campaign against him.

Punisher's resurrection and return to excellence make it not only the silver medalist, but also the Comeback Player of the Year.

GOLD MEDAL: FABLES
After years of set up, we finally got some payoff when in 2005 we finally met the Adversary face to face, but not before some fun action, fantasy, and a twist or two.

Boy Blue's return to the homelands in the "Return to the Homelands" story arc detailed yesterday was a mix of humor, swashbuckling, and subterfuge. In the end, Blue strikes a blow against the greatest conqueror in mythology, yet upon his return, he's treated as a criminal for having stolen the magic artifacts that made his journey and his victory possible.

Bill Willingham continues to craft strong stories that help us better understand the motivations, attitudes, and personalities of characters we've known since childhood. For example, Prince Charming is an arrogant prick, Beauty is kind of a bitch, Beast is a henpecked husband, and thanks to Fables we all understand why. Further, he develops background characters into three-dimensional main characters and continues to add new characters into the mix, such as Red Riding Hood, Sinbad, and the other Persian fables.

Fables proves to continually be a perfect balance of the wonderment of childhood storytelling and thoughtful, deep adult analysis.

Honorable Mention: Ex Machina; Conan; Invincible; Walking Dead

Random Thoughts From Chris

Culled from the transom of my mind, I now present random thoughts:

• I had forgotten how goosebump and awe-inspiring John Williams' theme to Superman was. I just listened to it again, and my goodness. If it's been awhile, listen to it ASAP. If that song doesn't just lift your spirits then you need your pulse checked.
• For some strange reason, I was casting the inevitable Green Lantern movie in my head. It's probably been done a thousand times on a thousand blogs, but for some reason I see Matthew McConaghey as Hal Jordan. I have no idea why. (And no, it's not the bourbon talking. Otherwise I would have also suggested Omar Epps as John Stewart, Luke Wilson as Kyle Rayner, and I'll leave the Guy Gardner casting up to Jake. OK, maybe it is the bourbon talking.)
• My beloved wife at my behest bought me Watchmen for Christmas. No, not the ridiculously priced $75 edition, the plain trade paperback. It's much better now than it was when I first read it, oh, maybe 15 years ago. It's not The Greatest Comic Work Ever, but it's good. And that's all you're getting out of me on that subject, because the last thing the comicsblogoweb needs is another 40,000 word article on Watchmen.
• I have a post in the works about Batman, but I'm not sure how to frame it. The basic idea is that in my experience the best Batman stories for maybe the last 10 years or so have all been Elseworlds stories and what that implies. More to come on this soon.
• The single best way to kill blog traffic is to have an entire week of awards that are only meaningful to yourself the first week of the new year. Har!
• All-Star Batman and Robin is such a grease fire of a comic.
• I'm reading Essential Tomb of Dracula. Holy Freakin' Shit, that's a good comic. I had no idea. I am stupid for never having read it.
• Speaking of which, Gene Colan is the single greatest comics artist ever, and no one --- I mean, NO ONE --- will ever convince me otherwise. You simply do not get linework and facial expressions like that anymore.
• I'm starting to feel inadequate as a blogger; there have been some pretty heavy topics going around the comicsblogoweb the last week or so, but the opinions have been so eloquent and defining that I feel I have nothing to contribute to the conversation. I'll stick to reviews and dissertations on why Batman's yellow oval on the chest looked a gajillion times better than the current boring black bat. (It does. It's #12 of the Immutable Laws of Comics, right up there with Law #28, The Phantom Stranger Is Inherently Cool.)

Back tomorrow!

2005 2GBC Awards: Chris Edition: Best Story Arc

First off, I didn't end up doing a "Best Cover" award, for the simple fact that not many covers really jumped out at me this year, which is a sign of one of two things: A) I've matured enough as a comic reader to not get sucked in by cool-ass covers and I stick to books I think are going to be good on the inside, or B) comic covers are getting more generic and repeated as time wears on.

