a comic or two from 9/15

Monday I had to write TILTING, Tuesday I was pulling comics at the store' Wednesday I had to assemble a Cost-Plus armoire with instructions that evidentally were translated from english to korean and back again (5 hours, it took me to make the thing!)... and today Jeff got me the new comics and Fanboy Rampage early, so I was doing ONOMATOPOEIA.... So, that's why thing have been quiet around here lately.

Going to briefly touch on a few new comics:

HAWKMAN #32: Ray Palmer uses the phrases "blog" twice -- that term, of course, means "Web Log". I kinda have to beleive that the JLA isn't allowed to just post classified information at thier discretion to the web, right? otherwise a slightly-retro one-off story that was fun enough. OK

JLA SECRET FILES 2004: The lead story was pretty meh (Much easier to assign it to "comic logic" then to actually try to EXPLAIN Wally being in two places, with two costumes at the same time), but I quite liked Busiek and Garney's intro-to-the-next-arc story with the Crime Syndicate. Especially fun was seeing the "good guys" flashback. Let's call it a Good

STRANGE #1: JM Straczynski's long-promised Dr. Strange mini is here. Me, I kinda shrugged -- there's lots of trying to show Stephen as redeemable before the fact, and that he's basically a nice guy, and I'm not sure that I like that at all. Part of the power, to me, of the original origin was "This guy is a fucking jerk, but he is transformed by his situation" -- much like Han not shooting first, I think this does some harm to the character. THat's a fairly minor quibble though, otherwise, I thought this was OK.

MADROX #1: Liked this quite a bit -- somewhat of a "can go home again" feeling. Thumbs up, and a Good.

*sigh* out of time. PLus tonight I have a focus group thingy ($100 is $100), and Survivor and Apprentice are on, and, geez, it looks like City of Heroes released issue #2, so there goes a lot of my free time...

I'll try really hard to come back with more tomorrow, but no promises...

-B

A Few More 9/9 Books....

Hey, everyone. It's Jeff. I really didn't read very many books this week (and bought even less) so initially I figured I'd just skip over doing any reviews this week. But, since I'm tired of sitting here trying to brainstorm the funny for the next FBR, I figured this would be a fine way to productively procrastinate. So let's see:

ACTION COMICS #819: Huh. I was looking forward to this because Superman was fighting new villains called "Sodom & Gomorrah" and that seemed so dumb, I thought it would be fun. But, you know, now I wonder: is Chuck Austen, by assigning the names to a husband & wife supervillain team/straw man argument, putting forward the idea that marriage is so heinous a sin in the Lord's eyes, it should be destroyed? I mean, the rest of the issue is Lana Lang dismissing her marriage while also trying to dismiss Clark & Lois's, and as far as I can tell, this is the first superhero comic to be structured after Harold Pinter's Betrayal. All the sort of thing a college-boy like me would be smacking my lips over happily, right? Sadly, although I admire the ambitious cut of Austen's gib, he just doesn't have the skills to back it all up: if nothing else, using the actions of characters to underscore points when absolutely no nuance or consistency is shown in manipulating their actions does little to advance an argument. I hope Mr. Austen considers this point before going on to tackle Who's Afraid of Virginia Werewolf by Night? Eh.

BITE CLUB #6: Uhhhhh, and they're vampires why, again, exactly? I admit to skimmming this entire miniseries for the patented Chaykin Deviant Sex (and those startling Quitely covers) but did the vampirism serve any point, under than hide at the pitch stage what a big bag of cliches this was going to be? Awful.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #31: See, this is why Robert Kirkman is a fan favorite, and Ron Marz is Public Enemy No. 1: Kirkman kills the girlfriend in the kitchen, but at no point puts her in an appliance of any sort. See how it's done, Ron? That's classy. Awful.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #23: Previously my complaint about GC is I tend to love an issue until the last page when they bring in a Bat-villain. This ducks that by putting the villain up front in a tense shoot-out, and then uses that opening as a springboard for a story about internal politics, and is really great reading. It's part one and could easily go astray from here, but this was a high Very Good, and definitely worth picking up.

JSA #65: Although most of the set-up gets covered, I wish Johns had thrown in a bit of crucial info for new readers (and guys with no short-term recall, like me): what's the clock count-down again? That's the amount of time Hourman Sr. & Jr. have together again? Or the amount of time Hourman Sr. has when back in limbo with other people? And what happens again when that time runs out? Something bad, I'm sure, but....? Still, apart from all the head-scratching on my part, I thought this was Good.

OUTSIDERS #15: I know it's just me, but the digital color over pencils makes the art look like those foreign comics where snakes ooze out of people's mouths onto somebody's mutilated breast: seamy, that's the word I'm looking for. That, and Judd's affably cynical take on superhero books (The Fatal Five discussing which country to bomb with President Luthor's stolen secret nukes was fun) made this book read a little--I dunno? darker? stranger? potentially off-putting-er?--than I think is intended. But, y'know, I think it's just supposed to be fun superhero comics 2004, and for that it's OK.

POWERS #4: Since I disagreed a bit with the set-up from last issue, I can't buy into everything that's going on here. And, also, the whole "cop killer who decides not to kill the cop but give her up to somebody who really hates her shit" twist is not gritty crime drama, it's just pulp plot device #307, and managed to completely deflate whatever tension this situation might have. Loved that last two page splash, though: Using a chain of horizontal speech balloons to make the reader do a slow pan over the page? Awesome. OK.

THE PULSE #5: If this had come out a month after the last one, I think the storyline may have been fresh enough to have moved me (although I doubt it: wasn't close to a quarter of the arc spent on Ben Urich and Peter Parker doing the secret identity blabbity-blab?) but it didn't and so the triumph of the newsteam was represented rather than felt, making Jessica's following scene lack any counterpoint. Also, this issue (and to a certain extent, Millar's Spider-Man) shows how broken The Green Goblin concept is. I can understand that nobody likes the hoary chestnut of Norman conveniently getting amnesia whenever the fights over (I'm sure even Stan, if he had known the character was going to be around for thirty years, would have come up with something else) but this whole thing of him knowing who Peter is and not saying anything even when he's being outted and humiliated to the whole world is unbelievable. And back in the day, there would be a whole Spidey-angst moment where Spider-Man might even be tempted to save Norman so as to keep his own identity secret, but nope. I can understand not wanting to write that story again--I don't much want to read it, either--and I can understand not wanting to out Spider-Man's secret identity (and I heartily approve, believe me). But then, you've either got to drop the Green Goblin or come up with a new way to work it, because all it does is pretty much advertise how little sense it makes. Eh.

PUNISHER #11: Oy. Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Hibbs and I have argued about how to handle The Punisher before, and my take is that the writer has to tell tough crime/noir stories about people under the hammer and The Punisher as a symbol of all the evil shit they've done catching up to them, and now that it's here, I can barely stand to read it. It could well be that with the length between issues, the lack of any recap whatsoever, and the cast of roughly a dozen (and it seemed like last time I looked, it was maybe six), I'm just confused and tuning it out. Or it could be that it's a rushed, underdeveloped, garish mess. I really can't tell, but it can't be good news for sales either way, I think. I'm gonna plead No Rating but I think anyone picking this up just out of the blue would well think Awful.

SHE-HULK #7: Yeah, Slott and Bobillo are a really great team--I get the sense Bobillo has no idea who Beta Ray Bill is but is nevertheless thrilled to draw a horse wearing boxing gloves--and I liked this issue a lot. Between this and Promethea, that King Solomon gag should probably be retired, but then again, I laughed at both variations, so... Good.

SPIDER-MAN #6: I liked that page that reads like an outtake from Wanted, where Sandman calls bullshit on the Tigra pelt because his cousin is married to Boomerang and knows she's still alive...which brings the sum total of pages I've liked from Millar's work on this to: one. The rest of the time, I find it to be very badly-written with almost no attention paid from one page to the next: Things are so bad Mary Jane's packing heat! And she's so broke, Jameson's making fun of her! (But then, how could she afford the gun? Or, for that matter, why are she and Peter eating out? Is Millar so buried in Marvel Dollars he no longer understands the idea of "broke," except as melodramatic conceit?) I don't like the grim-n-gritty approach to Spidey in the first place, so I can't say I would like it here even if it was done well, but it's just not. Awful.

TEEN TITANS #15: Liked the payoff better than the set-up, with a positioning of Gar Logan beyond that whiny misfit undercurrent he's frequently given. I don't think anyone's learned the Sinestro lesson though: a hero and villain with the exact same powers fighting seems totally cool, but is in fact incredibly dull. At least Johns and Grummet try to give it a visual panache, and make it mercifully brief. A high OK.

TOYFARE #87: Is it just me, or was that the first time in maybe ever that Twisted Toyfare Theater wasn't funny? All the other usual dialogue balloons throughout were really good, but wow. Was itAssistant Editor's Month for TTT or something? Shocking.

Jesus, what was that--eleven million words? I was gonna gab about In The Shadow of No Towers, Persepolis 2 (and god help me, I can't turn off the fucking "Electric Boogaloo" meme) and/or the Essential Super-Villain Team-Up--which thanks to Namor being an anti-hero rather than a villian, fighting Dr. Doom more than he teams-up with him, and the book being completely inessential, should get some sort of award for the irony content of its title being a perfect 10.0--but instead, I think I'm gonna get something to eat.

