Gasping towards the finish line: Graeme finishes 4/11 and just in time, too.

I'm sure that you've heard of the concept of saving the best till last, right? Well, this isn't like that at all. This is more "Saving the completely bland until last," for the most part, as I present the books I read over the last seven days that I had no strong feelings for one way or another in one big dollop just to get it over with. LONERS #1 (OF 6): I'm undecided on this Runaways spin-off. On the one hand, it's definitely competently done; CB Cebulski's script has some nice moments and Karl Moline's art is solid enough... But on the other hand, there's nothing new in here. It reads like the characters' appearance in Runaways mixed with the middle storyline from Young Avengers, and as good as that sounds in theory, it's been done before, you know? It's Okay, but I kind of wanted to be wowed, or at least surprised, more.

MARVEL ILLUSTRATED THE JUNGLE BOOK: There's something weirdly depressing about this book. It's not really the stories themselves, which are fine enough but feature a mismatched art team where P. Craig Russell's delicate inkwork overwhelms the usual grumpy power of Gil Kane's pencils (although these stories do come from the late 70s, early 80s, when Kane had a tendency to push work through that wasn't up to his standards, if y'ask me - There are places here where the sum is equal to its parts, but not too many), and scripting that's as much expositionary Cliff Notes versions of the stories as I (perhaps mistakenly; it's been a long time, and I wasn't a fan to begin with) remember them. But the "backmatter," as it's now called - Ralph Macchio's bombastic advertisement for the later books in this line, and the previews for said books, with their tone of "Sure, they may be classic stories... But done by new artists who RAWK like only Marvel can!" - seemed kind of out of place with what had come before, as if you were having a nice leisurely conversation with a well-meaning older relative telling you stories you've already heard ten times before and then he's pushed off his chair by your unsettling brother-in-law who wants to tell you about this great new band he's just found out about called Limp Bizkit. Eh, and better enjoyed if you stop reading as soon as the last story finishes.

NEW AVENGERS #29: Wait, so this issue reveals that Brother Voodoo is involved with the whole New/Mighty Avengers showdown, and apparently New Avengers #31 will have the most shocking last page of any Marvel comic this year, and Marvel is milking their Marvel Zombies franchise as much as possible... Oh my God we're going to have Zombie Captain America as reanimated by the ancient terrifying power of Voodoo within three months. Holy crap. This issue was pretty much filler; nothing about the main plot was moved forward, and instead we had some posturing and the occasional good line. Pretty much the definition of Eh, which is a shame after the last couple of strong issues.

NEWUNIVERSAL #5: So, I was reading on The Engine the other day that Warren Ellis is avoiding "Heroes" because he knew, upon seeing the first episode, that it would be following a similar route. It's a shame, in a way. I mean, he's right, but Heroes does one thing very right that this series get very wrong - the pacing. We're five issues into this series, and instead of offering any kind of resolution to the origin stories of the characters - or, really, any kind of growth for the characters we've met so far - we get an introduction to another new character. So, it's not Heroes: The Comic Book. It's the comic book version of Lost, but without the spooky music. A pretty low Eh.

NOVA #1: I know that I should like this. Nova is pretty much "What if Spider-Man was Green Lantern?," so I'm sure that I should dig this even if the Green Lantern he's modelled after is now Kyle Rayner instead of Hal Jordan. But there was nothing worth reading here - No originality, no humor, no spin on what we've seen before. There's still a mix of concepts here, but now it's "It's Nova -- but just as grim as Civil War!" and, to be honest, if you're going to have a "He's a cop in space" story, even a "He's the last cop in space" story, then I want it to be fun, Goddammit. Eh.

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #6: So, we get Punisher putting on the Captain America mask as teased, but it has nothing to do with him actually claiming the Captain America identity... Instead, it's all to do with him trying to stop others from ruining the legacy. That swerve is the nicest part of this issue; as good as Fraction's take on the character is - and it's much better than I'd expected, as I continually tell you - this issue is just a bit thin for my taste. That said, I know that there's going to be more explanation and chances for more than just Ariel Olivetti cutting loose in the next issue... You can tell that this is definitely Act 1 in a three-act-structure. Okay.