I mean, don't get me wrong; there certainly were good covers, but nothing that I thought, "Wow, I should call that out as award-worthy". So there. Thanks to Jake for picking up the slack on that one.

Now we have the award for Best Story Arc, and quite frankly I've only got two. Which, again, is not to say "Story Arcs routinely sucked donkeys this year" (though many of them did), but it was hard to find a completed, well-told arc or plot that jumped out at me as being something special. A few examples:

• Geoff Johns got caught up in his own Infinite Crisis hubris and totally botched the "end" of the "Rogue War" storyline in Flash.
• New Avengers showed a glimmer of promise with "Breakout", but things went south immediately after the first three issues.
• Green Lantern's been more like an episodic TV show (and I read that somewhere else, so if you agree with it then whoever wrote it on another blog gets the credit for it, because it's so damn right) than a story.
• Despite my love for the character, I don't read any Batman monthlies, though on the surface the "Red Hood/Jason Todd" story seems ludicrous.

I could name a dozen more. I don't think decompression's the issue, either -- I'm perfectly willing to accept a 2-issue plot, but A) they're hard to find in comics I like and B) a lot of even those can be screwed up because they feel rushed.

Anyhoo.

So, I've basically got two awards for "Best Story Arc", and they're ones I feel good about; I would heartily recommend anyone picking them up in trades or back issues if they become available. And yes, I've already alluded to how much I like them on the blog, so if you don't want to hear it again, then see you tomorrow.

Silver Medal: Hawkman, #37-#45, "Farewell, My Enemy", Jimmy Palmiotti/Justin Gray

Think of this as the "Hush" of Hawkman, only much less sucky. This was a great arc both in terms of developing the heroes and the villains, and it's a damn shame that Infinite Crisis is going to essentially remove the Hawkman character for an undetermined period of time.

For those who already liked Hawkman, this arc featured a revitalization of some very cool villains, development of the Kendra-Carter relationship in a meaningful way, Hawkman-Style Ass Kicking With Various Medieval Implements (that should really be its own instructional video: Ass-Kicking The Hawkman Way), and closure (as close as we're going to get anyway) to the whole Fel Andar thread.

For those who never really got into the character, this arc has a bevy of villains you probably never heard of but are interesting and certainly aren't overexposed (come on, you've seen the Penguin in a million comics, but Lion-Mane? Lasso? Fadeaway Man?) , a touch of romance, insight into the whole Hawkman reincarnation schtick, a little help from the JSA, a nod to the Teen Titans, betrayal, mystery, and sweet, sweet revenge. And, of course, Ass-Kicking The Hawkman Way.

The best part is that Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray never let the whole mind-wiping/Infinite Crisis/JLA stuff into the story they're trying to tell. Thankfully, DC let them finish their story before mandating the Rann-Thanagar tie-in drek.

Well worth reading for some really swell superhero action that should appeal to damn near everyone.

Gold Medal: JLA:Classified, #10-#15, "New Maps of Hell", Warren Ellis

By far the best JLA story of the last two or three years, and made even better by the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with Infinite Crisis.

It's set during the Luthor presidency, which means the story has probably been sitting in a drawer for years, but that's OK. We've got Kyle Rayner, Flash, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter at the top of their game here, all written spectacularly in character and doing JLA-type stuff, e.g. fighting an alien cosmic threat. It's certainly nothing you haven't seen before: Big Menace Threatens Earth, JLA Figures Out What's Going On, Each JLA Member Survives Own Personal Test, JLA Bands Together To Defeat Cosmic Menace.

But, oh, my, how it works. The dialogue manages to be snappy, in character, and Ellisesque (and you don't hit that trifecta all that often). The action is just right. The team scenes complement the individual scene. The final solution requires everyone to work together. If that ain't JLA, I don't know what is.