Some Comics from 9/9

Let's bat a couple out before I have to run off to the store... IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS: You have to understand, I really don't want to give this a bad review. It feels tacky. It feels like being accusatory to a widow, or something. Everyone who actually lived through 9/11 (as opposed to people like me who watched it on TV), well, they get a certain amount of a Free Pass, y'know? And, fer christ's sake, this is Spiegelman -- he won a Pulitzer, man!

But, here's the thing --this book is really only 10 pages long.

Sure, each page of comics is 2 pages in the book, and there's all that lovely historical comic strip material in the back so the page count is actually larger, but there's only 10 pages of Spiegelman, and it's $19.95

Yes, sir, it has great reproduction (I was pretty transfixed by the pages with art's cigarette smoke wrapping the balloons), and, man alive, art's craft has gotten nothing but better -- these are wonderfully constructed pages, filled with poignancy and passion and grief and outrage. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is Excellent comics.

However, 10 pages for $20? Um, ouch.

I'm not taking a copy of this home, and I think that's the most telling "review" I can give.

PERSEPOLIS 2: While on the other hand, I think this may be something I buy a dozen copies of and give out for Christmas and birthdays to my mostly-not-comics-reading family.

This was astonishingly good, probably one of the most gripping pieces of auto-bio comics I've ever read, and, perhaps more importantly, taught me more about Iran and Iranian culture in the hour I spent with the book than I've learn from the media or education my entire life.

I'd quibble a little with the choice to kinda brush off the "And then I became a drug dealer" section (4 pages to "and then I stopped" and not one of them is anecdotal or relevatory to that, er, "plot point"), but that's probably just me being an asshole about it. Otherwise, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this was the best piece of comics I've read so far in 2004.

I absolutely can not recommend this enough -- if you want clear and clever insight, wit and wisdom, passion and change, and wonderful human storytelling, this is the book for you. I can tell you, without reading another comic this week, this is absolutely the Pick of the Week (and probably the year), and I urge you to get your LCS to get a copy for you. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a more heroic man in a comic than Marjane's Father.

Hey, and it's $17.95 for 187 story pages, too! So you get value as well.

(Also, while the background of it can help, it reads pretty well alone without having to buy the first volume, just so you know. The first volume was also terrific, but this one was superb)

And, after those two, I'd feel REALLY FUCKING DUMB if I started writing about CAPTAIN AMERICA or JLA or some breezy superhero book, so more later....

-B

More Comics from 9/1

THE NAIL #3: Gore gore and more gore, there was enough of a nugget of a plot to at least make you feel not cheated. As Don Thompson used to say "If this is the kind of thing you like, you'll like this." Eh. UNCANNY X-MEN #448: No Alan Davis, and, let's face it, you really want to see Alan Davis drawing MurderWorld. I do, indeed, hope Sage took that bullet in the face. I mean, MurderWorld should probably be renamed LightWoundingWorld otherwise. We demand truth in advertising! Oh, and doesn't "The X-Men meet the Queen of England" seem very very wrong somehow? Eh.

TALES FROM THE BULLY PULPIT #1: I was going to say something about how strange and weird it was to have a comic starring Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Alva Edison stealing a time machine and fighting Nazi Martians in Argentina, and then I realized I just read a comic about the X-Men being put in a pinball machine to rescue the Queen of England. I liked this better, but the grade is largely for the At-LEAST-a-Buck-Too-Much cover price. $4.95 woulda gotten this a "Good". Eh.

ELEKTRA THE HAND #1: As you well know, we've often discussed Elektra here at the Savage Critic, and how I find most comics starring her to suck because either she's The Perfect Killer (and there's no drama) or She's Having Issues (which undercuts the very premise of Sexy Ninja Death). Cleverly, they've found a third path here -- Don't Have Elektra Appear in the Flashbacks, and Have 19 Pages of Those. So, in other words, this is really a "The Hand" comic rather than an Elektra one. I liked it OK.

SCRATCH #4: Running and Shouting and All Middle and I say Eh.

MONOLITH #8: You'd think that the Obligitory Batman Appearance would make this a more compelling comic, but you'd be wrong. Only bits I liked were the AIDS test bits, and, huh, did they even say the acronym's name once? Eh.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE #3: I'm sure it's possible to have a more confusing comic starring less appealing characters with the few interesting ones being written largely out of character called a "Justice League" comic -- but I wouldn't want to read that one, either. This was Awful, and is my vote for the Book of the Weak.

BATMAN CATWOMAN TRAIL OF THE GUN #2: Preach preach preach. Nice art, but everything I said in the review of #1 stands. Awful.

Y THE LAST MAN #26: I suppose this was neccesary, but it felt like watching the Deleted Scenes feature on a DVD. OK.

SWAMP THING #7: Decent script by Pfiefer, nice art by Richard Corben (!), but I walked away from it only caring a little, and mostly wondering what Swampy's status is right now. No questions are really answered or even addresed. OK.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: BARBARA'S ZOMBIE CHRONICLES #1: Throwing this in just to see if I can do a review shorter than the title, but it looks like I've already blown that. Ah well. There are Zombies, there is gore, there is an attempt to expand upon Romero's mythos somewhat, but like THE NAIL, above, this really isn't my thing -- I prefer WALKING DEAD. Eh.

SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #5: Story #1 has no Spidey, and I think everyone acts like an asshat. Story #2 has Spidey, but he acts like an asshat too. This book serves no good function, Awful.

STREET ANGEL #3: Big leap forward in the art this issue -- this is purely terrific stuff. I'm less excited by the story -- several of the beats seemed forced, But I can give this a very low Good.

SYLVIA FAUST #1: Terrific art, passable story. OK.

UNITED FRONT #1: Anthologies are hard beasts, as I've said 1000 times before people (meaning me) judge them by the least interesting stuff in the issue, and there's a lot of uninteresting marginal material in here -- stories that meander and go nowhere. At least at 3 pages each most of them were over quickly enough. What drives me bonkers is the editorial where the publisher seems to suggest that the market is nothing but superheroes -- when all you have to do is look at a good shop and see that's far far from the truth. Just because some genres are underserved doesn;t mean those genres aren't supported -- it just means you have to be really good to penetrate the market. And most of this material is far from good. About the only piece I thought showed promise was "Yam" by Corey Barsa... and even that didn't really tell a complete thought or have a point. So, sorry, Awful.

PERIPHERY #1: Another anthology, this one with a couple of Steve Niles stories in it. Slight ones, at that (I mean, I thought that first one was dramatically undercut by the "...and by the way, they're VAMPIRES!" Scary!" ending) Still the general level of professionalism was higher, so I'll go Eh here.

RETURN OF THE ELEPHANT: MOTHER COME HOME's Paul Hornschemeier (too many E's!) did this, and it's super creepy in its banality. I did a great big "Ugh! Nasty!" at the end, which I'm supposed to, but this isn't material I really want to think about, damn it. Still, from acraft perspective: Good.

Back tomorrow, I think, with the Books for 9/1

-B

9/1 Comics

OK, Ben's asleep, Tzipora's out of the house, I have some time to review, let's do it GAMBIT #1: Perfectly adequate. I don't see the point of this book, however -- there's not enough here to make it worth $3, and, honestly, I don't care for Remy as a character. Anyway, isn't he blind now? Eh.

JUBILEE #1: Also adequate. I got the sense that Kirkman's never really hung around teenage girls (which is, probably, a good thing for a comics writer, but I digress...) -- I think that this, like the similiarly "all ages" MARY JANE isn't going to 1) find it's nominal target audience 2) be well recieved by them even if they found it. Eh.

BIRDS OF PREY #73: Aw, didn't like this wrap up -- the "big fight" was boringly staged, and Babs' dilemma was sub-plotted rather than really resolved. A long way to go for so little. Eh.

ALPHA FLIGHT #7: More involving than the first six, and I'm marginally more interested in the characters now that we get to know them -- but still pretty much a "so what?" book. Can;t see this getting to #13, to be honest. Eh.

HARD TIME #8: The series started slow, but it's become one of my most favorite titles -- strong emotions, clever situations, but if the audience doesn't double PDQ, this book is probably toast. I still ahve a handful of things to read this week, but, considering where I am now, this gets the PICK OF THE WEEK status. Excellent, and I really urge you to sample it now that it has found some "legs" -- this is Gerber as a mature voice, dealing with material he clearly cares about.

KINETIC #6: Also has found it's groove, and is super-strong material. I also urge you to give this a sample because I suddenly think that "Focus" (Now that they've cut the weaker books) is maybe the best "line" in comics at the moment. Excellent.

BULLSEYE GREATEST HITS #1: I gotta give it thumbs up for the yummy Steve Dillon art, but it's kinda a watered-down "Silence of the Lambs". Despite the dramatic need, there's NO WAY the warden would have made that announcement at the end of the book. A strong OK.

MAJESTIC #2: Not nearly as fun and clever as #1, there's still a lot of charm here, and this "Out SUpermans" the current Super-books. A low Good.