WONDER WOMAN #7: Welcome to the latest episode of "Where was the editor?", our continuing series where I present comics that you read and wonder exactly where that strong guiding hand was that could've prevented what you just read. It's not that this book was bad, mind you - It was Okay although, considering the reaction of many people on this internet, I may be the only person who thinks that - just very, very muddled. There's a stronger story here, under the confusing scenes and gimmicks of Circe jumping in and out of mirrors or a trannysupervillain bar (Not as exciting as it sounds), and it's frustrating to read this version of the story instead of the one where you're sure it could've been, you know, actually good. I don't think that it's that Jodi Picoult is new to comics that's to blame, as much as it is that she's dealing with too much at one time to make sense of any of it - I would've preferred this to have been its own thing, as opposed to the obvious "set up the new status quo post-Heinberg and also that whole Amazons Attack! mini-series and tie in with Countdown while you're at it" clusterfuck that it's turning into; Maybe she should've been given All-Star Wonder Woman instead of the cursed main-continuity version? In any case, now that Gail Simone has been announced as the new writer come the end of the summer, I have to join the growing number of people who're ready for this title to be relaunched again just to get rid of the taint of this screwy latest run of the book.

Now that I've finished the week, PICK OF THE WEEK is All-Star Superman #7, which shares TRADE OF THE WEEK (as All-Star Superman Volume 1 HC) with The Professor's Daughter, which came out last Wednesday after all. PICK OF THE WEAK, meanwhile, is probably Iron Man, and that's just because I'm not on the same bus as everyone else at Marvel, it seems... Coming up this week: APE! Signings! Onomatoepia! Which may mean less reviews than normal, so forewarned is forearmed, or something...

Arriving 4/18

Back from Vegas, but drastically underestimated how much New and Important work I'd come back with, so I'm still on Radio Silence for a little while (probably, realistically, until the weekend). This was not helped by Bennett being called into Jury Duty today (WHY did it have to be TODAY, of all days... if they'd have waited until Wednesday.....)

Anyway, here's what's a'comin':

52 WEEK #50 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #56 (A) ANITA BLAKE VH GUILTY PLEASURES #6 (OF 12) AQUAMAN SWORD OF ATLANTIS #51 ARMY @ LOVE #2 AVENGERS EARTHS MIGHTIEST HEROES II #8 (OF 8) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #8 BETTY #164 BIRDS OF PREY #105 BIZARRE NEW WORLD #1 (OF 3) BRAVE AND THE BOLD #3 CABLE DEADPOOL #39 CONAN #39 DMZ #18 DRAIN #3 EX MACHINA #27 FALLEN ANGEL IDW #15 FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #11 GHOST IN THE SHELL 1.5 HUMAN ERROR PROCESSOR #7 (OF 8) GIRLS #24 HELLBLAZER #231 HERO BY NIGHT #2 (OF 4) INVINCIBLE #40 JUGHEAD AND FRIENDS DIGEST #19 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #1 LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 2 #19 MANHUNTER #30 MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #12 MARVEL SPOTLIGHT SPIDER-MAN MIGHTY AVENGERS #2 CWI MOON KNIGHT #9 CW NEGATIVE BURN #10 NIGHTWING ANNUAL #2 ORSON SCOTT CARDS WYRMS #3 (OF 6) PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #111 RAMAYAN 3392 AD #8 RED SONJA #21 ROADKILL ZOO #3 (OF 6) ROBIN #161 RUNAWAY COMICS #3 SCOOBY DOO #119 SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #37 SHADOWPACT #12 SIMPSONS COMICS #129 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #174 SPIRIT #5 SQUADRON SUPREME HYPERION VS NIGHTHAWK #4 (OF 4) SUPERMAN BATMAN #34 TESTAMENT #17 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #108 ULTIMATE X-MEN #81 VAMPIRELLA QUARTERLY SPR 07 JUSKO REG WORLD WAR III PART FOUR UNITED WE STAND WORLD WAR III PART ONE A CALL TO ARMS WORLD WAR III PART THREE HELL IS FOR HEROES WORLD WAR III PART TWO THE VALIANT X-23 TARGET X #5 OF(6) X-FACTOR #18 X-MEN #198