Bonus points for appearances by Oracle, President Luthor, and Lois Lane. And none of them feel tacked on. This is really, really good stuff, and it REALLY makes me wish Ellis would get a crack at a New Avengers story ---- although I have a suspicion that Nextwave will fit the bill just right.

Add in a sterling job by Butch Guice, and you've got a damn fine storyarc that gets my gold medal this year.

2005 2GBC Awards: Best Story Arc

BRONZE MEDAL: EX MACHINA:
FACT V. FICTION
Serving on a jury has prompted many a great tale, from Twelve Angry Men to... um... boy, I guess I have to go with Jury Duty. Okay, maybe jury duty hasn't prompted that many epic stories afterall. Just slightly more than have been inspired by biodomes or cavemen thawed out in modern day Encino, I suppose, but I digress.

In this story arc, Mayor Mitch Hundred decides to set a good example for his constituents when he is called to do his civic duty and serve as a juror in a civil trial, a decision he'll come to regret. Meanwhile, a vigilante is attacking misdemeanor-level criminals with lethal means. Worse, it first appears to be someone mimicking the mayor's old alter-ego, The Great Machine. Later, the attacker confesses to being an android created by The Great Machine to carry on his legacy, which is news to Mitch.

While the police and Mitch's closest friends, Bradbury and Kremlin, track down the vigilante, Mitch is tied up himself when a psychotic Gulf War vet on the jury threatens to kill an old woman unless the mayor uses his machine-talking powers to fix whatever is wrong with his brain.

From the positively mundane setting of a jury room, Brian K. Vaughan crafts a tense stand-off and with the main character of the book tied up, he fleshes out the supporting cast as they try ambush, espionage, and strong-arming to track down The Automation.

While both the crazed vet and The Automation are taken down, both with unexpected twists leading to their downfalls, but the ending can hardly be dubbed a happy one.

SILVER MEDAL: FABLES:
RETURN TO THE HOMELANDS
One of the strengths of this series has been Bill Willingham's ability to juggle a huge cast. Part of why the cast is so large is because of another strength: Willingham's ability to make one-dimensional background characters into fully-developed stars.

"Return to the Homelands" does that with Boy Blue (of "come blow your horn" fame). Prior to "Homelands," he'd been an administrative assistant in Snow White's office with a talent for playing the trumpet, but by the end of this arc he was possibly the Fables' greatest warrior and spy. Armed with the vorpal blade and a magic cloak, he cuts a swath through the conquered lands of the Adversary.

An overall theme of Fables to this point was the hidden nature of the Fables in the mundy world, exiling those who could not blend into every day society to the farm upstate and requiring those who could to keep any special abilities or curses a secret. Since this story took place in the mythical lands, Willingham and penciller Mark Buckingham could cut loose with magic and monsters and action and intrigue, while never changing the feel of the book.

Of course, there are wrinkles along the way and when the Adversary appears defeated is when things get most dangerous for Blue. We get several loose ends tied up from the previous two and a half years while setting up plenty of other potential future conflicts.

In the interest of full disclosure, I correctly predicted the Adversary's true identity about 10-15 issues earlier, so the appeal of this arc to me may have just been the confirmation of my brilliance.

GOLD MEDAL: PUNISHER:
UP IS DOWN AND BLACK IS WHITE
I'll have more to say on this tomorrow (guess I'm kind of tipping my hand on where one of my top three Ongoing Series medals is going), but for now I'll just say the Punisher is one of my favorite characters.

This is the greatest Punisher story ever told.

Garth Ennis managed to shock us without it seeming like a desperate attempt to shock us just for the sake of shocking us (like... oh, say... an Irish terrorist whose face has to be held on by a masking tape). Instead, he took a simple story of a mobster who figures out how to get to the Punisher and escalated it from one shocking event to another, upping the ante every time, but to the benefit of rather than at the expense of the story.