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED: Dude, last week's episode had B'wana Beast. B'WANA BEAST, man! Did you EVER think you'd live long enough to see an animated B'Wana Beast? This was a perfectly adequate comic for the kiddies, though Adam should be punched for laboring the pun on page 21. OK.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #65: Bendis pulls a "Breakfast Club" and mostly works around my doubts of the last 2 issues. Where were the teachers, though? I was thrown way out of the groove by "I'm sorry, Gwen" followed six inches away by "Next Issue: Wolverine" *sigh* (Which wasn't aided by the badly placed "verb" ad) Still, besides that awkward beat, let's go with a Very Good.

FIRESTORM #5: Warming to it, yes -- I hadn't expected so much "Wrong thing, right reasons", and that brings a positive moral ambiguity that we don't get enough of in modern comics. Between this and BLOODHOUND, Dan Jolley has suddenly become one to keep an eye on. Good.

DETECTIVE #798: "War Games" Act 2, part 1 -- too talky to begin with, and I'm not sure I buy ANY of Batman's actions (Starting with the Spidey routine -- where's the batmobile? going through the asking a man he doesn't know for the reigns of power) and the last three pages? That seems way way too fast to me. Not bad at all, but not very compelling work.... OK.

INVINCIBLE #15: Great little self-continaed issue. Top notch stuff, and steadily getting better. Very Good.

AVENGURES #501: A little tiny bit of action (mostly leftover from last issue though, and not advancing a thing) and lots and lots and lots of really dull and what seems to me to be out-of-character talking. "Bendis-y" dialogue works GREAT sometimes (I think he captured some real raw feelings in this weeks ULTIMATE SPIDEY), but other times it's just so much leaden crap -- I didn't buy ANY of the blabbity blab here. This issue is pretty much the textbook defintion of "all middle" and I have to give it a pretty resounding thumbs down. Awful.

MILKMAN MURDERS #3: I thought 1 & 2 built some great mood, and I'll hold hope that #4 goes someplace new, but this issue was just Hack and Slash. Foo. Awful.

EXILES #52: Slight but amusing. OK.

THOR #84: God I hate hate hate that font -- and an entire issue of it really made this hard to read. But... well and cleverly plotted, and I'm looking forward to the resolution. A weak Good.

CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON #7: Priest drives me nutz sometimes -- there's not a comic he writes that doesn;t have at least one really gripping and clever scene, yet his plots are.. oh, I don't know? Too complex? Not focused enough? something. This "Super sailor" thing isn't a horrible idea, but it's going on way way too long. I'm glad the Wanda thing was dismissed though (Still wouldn't it be nice to see her written that richly in general?). I liked it, it bored me, both at the same time. A confused OK.

HULK / THING HARD KNOCKS #1: Two guys walk into a bar (cafe) and that's IT. Nothing happens, doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and would get a big thumbs down except for two things: 1) Jae Lee's scrummy art and 2) Bruce Jones writing Ben Grimm like he was torn from the pages of TWISTED TOYFARE THEATRE. Which is, let's admit it, how Ben would probably really be. I got some serious laffs outta this, and, well not $3.50's worth, but enough to say OK.

Alright, that's all I've read, back later with more (this time I PROMISE to finish out the week's comics -- I only have like 10 left)

-B

From Frying Pan to Fire to San Francisco High-Rise

Jeff, here. I thought I'd get a chance to get a few reviews in since nobody shows up to an non-air conditioned law firm in San Francisco on a Saturday just to hand out niggling jobs to their harried work staff, right? (The answer to that rhetorical question, by the way, is "wrong.") Sadly, I played the "I don't have the comics with me, so I apologize for any inaccuracies and undue crankiness" card last week, so I can't really do it this time. So I'm going to blame everything on the heat. Yes, that's it. The heat.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #511: Astonishing to me how much I can like the Peter/Mary Jane stuff and really, really hate everything else. Spidey vs. Gwen's mutant babies (or...are they?) seems like a thoroughly awful idea, but I also thought the spider-totem idea sounded pretty ass-like and JMS pulled that one out okay. The problem, I think, is execution: spider-totem was touched on, returned to, and fleshed out over the course of a few years. This reads like a year's worth of All My Children (pun kinda intended) punched into less than a hundred pages. Awful.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #4: I did a great job dodging spoilers on this book all week on the web, then got caught by Hibbs' entry from Thursday, dammit. Rather than play it forward, lemme just say this book is getting better issue by issue and Whedon's placing of Kitty at the center of his arc gets more and more brilliant with each new chapter. Very Good.

DOOM PATROL #3: One of the funnier comic books I've ever read. The enormous monstrous thingeroos come out of an arctic lake and die immediately, so Robotman and Rita burrow down miles into the frozen ice "to deal with this incredible threat!" What threat? That global warming is going to be increased by the number of dead monster bodies lying around? But since you can't get your heroes in jeopardy pushing ooky leviathan corpses around... Awful.

DC COMICS PRESENTS JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1: One "Julie saves the day story" that's actually more like a kind of disturbing "Julie kills the Justice League" story, and one non-Julie saves the day story. I, of course, am inclined by now to prefer the non-Julie story and thought Wolfman's twist to justify the cover concept was kinda clever. Eh.

FLASH #213: I was pretty happy to see the return of The Turtle and the post-speed force take on him (that the Turtle didn't snort any blow or murder his own parents helped too) although the resolution if I read it right was pretty lame: "Now that The Turtle is so confused he can't slow down time, I'll throw him in jail and let the police figure out what to do with him!" (Or something to that effect.) Which should probably make this just OK but everything else was done well, Johns has at least three other subplots going, and I'm interested in reading next issue so Good.

GREEN LANTERN #180: I didn't hate this, just kinda saddened by the waste of it all. Marz takes the time and skill to write Kyle's mom as an interesting character just so he can off her in a particularly disturbing way? At this rate, DC will have no supporting characters left by 2006! And I'm sorry, I'm as big a paranoid conspiracy nut as anyone around, but this was the second DC book of the week where the enemy serves "not the guys running government, but the guys running the guys running government." At the store, Hibbs suggested it's the spirit of the times, but I think it's just hackneyed and lazy: expedient plot motivators you don't even have to design a cool costume for. Time to retire the cliche. Eh.

INCREDIBLE HULK #76: I didn't think I could hate this more than last issue but I was wrong (at least #75 had great art by Darick Robertson). Can't believe Jones had the nerve to reiterate The Leader's "No, the only way to brainwash the Hulk was to expose him to thirty-plus issues of nonsensical and confusing comic book writing!" explanation. One of the more impressive crash and burns of serial comic book writing in modern memory, I think. Awful.

THE MOTH #4: Actually came out last week, but I forgot to review it and it deserves better. It was actually the first issue of this I truly enjoyed, and Rude's work was just astonishingly on it, filled with humor and a stunning sense of movement and design. Hunt this up on last week's shelves and get it. Very Good.

PROMETHEA #31: The first of the Armageddon issues that really worked for me (I'm assuming the rest will really carry some punch collected as a trade), this was like getting a quick jolt of a good drug, and affected me more than almost any of Moore's other "imagination is the only thing we can truly say is real" tropes. Not a good jumping on point for new readers, but in all other ways Excellent work.

RICHARD DRAGON #4: Yeah, is this really working for anybody? If the art was by, I dunno, Dixon's collaborator on Way of the Rat I'd be into this but it's currently just weightless and unaffecting. And the continuity snarl, which I normally don't sweat, is still driving me nuts. Not quite Awful but I can't just give it an Eh.

SUPERMAN #208: Well, I'm glad the JLA isn't going to do anything to find the millions of missing people just so Superman can prove what he's got to prove. That shows a laudable sense of priorities. Eh.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #10: Ah, the frustrations of reviewing decompression: do I praise the characterization or bash the padding? Because come on, this did not need a whole issue. I'm also still less than enthralled with the modern Dr. Doom. Ten years ago this would have read: "There! Now, in exchange for my protection, you must carry these pogs in the name of...Doom!" But you know, good dialogue, good characterization of the Four so, whatever. OK, I guess.

WE3 #1: Wow. Interesting how Morrison and Quietly take a minimally worded comic and stretch out the reading with such dynamic shifts in rhythm. My only problem is (and I openly admit to sounding stupid) I didn't get a strong enough sense of characterization from the dog, cat or bunny. Are we supposed to automatically empathize with them because they're cute animals? Cause they're actually a bit too creepy at this point for that. Very Good stuff, though.

WORLDWATCH #1: Hibbs wants me to review this just so I can explain why I hate the Olympics. I refuse to take his bait and put you through it (in part, because it makes me sound like an raving insensible asshole) so let's just leave the review at: You may like titties, and you may like superheroes, and you may like 'teh pr0n,' and so you may think you will like this book. You are wrong. Unless you believe that sex is not exciting unless it makes you regret being part of the human race, you will not like this. Nice art, though. Awful.

X-STATIX #26: The best issues of Milligan and Allred's series mixed snark and genuine emotion in equal measure. So I'm glad the last issue did just that. Very Good.

Some Comics from 8/25

Less time than I thought this week -- too much message boarding (How does any of those incessant Newsarama posters get ANYthing done in real life? Do they just post on their boss' dime all day or something? Are they all pale 13 year olds who never see the sun? Someone should do a study!), plus, last night our Television went out so we need to go buy a new one this morning. So just a quick couple of reviews so, y'know, they don't take my blogging rights away from me. By the way, do I need to insert possible spoiler warnings for the below? Or is it just assumed?