Realizing people have been gunning for the Punisher for decades with no luck, Nicky Cavella decides he has to hit the Punisher in what little is left of his heart. Nicky and his boys dig up the Punisher's wife and kids' corpses and proceed to videotape themselves urinating on them.

This pushes Frank over the edge. If you stop to consider that since the late 70's, this guy has been blowing up drug dealers with claymores and mowing down gang members with anti-aircraft guns, it's hard to imagine there was much edge left for Frank Castle to go over, but Ennis found it. In the ensuing days, the Punisher starts hitting every gang in town, slaughtering them wholesale, but always leaving one person alive to deliver the message to the police to take the Castles out of the evidence locker and put them back in their graves or things will get worse.

Frank gets about as low as we've seen him and somehow, despite taking us there over and over, he manages to prompt the Waylon Jennings as the Dukes of Hazard balladeer-esque question, "Well, how is the Punisher going to get out of this one?"

In the end, the Punisher triumphs, a lot of people die, and Cavella suffers, but more than anything, the title gets a revitalization on the proof there are still new and better Punisher tales to tell.

Honorable Mention: Y: The Last Man: Girl on Girl; Conan: The God in the Bowl

2005 2GBC Awards: Best Cover

BRONZE MEDAL: FABLES #38
After 37 issues of hearing about the Adversary, the evil monster who'd methodically conquered land after land, enslaving and slaughtering whatever Fables could not escape to the mundy world, we finally see him.

And James Jean makes sure he lives up to the hype.

On the other hand, Blue Boy doesn't seem too intimidated does he? Somehow, Jean manages to simultaneously make you say, "Oh, hell yeah! Go, Blue!" and, "Oh, hell no! Stop, Blue!" It also set up the story within perfectly, preparing us for the inevitable showdown without giving away too much.

Interestingly, as nice as this is, the pencil layout is even nicer.

SILVER MEDAL: THE ULTIMATES 2 #5How much ass is this comic going to kick? Before you're even to page one, the answer is already "More than anything else I bought this month and everything I buy next month will have to try to live up to the standard set by this book."

Brian Hitch relies on the "Big Three" icons to bring about a very powerful image that makes it difficult to wait until you get home before you read it. Admit it, you tried to read it at stoplights, didn't you?

We have rain pouring down in buckets on Thor, so you know he's been using his power, but why? Well, apparently to kick the ever-living crap out of Iron Man and Captain America. Not that they went down easy, judging by Thor's appearance. This image is the cliche "If you think I look bad, you should see the other guys" on a superpowered scale.

GOLD MEDAL: Y: THE LAST MAN #35
Massimo Carnevale's covers for this series are always beautiful and almost never are depicted from the obvious perspective. Not to mention that more often than not they feature monkeys, which everyone knows increases the value of a cover by 27%.

Yorick's oceanic journey to Australia has hit a bit of a snag. Or rather a few torpedoes from a submarine. Either way, the desperation of this cover grabs me by the chest. The water is littered with flotsam (and perhaps jetsam as well) and at about chin level. The burning boat is providing the only light in the starless night. Yorick is reaching out, but is it to grasp hopefully for the wreckage or to make contact with the monkey (who, granted, is not Ampersand, but still represents his best friend and the reason he survived the plague)?

I wish I knew more about art so I could definitively say something about Carnevale's technique here and the rougher, sketchier style of this image versus some of the other three Y: The Last Man covers I was considering as candidates for this award (30, 31, and 40). #31 is probably the favorite among fans and is a more polished piece, but I preferred the action of this to the simplicity of that one. Since I'm commenting on the others, #30 grabbed my eye for the magnification of Ampersand's eye through the test tube and #40 is just a silly, fun cover that makes me think what a shame it is Michelangelo didn't put more flying monkeys and gigantic spermatazoa on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

I'd been doing seperate columns for the candidates, but this one came down to the wire. In fact, as I've been writing this I've shuffled these three covers about five times. That said, here's the one that didn't make the cut. Should any of the top three covers fail in its duties as a 2GBC medalist, however, this cover will assume those duties.
RUNNER UP: EX MACHINA #15It's the gecko.

The motorcycle, the pose of reclining Mitch Hundred, the tread and spokes on that front wheel, the goggles hanging beneath his arm, the signpost (not the sign, but the post). The attention to detail is practically "contact a board-certified psychologist"-level obsessive-compulsive. Consider also how different this cover was from the rest of Harris's Ex Machina covers, which tended to be layers of images with a cold, machine-like feel to them and a lighting that appeared to come from a console, and this cover stood out even moreso.

The gecko, however, is what put this cover in the running for best of the year. He's just cute.

Others worthy of Honorable Mention: The poster-like feel of Fables #39 makes an otherwise depressing cover pretty cool. Punisher #25 still has some "Photoshop filter" feel to it, but was distinctly different from Bradstreet's typical "Punisher holding gun with _____ in the background" format. Astonishing X-Men #12 is simple, but powerful. Invincible #22 brought back memories of the complications of teenage romance and showed even superpowers don't make things any easier.

2005 2GBC Awards: Chris Edition: Best Limited Series

I buys me a lot of limited series. I appreciate them. I know that if halfway through issue 3 things go south I can either not buy the next two (because they're rarely in continuity), or if I'm feeling generous, pick the last two up knowing that the horror will soon be over and still scoring points with the completist in me.

So yeah, I dig the limited series. My criteria for this was that most (over half) of the issues had to come out this year, and the series had to be finished by the end of this year. Which leaves out some truly excellent stuff, like Iron Ghost, Green Lantern Corps: Recharge and Madrox, which I believe finished up in February or thereabouts.

What did I dig the most this year? Read on, True Believers!



Bronze: Batman: Jekyll and Hyde

Yeah, it's a Batman-Two Face story. Yeah, they switched artists halfway through and tried to convince us it was yet another way to reinforce the theme of duality in the series. Yes, it pisses all over Harvey Dent's origin as a psycho by attempting to work in child abuse and murder. So what? Paul Jenkins did a great job. I thought it was a perfectly classic Batman stuff, with evocative art, a plot that moved, good action, and Batman AND Commissioner Gordon getting to do some detecting. It's got brutal fight scenes, just enough Alfred, the requisite flashback to Bruce's parents' murder, and Two-Face with a dastardly scheme. I dug this very much. It doesn't attempt to be shocking, add to canon, or say something revolutionary, and there's a lot of sense in that when you're the umpteenth Batman
mini-series to be published this year. It's got good dialogue, creepy villainy, and foreboding art, and Batman. I'm not sure why this seemed to be roundly loathed.



Silver: Ultimate Iron Man

Despite what you may think of my Iron Man homer-ness, I was not looking forward to this. In the Ultimates, UIM had pretty much been established as a one-note take on the stereotypical "Tony Stark: millionaire, drinker, arrogant prick" archetype. Imagine my surprise when Orson Scott Card busted out with an origin story! Turns out Young Ultimate Tony Stark is pretty compelling in his own right. We get to see a lot of how his father influenced his life, what motivates Tony to do the things he does, and how and why the young genius gravitated towards making the Ultimate Iron Man armor. In other words, Card
didn't just throw "character" a bone with a few pages of dialogue and get right to the Iron-bashing. We get an introduction to Ultimate Jim Rhodes, Ultimate Obadiah Stane, and they're just as well-fleshed out as Tony is here, without, you know, being composed entirely of neural cells like he is. I would not have predicted that I would enjoy an Iron Man miniseries without any real Iron Man action as much as I did; and that in itself should say a lot.

Added bonus: since it's in the Ultimate universe, I don't really have to quibble with Tony's revamped origin, Sad Monkey Armor, or other differences from canon. And yes, I know that technically this is the first installment of a proposed 3 minis following UIM, but that decision came halfway through the series, and this one stands as good comics in its own right.