WORLDWATCH #1: If I know you well enough, you have really been missing a superhero comic with dialogue like Hero: "Face down -- Hands behind your back, jerkoff!" Villian: "Who you calling jerkoff, you bondage whore!!". I know you've wanted a comic where female characters lounge around with their shirts off on almost every page, where there's frank talk about sex, about superhero webcams, where one hero jerks off watching another pair couple. Yes, you've wanted this forever... but where could you get it? Where and from who? Must your life be an endless torment of despair and anguish as you can't find this certain one thing you've always secretly wanted?

Well, suffer no more, true believer! Chuck Austen feels your special pain, and he's here with the solution to all of your dark shameful little desires. Yes, it's WORLDWATCH -- the "mature" take on superheroes! Move over Watchmen! Step aside Authority! THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT!

Come on, where else are you going to hear an exchange like this: Male hero: "So, technically.... you're DEAD?" Female Hero: "Not in bed." YESSSSSSSSSSS! Excuse me, something has come up... if you know what I mean!

Awful.

ULTIMATE ELEKTRA #1: Meanwhile, on the other side of things, here's a comic predicated on gripping money laundering action! Oooh, hot! Elektra doesn't actually appear in this comic, at least not in the costumed sense. Which is fine with me, but this is probably too cerebral for anyone who normally follows the character. A strong OK.

CATWOMAN #34: Big reveal this issue -- turns out everything is Steph's fault. Which, when I first read it, made me go "Wow, that's clever!", but then I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that it was, instead, rather stupid. She's not be trained enough to know who Matches Malone is, yet she can take a secret destroy all crime from the bat-computer? And, wait, Batman doesn't recognize HIS OWN PLAN? Does that seem likely? And anyway, Matches is meant to take over the gangs? I thought the whole POINT of Matches was that he was an anonymous low level hood? Not boss-level, to be sure! I liked it as I was reading it, and I thought the coloring looked terrific on the nice art.... but I can't do more than a strong OK, because the end is so implausible.

BATMAN #631: I don't know that I really buy "Gasp! Batman murdered that girl!" at all -- this isn't Year One, after all. Plus, what's up with those panels where it looks like Batgirl (I think) snapping those guys necks? *shrug* A low OK.

GREEN LANTERN #180: First we get Dead Girlfriend in the Fridge, now we get Dead Mom in the Oven. Blech! Hey, and did anyone notice how Kyle (accidentally, I'm sure!) ended up desecrating his mother's warm corpse by blowing up the entire house? Neat! More one dimensional than the pages it is printed on. Awful.

SUPERMAN #208: A marginal improvement over the first few parts, but I still don't really get what's going on with "the vanishing" or what it means, or what caused it, or why I should care, or, really, anything. But, hey, at least the League looks cool. Eh.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #511: Oddly enough, JMS and Deodato doing MARY JANE'S THEATER ADVENTURES might be an interesting comic -- it held my interest more than the "You got your DNA in my peanut butter!" a-story, that's for sure. OK.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #4: While I'm a little bugged that Piotr is back (OR IS HE?!?!?!), mostly because he was the first of the "No, 'dead' MEANS 'dead'!" characters of the Quesada regieme, Kitty's reaction to same was super precious and makes up for a world of annoyances. I liked it: Very Good.

OK, out of time -- more later tonight, I hope.....

-B

Some Reviews of 8/18 Books from Jeff

I am Lamor, the Sub-Pariner (or is that pronounced "Sub-Pare-iner"?) Not only did I leave CE early yesterday, but I left without my books. So the only reviews I've got are a few quick "gotta-reads" and a couple of books I don't buy but check in on. And I have to do it all from memory. Better than nothing? I guess we'll see, won't we? ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #631: Rucka tries to serve two masters here, and I don't think it works. If you're doing gritty military sniper action, why does one round of the sniper rifle explode and take out the whole troop? If you're doing slug-'em-up superhero action, why does it all seem to take place in a small little room with all the drama of three people playing hearts? Five issues in, this, Action and Superman all seem like pretty big messes: they actually make me nostalgic for the days when Loeb would craft over the top widescreen messes jam-packed with nonsensical plot twists and padded with captions pulled from famous speeches and penis spam emails. Sad but true. Eh.

BIRDS OF PREY #72: Don't like this storyline at all, I'm afraid, in part because it spins on the idea of a super-charismatic type able to form a cult around his wacky fanboy beliefs. Maybe there's some subversive commentary I'm missing there, but it takes a larger supension of disbelief than I can maintain (if there's one thing people who read superhero comics know, it's the impossibility of using their wacky fanboy beliefs to convince people to read comics, much less dress up like superheroes and boy sidekicks and blow themselves up). And also, the creepy Oracle cyber-identity-rape thing? Not so much. Awful.

BONEYARD #15: I saw where Nessie's "origin" story was going a mile away, and I didn't think I was going to like it--but somehow it worked for me. I'm a soft touch, but Moore's fondness for his characters keeps both the comedy and the melodrama from reading flat, and that's a pretty rare achievement these days. Good.

COSMIC GUARD #1: Proof that Pavlovianism works: give me a dozen mind-blowing comics to read when I'm twelve, and I'll follow your career for the rest of my life. And although I'm not sure Starlin can draw characters any more unless their heads are either ginormous and/or made of stone, I thought this looked damn gorgeous. The dialogue, though, is a mess, utterly wooden in the space scenes("It was a honor to be your consort, Dark Paladin!" is the sort of thing one shouldn't read unless one's cybering in a MUD somewhere) and utterly unconvincing in the Earth scenes (does anyone under the age of fifty use the word "dopers" any more?) But am I really surprised? Will it keep me from picking up future issues? No, and no. OK.

DAREDEVIL #63: On the one hand, I'm glad Bendis didn't pull a "Zeiss" and make his hitman the most insanely super-competent mega-assassin to ever kill eleven people with a pencil eraser and a library card. On the other hand, the fact that Quinn was just a well-prepared shlub who beats two superheroes to a standstill with some guns and a SHIELD dog whistle pretty much sucks--and by "sucks," I mean "makes very little sense following a storyline where Murdock single-handedly beats eleven million yakuza on a rainy street." Surprisingly awful.

DC COMICS PRESENTS ATOM #1: Hibbs presented a very unique defense for this issue: "No, it's okay that these stories sucked because the original silver-age Atom stories sucked!" Yeah okay, but still. Not only have we seen enough "Julie saves the day" stories by now (and I have even more appreciation for Morrison's Adam Strange story now, where Julie saves the day without even appearing) but these were really, really dull "Julie saves the day" stories. (It says something about today's superhero books that the idea of a character chained to a live hand grenade has absolutely no inherent drama in and of itself anymore.) I'm sure if this had come at the start of the tribute, I would have liked it more. Eh.

EXILES #51: I read this because of Hibbs' good review and liked it. The ending really saves the whole thing because up until that point I thought they were doing a pretty lame job with a pretty cool premise. I hope this team gets a chance to polish its chops on this title, because I think they've got chops to polish. Good.

GOON #8: I was pretty put-off by the opening, cheap laugh though it was (Wait, I'm supposed to feel like an idiot for enjoying and praising this book? Mission accomplished!) but maybe Powell was overcompensating for a story that lets the laughs taper off and allows a sense of melancholy to set in. Another great issue. Very Good.

HAWKMAN #31: Even though the supervillain is a big ball of snot, I liked this. I had built up some empathy for Domina so the payoff worked, the reference to St. Roche mostly worked (I like that Hawkman ends up fighting a guy inspired by one of his possible past incarnations) and that Ryan Sook art still really works. Not gonna blow anyone's mind, but as yr. basic superhero comic: Good.

MANHUNTER #1: Nice art, but too many "I don't buys." Jury lets Copperhead off because of rogue DNA? I don't buy that. Storage locker of supervillain evidence doesn't have an actual guy checking stuff in and out? I don't buy that. Attorney picks up electro-staff and is instantly able to fight and leap and run around in sewers? Sorry, I don't buy that either. Awful.

PLASTIC MAN #9: Good laughs had at the expense of time travel stories: nothing's funnier than having your two heroes quarrel over shooting Abe Lincoln. I think maybe I didn't finish reading it, because I can't remember the ending. Why'd they have to do all that again? Good.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #64: Wow, I thought Bendis dropped the ball on this, too. Can you imagine watching, say, The Empire Strikes Back, and just as Luke and Darth Vader draw lightsabers, you suddenly cut to Luke sitting on the bed of the med-ship telling Leia, "It was awful, I was doing everything I could to stay alive, and then Vader told me: he was my father." Oh sure, you get flashbacks to all the cool fights and everything but wouldn't that feel, I dunno, a little disruptive to the narrative tension, maybe? Why on Earth Bendis pulled such a narrative blunder I have no idea, unless he looked at his checklist of plot points and realized he had to hit them all in eight pages. He sacrificed one of his best characters for this? Shockingly, shockingly Awful.