Gold: Villains United

The other three Infinite Crisis minis ended up being either dirty pool (OMAC Project), pure shite (Rann-Thanagar War), or undermined by a stupid premise, like the Spectre becoming a horny moron (you can take the Spirit of Vengeance out of Hal Jordan, but you can't take the Hal Jordan out of the Spirit of Vengeance). Villains United managed to avoid all three of those conditions.

Gail Simone actually made me look forward to reading about Catman, Deadshot, Ragdoll, Parademon, Cheshire, and Scandal, and I would have hit you in the face if you'd predicted that before this series. But this mix of mission-oriented action, quiet character moments, intriguing plot, and soap-opera goings on is the direct descendant of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad, and if that ain't high praise I don't know what is. Good fun all around, a wide cast of the lesser lights of DC's dark side, and colorful, smart writing.

Well played, Simone. Well played. Twists, turns, and just fun, fun superher---erm, supervillainy. There's nothing not to like about this series.

Honorable Mention: Seven Soldiers: Zatanna, Green Lantern: Rebirth

I'm Not too Big to Admit I Was Wrong

Today is "Best Mini-Series" day, but if I were to name the three best miniseries I read this year, they would be the first two issues of Revelations, the first three issues of Supreme Power: Nighthawk, and I'd still be one shy finishing the trifecta. What I'm saying is I don't read many miniseries, so I'm really not in a position to rank any of them.

However, in keeping with the spirit of the day, I'll review the most recent miniseries I've read.

PUNISHER VS. BULLSEYE #2
A month ago, I declared Punisher vs. Bullseye a cookie cutter miniseries that spent far too much time setting up a joke about a crossdressing mob boss at the expense of featuring either the Punisher or Bullseye. I wrote it off and advised everyone, even the most ardent Punisher fans, to steer clear.

I take it back.

While my criticism of the first issue stands, number two manages to work in all the ways number one didn't. Frank Castle is still awaiting his first line of dialogue, but he's not relegated to just a brief mention in a flashback this time. Again, we don't get a huge knockdown, drag out between Punisher and Bullseye, but what we do get is actually better.

This issue starts with Bullseye surprising Nico, the crossdressing Uncle Fonzie's nephew, in the shower. He agrees to take on the half-million dollar hit on the Punisher, but demands half the money upfront. The none-too-bright Nico's only response is, "I know who you are. You're Bullseye."The punchline is a tribute to Steve Dillon's rendering of facial expressions.Bullseye figures the best way to find the Punisher is to find mobsters convening in groups. Knowing the Rossi family will be meeting at a restaurant, he determines where the Punisher will set up, then gets the drop on him. Later that evening, when the Punisher shows up and realizes someone's watching him, we're treated to the best Bullseye scene in recent memory.By the way, when he's cupping his hands to his mouth, he's saying "Duck!"

By the end, we're all set up for a big shootout between Punisher and Nico's goons and Bullseye. The book is a good mix of humor and violent undertone, a nice reminder of Garth Ennis's early Marvel Knights Punisher, before he could go over the top with disemboweling Serbian gangsters as a form of interrogation.

2005 2GBC Awards: Chris Edition: Best Interior Art

This award is for Best Interior Art. I feel an almost Riddler-esque need to explain my criteria here. In short, there are no criteria. I don't care if it was a one-shot, miniseries, ongoing, compilation, pamphlet, digest, or something scrawled on the inside of a napkin; if I bought it, you're in the running.

And I'm pretty generous where art is concerned. All I typically ask is that I can follow what's going on, and you don't make the characters look stupid. (Unless the character actually is stupid, and then it's OK.) So, I'm not the most discerning art critic out there, because really --- it doesn't take a whole lot to get a pass in my book.