X-MEN #160: Probably the best Austen X-issue I've read. Lots of cool fights, the almost-friendly bickering between Iceman and Juggernaut worked (if you can accept Austen's take on Iceman), some really nice visuals from Larroca (Hibbs didn't like that sideways double-page splash but I thought it was just really cool, and something about Polaris dissembling that rifle with her mind just looked really detailed and satisfying at a basic fanboy level--ditto the retrieval of Xorn's mask) with some nice emotional beats. Wish the stuff previous to this had been so sturdy. A very high OK.

Comics of 8/18

Yah, like Lester I was thinking about how good ol internet time made it seem like we never posted. What's up with that? I've mostly been trying to unravel a Mystery in the UK the last few days -- I think I have most of it sussed, but I'm still not sure HOW to solve the crime, as it were.

I also finished TILTING (appears on Friday on Newsarama), and have started making notes on Deppey's NuMarvel essay in the new Journal. Damn, that's one fine issue.

Plus I dinged 30 in CoH, and am now playing the How Long Until I Get Bored and Quit game (I doubt I'll make it to 35, is all I can say, but we'll see -- really this is all a function of running out of Content and having to Street Hunt too much at the higher levels)

I'm going for my bi-annual haircut in a bit, so let's see how many comics we can bat away first....

For some reason, IE won't connect to blogger this morning, so I'm doing this via Opera, which means I don't have easy itals. I probably should learn the HTML commands, but I'm lazy and I'll just use CAPS for stress and titles this post instead.

(After the fact note: When I went to publish this, Opera wasn't working with Blogger either, so you won't see this until I get home tonight)

SIMPSONS #97: Usually I'm the big singer of Ian Boothby's praises -- he's usually the Funniest Writer in Comics, or something -- but I thought this issue was kinda flat and boring. The feud thing really didn't work -- maybe because it's too much of a staple cliche. Anyway, EH.

SHE-HULK #6: Some cute and decent Ha Ha in a few places, but the art, being mostly done in Marvel House Style reduces the humor for me by tons. OK.

NEW INVADERS #1: Too much time spent introducing the characters in far too obvious ways -- the whole first half of the issue passes in a weightless plot free fall. The second half is also mostly plotless as the flat characters revolve around each other in obvious ways. It's not BAD or anything, but, unless you really have a hankering for these characters it is pretty lifeless. For $3, I have to go for a high AWFUL.

TERRA OBSCURA V2 #1: I don't really care about any of these characters, and I'm surprised anyone else did enough for there to be a second go round here. Having said that, I like this much better than V1, and I'll go with a strong OK.

BIRDS OF PREY #72: You might have noticed most of this week's DCs came bagged with a SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW CD. Well, you didn't notice this at CE, at least -- I unbagged all of the copies (that was a fun 45 minutes I'll never get back). One the other hand, this means a certain VP gets a fun package on his desk on MOnday morning. They filled up an entire DoubleWide Diamond box, sheesh! Anyway, this comic mostly felt like marking time to me -- not much happens except setting things in motion for NEXT issue, which, while fine, makes me only say OK

HAWKMAN #31: This is well done comics, but I think this arc (while adding to the Dead Girlfriend in the Refrigerator count [sorta]) really shows why a traditional Hawkman comic really doesn't have much for legs -- at least with the Ostrander HAWKWORLD run they were able to get into neat outsider-looking-in concepts. But this Hawkman is pretty much Just Another Hero. *shrug* OK

GOTHAM KNIGHTS #56: "War Games" 4 Lots of super-villains. They don't do much. There's an attempt to go with the throughline of GK's "Wow, Hush is a badass!" thread, but he's not, really, and he comes off far more as Chump to this reader. Batgirl also feels written very wrongly here. My fav bit is at the beginning where all of the bosses finish each others sentences. Only in a comic book, man. AWFUL.

ROBIN #129: "War Games" 5. Tim shows everyone in the whole city that's he's a super bad-ass, which makes me hope all the more that the speculation of his returning to the mantle at the end of WG (and/or IC) is wrong. My fav bit is right at the last 2 pages where a seemingly invisible gunman shoots the chick, then seemingly decides it's not worth (despite being, y'know, invisible) to follow up and make sure she's, y'know, dead or something. A very low EH

BATGIRL #55: "War Games" 6. Almost nothing happens in this one -- the overall WG plot isn't moved ahead one fraction of one inch. Still, Sean Phillips art makes this the first chapter I've genuinely liked LOOKING at, so OK.

TOUCH #5: Suddenly, the book starts moving right before it gets axed. Huh. OK

FRACTION #5: This one on the other hand just feels like it's standing still. Nice art, but this can't end fast enough. A very low EH.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: THE ATOM: Damn, they both picked a "Julie saves the day!" turn. I liked the Gibbons story better, mostly because Waid "cheats" on the second one and only has the cover be a brief one-panel bit in the story. Still, OK

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #631: Quite a bit harsher than one would expect from a Superman story -- I don't know I'd let a kid near this one. Having said that, very strong and moving, really only undercut by the sequence of Supes hearing that last shot. How does he hear that from halfway around the world when I bet there's guns going off in, say, Detroit too? Meh! OK.

EX MACHINA #3: Finally, something to get excited about! This is a really terrific book, and one of the rare recent example where we're gaining new readers with each and every issue. Between this and Y, THE LAST MAN, Vaughan is cementing himself as one to watch. VERY GOOD.

EXILES #51: I also quite liked this -- the happy twist at the end was both unexpected and was celebratory of heroism. I don't feel that often enough in super-hero books, which is pretty fuckin' weird, don't you think? GOOD.

FANTASTIC FOUR #517: An "Avengers Dissembled" crossover (Which is about as "red skies" of a crossover as you can get), and, to celebrate the sales increase, the book is now $2.99. Huzzah! A perfectly reasonable issue, but the previous points left a nasty taste in my mouth, so I'm going with a patently-unfair AWFUL. (If it weren't for that, I might have gone for a low GOOD)

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #64: IN every technical way this issue is just as good as the book has ever been -- but something in me somewhere says this arc was a mistake. None of this was anything I wanted to see, and it largely strikes me as pandering. So, foo, let's settle with EH.

MANHUNTER #1: There's nothing for it but to compare this with BLOODHOUND, because the two books seem to occupy a similar "space" in the DCU. This one tries way way way to hard to set up it's moral dilemma, and given that it seems to be moving to "Murder is fine, as long as it is scum!" rather than anywhere else, I'm going to give this the big thumbs down. The art is nice, the writing is adequate, but I don't want to read about super-powered murderers, thanks. There's really nothing here, no mystery no suspense, that makes me want to come back for issue #2. The worst part is this is naturally going to sell better to the retailers because of the legacy name, and the suggestion somewhere that this ties into IDENTITY CRISIS somehow (though I can't seem to find that citing now that I'm looking for it -- I know I read somewhere that there was a connection though). Sorry, though, this is AWFUL.

DOCTOR SPECTRUM #1: Not only does nothing happen, but it doesn't happen between panels of earlier issues of SUPREME POWER. Wrong way to do a spin-off, kids. EH.

SUPREME POWER #12: Meanwhile JMS does a good job with the formalist four-panels-across story. Things are starting to move here, and I like what he's doing all in all. VERY GOOD.

JSA STRANGE ADVENTURES #1: Period work, which always fits the JSA. Nice nice art from Kitson. But the story feels a bit light for the HOLY SHIT, $3.50?!?! Man, that's too much. EH.

Right, be back with more tomorrow, I think -- that's what I've read so far. Whatta d'you think?

-B

Breaking Radio Silence...

Jesus. I'm putting together this month's newsletter and I know Hibbs has a Tilting deadline on his back, but this is ridiculous. Thanks to the miracle of blog-time, it feels like nobody's posted anything here in eleven million years. So, since I'm tired of trying to figure out new ways to hype books I haven't read (and didn't even know about before this morning), I thought I'd throw in my two pennies on some books from last week. I dunno, for those of you who might be hitting the store a week late or something. BLOODHOUND #1 &2: I picked these up only because Hibbs recommended them; the solicit text for the series didn't grab me (something like "rogue serial killer profiler" or somesuch, a hook that's just way too overused in movies, comics and TV these days) and the Dave Johnson covers, surprisingly, actively turned me off (how he made the link between rogue serial killer profilers and the colorform sets we had when we were kids is beyond me). But the art and story on this are fab, some very confident and even subtle storytelling going on amidst all the eye-gouging and toilet-throwing. Lord knows they could screw this up really easy (I'm really liking the lack of metahuman blabbity-blab but I bet that won't last too much longer), yet for now I'm quite impressed. Good.

JSA #64: The Brute & Glob incarnation of Sandman comes around yet again, and it's almost as creepy as Gaiman's turn on it. I wishI knew what it was about this silly Simon & Kirby series that makes guys like Geoff Johns write dialogue like "I'll fill Sandman's pillows with your innards!" It's not like I'm going to become creeped out by Brute & Glob, you know? Wake me when the JSA fights those crazed gang-rapists, The Dingbats of Danger Street. Eh.

POWERS v2. #3: Oh, right. Calista! I remember her. Nice stuff, although for once I wished the characters would just stop speaking Bendis and tell each other what was going on. Still liked it though. Good.

PUNISHER #10: When is a good comic not a good comic? Sweet art, good dialogue, decent plot--and yet I didn't like it at all. I'm a big fan of big noir emptiness, but even, I don't know, James Ellroy, for example, makes you feel for at least one or two of his nasty fuckers. There's just no "in" with this story for me, so I don't care much where it goes. It's a drag. Eh.

SOAP OPERA: I really liked Emily Blair's one-shot about two friends who bonded over soap operas slowly growing apart--so much so I did all these other reviews so I could mention it. Not perfect (the black and white woodcut-styled art looks lovely but occasionally stiff and I think Blair biffs the story's climax by giving two of the three main characters confusingly similar hair color and outfits) but the dialogue is strong, the ideas well-developed, and the ending tender and apt. Blair's got the potential to become a signficant talent, and I hope she gets the attention she deserves to become one. One of my favorite books of the week. A high Good.

SPIDER-MAN #5: I liked this more than the previous four issues which I'm afraid isn't saying too much. Millar turns down the grit-o-meter some, but it still feels like it's being written far too fast. On page three, Peter's caption boxes talk about how his spider-sense is allowing him to sense Mary Jane distressedly opening an envelope in the next room, and on page four he's completely shocked there's someone in the same room with him. And although Frank Cho is an extremely talented artist, his women all act strangely tranquilized and his perfectly drawn figures seem as light as balsa wood when they're put into action--and that's not even mentioning a brief scene with a bus that seems to come out of nowhere due to some bad staging. I know this is me sweating the small stuff, but the underlying current of what's either sadism or cynicism just rubs me the wrong way. Not quite Eh, not quite Awful.

TEEN TITANS #14: Kind of an interesting contrast to the Spider-Man title above. When Johns either tries too hard or gets over-extended, he, like Millar, turns nasty and sadistic--throwing hints of vivisection into a story about kids turning into big green animals doesn't make the story any less dumb, it just makes the story nasty and dumb. But the scene between Robin and Superboy points to a Geoff Johns who can actually use characterization and empathy to make his stories work. I worry we're seeing more and more of Johns the former and less and less of Johns the latter, which is pretty unsurprising in these Identity Crisis days. Kind of a drag, though. OK.

There. Enough reviewing of the comic books. Now back to--writing about comic books!

Books of 8/11

Yeah, yeah, I know, I left the comics hanging. But, somehow this week, even *I* didn't care what I thought of AQUAMAN and EMMA FROST and SOULFIRE. So I'm going to skip the rest of the comics. On to the books to clear the table for the 8/18 comics. NEW X-MEN V 3 HC: The last big Grant Morrison book, all pretty and larger, and all in all a great deal.

ESPER UNDERTOW: I fondly remembered this story, but it didn't hold up nearly as well as I recalled. It's almost kinda quaint. Still, I'm keeping my copy.

SUPERMAN ADVENTURES v1 & 2 DIGEST: Mark Millar's Superman stories. Some are good, others are great, though I don't like the format very much personally. They kinda look cheap.

FLIGHT GN: The belle of San Diego, and it's worth the buzz -- the rare anthology that works all of the way through.

JIMBO IN PURGATORY: Uh, wow, that's pretty Large, ain't it? There's nowhere on any shelf that I have that this would fit, so on the store's floor, it sits.

JLA / AVENGERS: THE FANGASM HC: OK, so that's not what it is actually called.... but it should be. The book of extras is kinda fun, tracing the live(s) of this project, including the 22 pages already penciled at full size -- plus it's copiously anecdoted about who is where doing what to whom. Obsessively, maybe. That's all very very cool -- but the main event here really is the crossover itself, which looks 10x better at this size. Man, do those pages look fucking a#1 terrific, or what? Seventy-five dollars, shmeventy-five dollars, if you like Perez's art, if you like DC or Marvel, then you'll have a fangasm all over this book. Easily the recommended book of the week.

-B

Awesome!

So, Ben showed me his first real signs of higher intelligence yesterday. We got him some blocks a month or so ago, and he did a lot of the "raking claw" and mostly just knocked them around the room. Which is cool, and all -- he's still a baby.

But for the last week or so, everytime I've played with him I've tried patiently to show him how to stack the blocks. Didn't really work, he mostly showed interest in knocking down the stack, flinging the blocks all over the room. This might have been because he was so excited he couldn't control his fine movements, but I was starting to despair that he wasn't figuring it out.

Anyway, I'm reading last night, and Ben is playing in the living room, and I popped my head out every few minutes to check on him, and what do I see? He's sitting quietly, in the middle of the room, all alone, happily stacking and unstacking his blocks, gently grasping them and carefully placing them on top of one another.

W00t!

Here's some comics from this week:

JLA #103: "Everyone Cries" continues. This time, John Stewert cries. Apparantly everyone up at DC has forgotten that JS already cried a bunch considering he was responsible for the death of an alien planet, but, hey, that's OK, I guess, isn't it? ISN'T IT? Eh.

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #182: "War Games" part 2. There's some running, and some shouting, and lots of gunfire, and I can't really keep all of the characters straight, but that's OK, I guess, because it's just act one, and half of them will be dead before this is all over. But on the bright side, this is polybagged with a CD, and the extra pound of shipping costs per 3-4 copies doesn't have a credit issued to retailers, and our sales will be cut because the stupid things are bagged, and you probably can't find a mint copy... wait, that's not good, is it? Eh.

NIGHTWING #96: "War Games" part 3. Probably should be called "The Adventures of Tarantula, guest starring Nightwing", but who am I to complain? I like the info dump scene where Dick finds out stuff we already know, but, structurally, it should probably have happened before the halfway point, y'know? I'm not a big fan of these kinds of crossovers, can you tell? Eh.

GREEN ARROW #41: "War Games" part... wait! This isn't a "War Games" crossover... which is funny, because the plot looks almost exactly the same. Planning! At least this one is easier to follow... OK.

PUNISHER #10: "War Games" part... nah, that jokes not funny a second time. Hell, it wasn't funny the first time. Loathsome people being loathsome, and lots and lots of cursing! I liked this better when it was a comedy... Eh.

LEGION #37: I'm still not at all sure what anyone's motivation or reasoning here is, but Karate Kid and Timber Wolf came off pretty cool. Eh.

ACTION #818: Hitting! Shouting! Exploding! It's all action, all of the time! Supes acts like a big jerk, and no one thinks twice about it, and I keep flashing back to Kingdom Come and thinking "We've forgotten the cautionary tale, already?" It's hard to picture a universe where this is worth two-dollars-and-fifty-cents, isn't it? It took me, maybe 120 seconds to read this. 2 cents a second? Now that's a deal! Awful.

BMW's THE HIRE #1: This also took almost no time to read, but the difference is, it was at least a complete thought, had several vividly drawn characters, as well as a contemporary plot. This Matt Wagner kid can really draw, he might be going somewhere! On the other hand, it's sorta a commercial (even if the car doesn't actually exist), so I can't be as enthused as I might otherwise be. OK.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: THE FLASH #1: Two cute uses of the cover image, but there's nothing woodmaking here. OK.

ALPHA FLIGHT #6: Comedy super-heroes don't really work -- at least not as a team book, because everyone needs to be in on the joke. The worst part is how badly Marvel missed the bet -- there really is an actual audience for a good AF book. We sold like 40 copies of #1 in 3 days, and by issue #5 we're down to like 11. I can't imagine this is going to make it past the first year, can you? Hell, Marvel's even tried to disassociate it from the X-Men line (It's now a "Marvel Heroes" book), which is smart, because this is Awful.

X-FORCE #1: No, Liefeld still can;t draw, but it looks K3wl, and it has lots and lots of scratchy little lines, the kind boys like! Having said that, actually, this wasn't as horrible as I thought it might have been -- the plot lurched forward adequately, and it probably is what people want. Have fun, people! Eh.

AUTHORITY #14: The "last issue"... except that it's going to be rebooted by Brubaker is like 2 months. Have we learned nothing from Star Trek, people? If a concept if dying/dead, you should take a WHILE off to recharge the DESIRE of the audience for it. Six months, a year maybe -- Authority V3 #1 isn't going to sell any better than V2 #14 when it's coming out in October, fercryinoutloud! Anyway, this was slop -- revenge revenge revenge with a slight (and cynical!) attempt to be uplifting there on the last few pages. Too bad the Coup D'etat concept when nowhere... Awful.

TEEN TITANS #14: Solid, if non-exceptional, superhero stuff -- as an attempt to give Gar an "Arch Villian" it seems to work fine. Let's call it a low Good.

HULK #75: Except for all of the "The Helicopter will just fly itself!" stuff, I kinda liked this -- certainly better than the first 3 years of Jones' run. Darick Robertson's Hulk is kinda fun looking, too. Call it a high OK.

BLOODHOUND #2: I really quite enjoyed this. Good solid police story set in the DCU, with strong characterizations, a "gritty" hero who actually seems complex, and nice art. It won't make it past issue #12, though. because I think we sold all of 7 copies of #1, and that's not a big enough base to decline from. Gotta give this a chance though, folks -- I thought it was a very solid Good.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #30: "At the (thanks) of Batroc"? Even Kirkman can't make Batroc seem like an even slightly credible threat. Sheesh. Still, while it's the Chinese menu syndrome ("I'll have the Red SKull from Column A, and the Serpent Society from column B"), I enjoyed this enough to give it a low Good.