Also, for the awards I tried to pick not only what I thought was the best interior art, but those artists that brought something different to the table other than your generic superhero stuff. You know what I'm talking about. I tried to look back through what I bought and ask myself, "Would I buy the original art to this?"



Bronze: Bryan Hitch, Ultimates 2

No surprise here. Hitch has consistently done fascinating work on this title, with ultra-detailed backgrounds and an amazing ability to capture emotions in facial expressions. And dude can draw fight scenes. Go back and check out the Ultimates vs. Thor fight and tell me you can't literally almost smell the charred flesh and burning hair.

The other great thing about Hitch's work here is that he never, ever lets the writing do the heavy lifting. I don't think I've seen a single panel that doesn't either add context to the dialogue or narration or communicate something better than a text bubble ever could, and you'd be surprised how uncommon that is on the whole.

Perhaps (like Mark Bagley) we're just starting to take him for granted, since he's been drawing this comic forever; but appreciation is deserved for one of the finest out there. Huzzah!

Silver: Simone Bianchi, Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight

This series was an absolute revelation for me, as I can't recall ever having seen Bianchi's work before. Color me knocked out. His work hits the sweet spot between being photorealistic and absolutely surreal (which is a pretty tough spot to hit), and there's something about it that just seems...I dunno...ethereal or dreamlike at times. But not too much. It's hard to put into words, but I thought it was just outstanding.

It was heavily inked, and that made the contrast between the dark linework and the often bright pastel coloring that much more unsettling, and that fits the Seven Soldiers series like a glove. Whether it was drawing epic battles between Camelot and the Sheeda or an interrogation scene between Shining Knight and the FBI, the ominous creepy tone was perfect. Not to mention the fact that Bianchi can do the gore thing pretty well, too. Great, great work, and as an added bonus he did a kickass job filling in on Green Lantern last week. Well done!

Gold: Lee Bermejo, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel

As disappointing as this series ultimately turned out to be, one thing still keeps me picking up the odd issue and flipping through it: Lee Bermejo's art. It's been described by myself and others as "tactile", and that's still the best way to describe it. Reading this, you feel like you can reach out and actually feel the rough seams in Superman's costume, the wetness of the lettuce in Bruce Wayne's salad, the plastic sheen of Hope's outfit, and the crags in Luthor's face.



I'm serious. It's that good. There's a dark mood over the whole thing, as you would expect from a Lex Luthor comic, and Superman is downright terrifying, drawn as Lex sees him --- an otherworldly superweapon that we should all be afraid of. Add to that a sinister, almost oily sheen that seems to coat Lex and his world, and you've got just fantastic mood-enhancing art. And though Azzarello's story gets muddled and incomprehensible towards the end, Bermejo does a bang-up job from start to finish.

Brilliant, brilliant stuff!

Honorable Mention: Tony Harris (Ex Machina), Ryan Sook (Seven Soldiers: Zatanna), Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets), Doug Braithwaite/Alex Ross (Justice)

2005 2GBC Awards: Best Interior Art

To give you an idea of how difficult this was for me to decide, 48 hours ago my gold medalist was out of the running. I narrowed the field to five titles, but could make a case for each to be the best and could make a case for why each should be left on the outside looking in.

BRONZE MEDAL: SUPREME POWER
Gary Frank has been one of my favorite artists since he drew Hulk back in the early 90's. His clean lines are the closest thing you're going to find to Brian Bolland and Frank doesn't limit himself to just covers. My biggest complaint with Frank throughout his career is that he never draws anything I care about. Over the years, I've read books like Kin and Midnight Nation and Supergirl--hell, I own three pages of original art from Midnight Nation--just to get my Frank fix and Supreme Power is the latest in the line of titles "I don't hate but probably wouldn't read if Frank wasn't drawing them."

Why can't somebody figure out that Frank is one of the greatest talents in comics, has been for more than a decade, and deserves a full year on some title of consequence? Why did we just get a tease of his take on the Avengers? Why not pair him with Peter David on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man? Can't he have more than a third of an Elseworlds to try drawing Batman?

The only reason this title isn't my gold medalist is because it features no characters I'm dying to see rendered. I love Frank's designs of the various heroes and the art is always breathtaking, but I'd much rather have see him drawing JLA than a JLA knockoff. When I read this book (like the others mentioned above), I feel the way I would if Albert Pujols were playing for a Double-A team in Kalamazoo, hitting .650 and averaging a home run and 7 RBI per game, or if Robert DeNiro were doing dinner theater in... well, Kalamazoo. It's exciting and a display of great skill, but ultimately forgetable because it's happening on too small a small stage.

SILVER MEDAL: ASTONISHING X-MEN
My complaint about Gary Frank is part of why John Cassaday gets the silver. Similar to the way Supreme Power's characters are reimagined Justice Leaguers, Planetary has given us several of Cassaday's re-takes on the Fantastic Four and Tarzan and Doc Savage and others, but--with the exception of the awesome Night on Earth one-shot that let us see Cassaday draw Batman of Bob Kane, the 70's, the TV show, Dark Knight Returns, and current continuity--we didn't see Cassaday drawing the iconic figures befitting a talent of his caliber.

Astonishing X-Men finally gave us a chance to regularly see one of comicdom's best pencillers take on Wolverine, Cyclops, and other mutant stars for 12 straight issues. 2004's issues, however, tended more toward the talky-talky, which is fine as long as Joss Wheadon is providing the script, but turned Cassaday into the proverbial Ferrari that never gets out of the neighborhood.

Was there ever really a proverb about a Ferrari that never got out of the neighborhood? I think it was in Leviticus...

Anyway, 2005's story arc of the Danger Room being sentient and trying to kill all the X-Men and Professor X gave Cassaday a chance to stretch his artistic muscles and he reacted like an animal getting out of a cage, making the most of every opportunity.

GOLD MEDAL: THE ULTIMATES 2
I cannot think of a single page of Brian Hitch's art where he put forth as little as 95% effort. Every frame is a full 100% whether it's an invasion of tens of thousands of enemy troops swarming New York or Cap talking to Wasp in the park.

More than anything, I notice his backgrounds. Never does he try to get away with the jagged line of a horizon behind a talking head nor telling the colorist to just put a streak of a color behind two characters standing face to face. If that talking head is outside, you'll know whether the tree behind him is a birch or an elm by the leaves. If those two characters are in a hallway, you'll know if the doors there open inward or outward by the placement of the hinges.

Hitch also handles a cast--sometimes literally--of thousands without ever making Tony Stark look like Hank Pym or Wasp look like Black Widow, a challenge some artists can't answer even when they draw a one-character book (John Byrne, I am looking in your direction).

Awards Week!

Howdy all, just warming up for this week here at 2 Guys Buying Comics, where we hand out the bronze, silver, and gold medals in several categories. The idea of this is to give you, dear reader, thoughts on things you might have missed, and perhaps more importantly, to stoke some discussion about things y'all might have liked too.

After about two minutes of discussing what we liked, we decided that it was going to be impossible to come up with a consensus on anything, and so we're all handing out our own awards. After five or six days of this, the blog should become darn near unreadable.

Two things to remember this week:

1) We're all judging on comics we actually bought. So if you've been reading for awhile now and don't like any of the comics I buy anyway, then this week will probably suck for you and you should take a break and come back next week. It should be noted, though, that Jake tends to buy completely different comics than either I or Randy.

2) I loves me some superheroes. I don't buy many non-superhero comics, regardless of whether you think I should or not. So if you're one of those people who look upon supercomics as childish trash, then again...there are probably better blogs out there for you this week. So be it.

So take this awards week for what it is: 2 (OK, OK, 3) guys going through the comics they bought this year and remembering what really stood out to them.

Back today with the first award!