CHOSEN #3: Hahahahahaha! I know Lester will bag on this, but I liked the "twist" at the end (though I figured it out around page 5) -- I sorta want to put up a "spolier warning", but now that you know there IS a twist, you know what it is, right? Anyway, this isn't great comics, no, but at least we can't make Ultimate Jebus jokes any longer. Good.

And that's it for today. More later, as I read them.....

-B

A Few More Reviews of Old Books....

And then I'll get out of the way of Brian and the new batch of books.

BATMAN THE TWELVE CENT ADVENTURE: There were a lot of typos in this. For example, I think the title is supposed to be SPOILER: THE TWELVE CENT EXPOSITION. Eh.

BLUE MONDAY: PAINTED MOON #2: I like Blue Monday so much more when the humor comes from the characters and not the magical talking leprechauns or imaginary fart-monkeys or whatever. Consequently, I thought this was the best issue I'd read in some time. Very Good.

CATWOMAN #33: A great idea for a story format, and I loved the individual title cards, but at least two of the stories are told so quickly they have no weight to them--it's the classic "telling, not showing" problem. A little less ambition might have actually served Brube better here. Eh.

CONAN #6: The art is shockingly uneven, but I liked the story for what it is. Which is, y'know, Conan. OK.

DC COMICS PRESENTS HAWKMAN: The first story has some of the best Byrne art I've seen in a few years--he really breaks away from his standard panel layouts here. But the second story was just too busy for me--too much going on in Walt's art and too much going on in Kurt's story: I found myself just glossing right over it. Eh.

DC COMICS PRESENTS SUPERMAN: I liked both of these stories, with Stan turning in dialogue that's very, very funny in the first one. And Giffen's artwork was much less--claustrophobic, maybe?--than it's been in some time. Good.

RICHARD DRAGON #3: Probably personal preference on my part, but Scott McDaniel's art seems too weightless to me--I just don't feel any sense of impact from all the bone-crunchings and eye-gougings. And I think Dixon is setting his story up to have his cake and eat it too--it looks like there's gonna be a way to acknowledge the old series and its ties to Bat-continuity and get new characters out of this--but because it's appearing three issues in, it's too late for me: rather than intrigued, I've had time to get distrustful and bored. Eh.

SUPERMAN #207: "They didn't stand a chance, let alone a trial!" Wha? Does anyone "stand a trial?" Don't they just "stand trial?" It seems to me if Jim Lee is going to spend a year drawing your story, you'd spend more than twenty minutes writing it (although to be fair, that line might be the victim of a dashed-off rewrite). I found both stories in the Phantom Quarterback issue of DC Comics Presents more enjoyable than any of the Azz/Lee issues to date, and it's a damn shame. Awful.

X-STATIX #25: It's no Iron Man and Mr. Sensitive fighting nude in a field, sadly. Eh.

Y THE LAST MAN #25: There's a whole long thesis to be written about why Brian Vaughan's dialogue is clever and why Brian Azzarello's is merely showy and fake, but I'm too lazy at the moment to write. Vaughan should be careful though, because his work is moving a bit in the wrong direction. Good.

Some more from 8/11

INVINCIBLE #14: Top notch super-fun here -- I really liked the teleport gag. A few captions are pretty radically overwritten, but, ah, so what? Very Good IRON MAN #432: Ah. Add another Dead Girlfriend in the Fridge to the list, Gail. This is taking the easy path to drama, but at least no one got raped.... Eh

SPIDER-MAN #5: Nice Frank Cho art, but, blech I don't like Millar's characterizations of anyone here. Why is MJ calling Felicia "Babe"? Or insisting she's an idiot over and over again? "This is supposed to be the HOBBY"? No, sir, I don't like this. I don't want "gritty" Spider-Man! Awful.

I mentioned the other day that people should pick up BIRTH OF A NATION, but I've finally read it now. Wow, excellent stuff. A modern "The Mouse That Roared" (sorta), and it's wickedly funny, and touching, and insightful all at once. I really loved this, and give it an unreserved thumbs-up, HC or no. Excellent.

-B

OK, I won't be defeated

Let me try to summarize what I spent two hours (total) writing twice, and see if the universe (NASTY BEAST!) lets this through IDENTITY CRISIS #3: Extremely powerfully skillfully done. This comes from affection, rather than cynicism, and it's a great piece of craft.

BUT, you can't ask the audience to take Justice League of America #166-168 to its logical extreme AT THE SAME TIME as saying that they guy named "Deathstroke, the Terminator" doesn't actually wax the JLA when he could do so effortlessly.

Don't bring the "real world" into the ACTUAL comics. These aren't characters for today, these are characters for forever.

Grant Morrison is right: the DCU is shiny hope-filled place or it should be, at least.

I don't want to see Myrna Loy raped and murdered. No matter how compelling the story is.

Do it as an Elseworlds, or an analogue, or a cautionary tale (Supreme Power, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, whatever), but, please, for the love of fucking god, please please please don't do it to the "real" characters.

It's a perfect, logical and seamless continuity implant for the "real reason" that Ollie and Carter were always fighting... but it makes me deeply sick in my heart.

Bottom line: would Watchmen have been better or worse if it had turned out that Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt was the one who had murdered The Peacemaker, in his bid to cover his monstrous plot?

Exactly.

Execution, skill, craft, passion, this is clearly Very Good, but because the absolutely wrong set of characters were picked to tell this story, I also think it's Awful. I think both things at once.

-B

(It was much funnier and much more poetic the first two times, damnit -- this would have set link-blogs off across the country. Now it's just there. Foo.)

A Few Quick Reviews from Jeff

Yo. Since I destroyed all previous comments, I thought I’d make it up to you by giving a few quick reviews of what I’ve been reading lately. Some of it isn’t “current” because I’m a few weeks behind, but, you know, it’ll give you something to look for during those quiet weeks at the shop. (Although as you’ll see, most of what I’ve read so far is probably the stuff everyone picks up.) ASTONISHING X-MEN #3: Sweet Jesus, this is lovely looking work. Remember those young naive days when we thought we’d be getting Morrison and Quitely monthly on New X-Men? This is that book, filled with art and art that can deftly swing from quiet to violent to funny in the blink of an eye. And I like how Whedon plays with the conventions of the page break to bring an extra twist to his story’s pacing. I’m not sure I care very much about that particular story, but that’s probably just me. Very Good.

AVENGERS #500: One of the sad cases where, before reading, I bought in to the hype. Whoops. We’ll see where it goes, but with characters acting less from established character and more because the script demands it, events happening with little explanation and often less resonance (I love how the Vision crashes the Quinjet and everyone just stands around like, “Huh, that sucked.”), I’m not particularly encouraged. Might be useful in determining a qualitative scale of talent, as apparently “bad Brian Bendis=relatively okay Chuck Austen.” Eh.

PLANETARY #20: Planetary is the new cough syrup overdose: so much can happen in one issue, and yet so long can be spent waiting for that one issue, I can feel simultaneously underwhelmed and overwhelmed reading it. I very much liked the emotional beat to this issue—Elijah the perennial explorer is so obsessed with revenge he actively sacrifices a chance to discover what may be the origin of all humanity—but because I spent three months going “Gee, I wonder what the Planetary version of The Thing is gonna look like,” it was almost entirely lost on me. I’m sure that’ll resolve itself in the trade. Good.

POWERS #2.2: I probably like this book too much. Bendis & Oeming could have Deena beat guys up with a baseball bat every week and I’d be very happy. I think if I was a new reader I’d be pretty baffled (I think it would all make sense, more or less, but I’m not sure if it would feel resonant enough for me to care), but that’s a quibble. Very Good.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #9: Pretty much sums up the Ultimates line for me: for every two things that go right (powers being revisualized, heroes being unsure of what they can do) there’s usually one thing that can go very wrong (Dr. Doom goes from being the untouchable head of a distant nation to the Trash King of the Euro-Buskers). It’s nice to have a writer on FF who actually has an idea of what’s happening in science these days, but the idea we'll get to see Doom build his Doombots out of old disposable cameras and expired Eurorail cards is a little underwhelming. OK.

ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE #1: That alien broadcast goes on two and a half pages too long (by page 9, I was chilled; by page 11, eye-rollingly impatient) although that was probably exacerbated by the heavy, heavy ad count in the first half. And Hairsine isn’t half the “actor” Cassaday is—it kinda looks like Nick Fury is pooping his pants on the bottom of page 19—but it’s got potential to be interesting. And I don’t know why Marvel decided 2004 was to be the year We All Love The Falcon, but I ain’t questioning it. Because, you know, I’ve always loved The Falcon. OK.

CARNET DE VOYAGE: Cartoon karma is a fickle, fickle thing. Just a few short years ago (last year?), Craig Thompson’s Blankets became the must-have of the convention circuit, the toast of the comix world, and catapulted Craig Thompson into indy comix superstardom. This year, he releases Carnet de Voyage and all everyone seems to be talking about is The Flight Anthology and the Bone-In-One book (or whatever it’s called). A shame, because I find humble little Carnet, which Thompson himself disparagingly introduces as “a self-indulgent side-project,” to be the most purely enjoyable thing Thompson’s done, and arguably one of the best “young American abroad” novels ever. As page after page of gorgeous sketch goes by, Thompson weaves an achingly honest self-portrait of the solo traveler—lonely, unsettled, observant and deeply horny—familiar to any of us who’ve tried to wander in a distant country. Additionally, Thompson perfectly nails how the razor-thin self-consciousness of Americans abroad can move in a minute from self-conscious guilt to annoyed impatience, from deeply felt internal to external frustration. Even Thompson’s amusingly bathetic ending (a very emo and unnecessary summing up), suggesting a loss of nerve in an artist unsure of himself and his audience, didn’t put me off this. I think this is Excellent work and very much worth picking up: If this doesn’t become huge in our post-Lost In Translation pop culture, it’d be both surprising and sad.

The Books of 8/4

Then I'm done for another week! (which starts, uh, tomorrow) BIRTH OF A NATION: OK, so I haven't actually read it yet (it's at the top of my pile), but it's Kyle Baker art, and it looks faboo, so demand your LCS get you a copy.

LOEG VOL 2 TP: OK, League v 2 is finally out in SC, time for you to buy it if you've been waiting this whole time. It's the bestest adventure ever! Also The TP/GN of the Week

LUCIFER VOL 6 MANSIONS OF THE SILENCE TP: I'm really digging this, and I personally think it is the strongest thing Vertigo is publishing at the moment. Reads really good in trade. Get it!

STAR TREK KEY COLLECTION VOL 1 TP: Dude, the Enterprise has rockets coming out of the back! What could be cooler than reading Star Trek stories from people who had never seen the show in thier lives? Well, OK, a lot, but for pure howling kitsch, here's your comic for the week.

TRANSMETROPOLITAN VOL 11 TALES OF HUMAN WASTE TP: Oddly is numbered "0" on the spine, while 11 on the invoice. Should probably be Pi or thereabouts. Contains "I Hate it Here" and "Filth of the City" since those semi-floppies (sloppys?) are OP. Funny and brutal stuff.

ULTIMATE X-MEN VOL 8 NEW MUTANTS TP: Bendis' first run at the X-Men, and it's uneven, but also contains a beautiful Wolverine story that's almost worth the price of admission by itself.

And there you go, the significant TPs of the week! Or so I thought. What did you think this week?

-B

Polishing off the 8/4 comics

Just a few things to go, then I'll do the books post... LOVE AND ROCKETS v2 #11: Like I said, I don't "get" L&R, but are Jaime and Gilbert just excellent cartoonists? There are panels throughout each story that I like to just stare at. I especially liked bits from "Life Through Whispers". I just don't get the stories at all. Still, aesthetically, hard to say less than Good.

GUARDIANS #2: This is probably moving a lot slower than it should (page 2 and the plot is just starting?) but the art is nice and the characterizations are strong. I don't really care what happens, really (especially for $3 a throw), so let's call it OK.

WOLVERINE / PUNISHER #5: Hard to imagine a more phoned-in script, but, Christ, it's Wolverine & Punisher, I suppose I shouldn't expect Dostoevsky. Still, the story doesn' t end as much as stop, and practically promises a sequel. Big waste of my 5 minutes reading time. Crap.

X-MEN UNLIMITED: The juggernaut story was cute I guess (Except, um, what's up with the hearts in the last panel? Scott and Juggy have made a love connection? Ew!), but the Emma/Logan story didn't hang together than well. Overall, call it Eh.

ENGINE HEAD #4: I tried to read this twice, and I'm still not sure I understood what is going on. I usually like McKeever's art, but it seems unfocused here. Sorry: Awful.

BATMAN / CATWOMAN: TRAIL OF THE GUN: Generally, I have to say, if you gave me a choice, I'd ask to read stories, not one-sided screeds. I favor gun control, and could barely stagger through the polemics of this. Those 5 pages of super-extreme violence upfront were nasty, rather than affecting. Plus, let's be serious, the central idea of the story is inane -- a gun that "never misses"? What, it's telepathic? That sequence where they guy fires a burst IN THE AIR and the bullets circle around to hit 3 different people? Even with comic book physics that's preposterous. Why wouldn't the bullets circle around and hit the firer? Why wouldn't they all go after one target? Sheesh. Plus the whole concept that trying to find the prototype would mean anything? Hello, if such a thing exists, they have the plans to make more. Sheesh. The only saving grace here is Ethan Van Scriver's art, which in a few places is a breathtaking joy to behold. The horror in Selina's posture in what I'll call the mascara pages is really powerful. Too bad, it was in service to such a shitty shitty polemic. Crap.

There you go. Give me an hour or so to come back and do the books....

-B

Getting there

Two more posts should clear this week's comics.... RUNAWAYS #17: Terrific issue -- just about everyone seems to get what is coming to them, which is more of a relief than I can say. Very Good.

BLUE MONDAY: PAINTED MOON #2: Woo hoo -- 32 pages about masturbation! Fear teh pR0n! (OK, that's only funny if you were hanging around CE on Friday night, but trust me, it was hysterical) Very Good.

THE GRAY AREA #2: Solid enough, though it seems just a smidge half-baked of a premise. Lots of words too. Lots and lots. Overwhelming more than one page. And... it's a little expensive at $3.95. Can;t work up better than an OK.

THOR #83: I have a hard time reading an entire issue written in "thor font". That makes a great contrast against "regular" speech balloons, but it looks pretty ass if that's all you have. It's like putting comics that take place wholly in a foreign tongue in < >. *shudder*. Other than that, this was kinda Eh. Don't really care about Asgard and Ragnarok.

TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD #10: Good stuff, if a little drawn out -- since we know Tom goes to PR, all the psycho blather about "oh, hurting my family!" seems pretty self-absorbed. He's a nice clean cartoonist though, and the central love story is pretty touching, so OK.

WILDCATS 3.0 #24: Punch hit 'splode. And a big deux at the end. Still, I thought the very last page was kind of lovely and sincere, so let's end this on a Good.

BALLAD OF SLEEPING BEAUTY #2: The FCBD BSB was the big surprise of that day -- only one of the entire batch that made me say, "More! Now!". And, of course, several other people thought that, and I sold out of #1 before I got a chance to read it. But I was still looking forward to #2... but, meh, very little of the charm and suspense of the FCBD comic was evident here, becoming much more of a standard western cliche narrative. Nice art, and the $1.99 price is great, but, I can;t work up much more than an Eh for this.

QUEEN & COUNTRY #26: Solid issue and more stuff "happens" than is normal for this series -- look, action! (mostly) -- and there's a genuinely suspenseful moment there at the end. I like the usual more cerebral adventures, but this was a great turn, too. Very Good.

Less than a dozen books to go... hopefully you'll have those tomorrow!

-B

Oooh, colors

Look, Jeff has changed the template! What a mensch! And yes, go read his Fanboy Rampage, as linked below, GO NOW NOW NOW!

(Huh, we need to add those links on the side... and I need a lot more "away from here" links too... give us a few more days folks!)

Ben's asleep (for the mo'), and I dinged 28 in City of Heroes, and I have 30 minutes before I have to get to work, so let's see what else I've managed to read, shall we?

MAJESTIC #1: Wow, fuck yah. I expected nothing from this (not of the previous iterations were all that hot), but I thought this was wicked funny and well characterized all the way through. Silver-age Superman level powers can be FUN, sometimes. Excellent, and barring some big surprise later in the pile, I'm willing to call this one The Pick Of The Week.

UNCANNY X-MEN #447: Damn Alan Davis can draw. Daddy likee. The story was a bit meh -- we've seen this one before from Claremont, more or less. I seem to recall essentially the same conflict circa the 200's -- that Sentinel from the future? Wossname? Nimrod, I think? (heh) But, this looks fab, so let's go with a real strong OK.

MILKMAN MURDERS #2: Despite how shocking this book is looking to be, I like that the first 3 pages were so understated and elegent in what they presented. I liked this quite a bit -- might be the strongest narrative I've seen from Casey, and Parkhouse art is always a joy to look at. Very Good.

HARD TIME #7: "Meanwhile, back at the ensemble..." Now that the Focus "line" has been winnowed down to 2, it's time for a little of that comics Activism for this and Kinetic. Both are very strong books focusing more on human reaction than the garish zow of super-books. Both books have found their rhythm and both should be selling at least twice as well as they do. While I'm not giving this PotW, I really do urge you to pick up a copy the next time you're in the LCS, and give it a chance. Very Good.

MONOLITH #7: It's always smart to try and guest-star Batman to goose your numbers, but, folks, the bottom third of a cover is THE SINGLE WORST part of your cover to put any sales information. MOST stores overlap covers, and that's "dead" sales space. Seriously. (Wake up, there in DC -- Vertigo, especially, has been putting out a lot of covers lately with "misplaced" logos). Very nice art from Tom Coker, a good solid story from Palmiotti and Gray, and now that the story has started moving at a slightly brisker place, you should give this one a gander on the racks. Good.

SOF' BOY #3: Great cartooning from Archer Prewitt. While I've been a bit turned off by the sadism this has sometimes shown towards it's indefatigable, invulnerable lead, this I thought was wonderful and sweet and joyous. And god-damn nicely drawn. $4.95 is kinda a lot to swallow, but dem's the economics of doing askew work like this. This was a terrific issue: Very Good.

And so endeth this session of the Savage Critic. Wow I kinda liked everything is this part of the pile! More later.....

-B