Book / Mag / Stuff ALEX TOTH EDGE OF GENIUS VOL 1 TP BATMAN AND THE MAD MONK TP BLUE EYES VOL 3 TP (A) CIVIL WAR AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TP CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE BOOK 1 TP CIVIL WAR THUNDERBOLTS TP COMICS BUYERS GUIDE JULY 2007 #1630 COMICS INTERNATIONAL #201 (RES) DAREDEVIL DEVIL INSIDE & OUT VOL 2 TP DRIFTING CLASSROOM VOL 5 TP FIRST APPEARANCE SER 4 INNER CASE ASST FORGOTTEN REALMS DARK ELF TRILOGY VOL 4 CRYSTAL SHARD TP GOLGO 13 VOL 8 GN H EOFIGENDLIC LODRUNG GN HELLBLAZER REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL TP LAST SANE COWBOY & OTHER STORIES GN MISS DD VOL 4 GN (A) NIGHTMARES & FAIRYTALES VOL 3 1140 RUE ROYALE PET HUMILIATION DIARY GN (A) PREY ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES TP PUNISHER MAX VOL 7 MAN OF STONE TP ROCKETO VOL 2 TP JOURNEY TO THE HIDDEN SEA ROUGH STUFF #4 SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN VOL 3 TP TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #153 WONDER WOMAN THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD TP YOUNG AVENGERS VOL 2 FAMILY MATTERS TP

What, as they say, looks good to YOU?

-B

In which I fall in love with a brushstroke: Graeme in a tree with Kubert, Hawkman.

So last night, I had a dream that proved that my subconscious was frantically grabbing what little pieces of pop culture that I'd exposed myself to over the last couple of days - My life was being narrated by This American Life's Ira Glass, and illustrated by Joe Kubert. Needless to say, everything was much funnier than it is in real life, and looked beautiful. Kubert's art was pretty much the main reason that I picked up SHOWCASE PRESENTS HAWKMAN VOLUME 1, the phone-book-sized collection of the first Silver Age stories about the man with the feather fetish. I've never been a major fan of the character or the concept, but the idea of getting lots of prime Kubert art in black and white for relatively cheap was a very easy way to get me to part with my money. Having read the book, it's easily the best thing about it - As much as many artists of the Silver Age had an ability and strength (to say nothing of work ethic) that many of today's Young Guns and Ten Terrific could learn from, Kubert is one of only a handful who matches that to a style that's breathtaking even today. Even though he only handles a few stories at the start of the book (The series obviously had a rocky start, running three issues in Brave and Bold before disappearing for awhile, before another three issue run, then another disappearance, then a run in Mystery In Space before finally graduating to its own title; Kubert was only on the strip for the Brave and Bold issues), it's Kubert who you'll remember when you're finished with the 500+ pages: His lush brushwork, his mastery of the balance of black and white on the page, the care and attention he takes on things that other artists would've just hacked out without a second thought... It's impossible to read this book and not be convinced each and every page that he worked on, that he's one of the greatest comic book artists of all time. Completely amazing, beautiful work that makes the normally-competent Murphy Anderson (who handles the remainder of the series in this book) look stiff and lifeless by comparison.

What you may be missing in the afterglow of that love, though, is the lowkey charm of Gardner Fox's stories. Yeah, it's definitely one of the lesser of DC's Silver Age books but, just like his Justice League stories, you can't help but be swept along with the old-fashioned "adventure with a lesson built in" nature of the whole thing - Look at Hawkman use that old-fashioned weapon from his museum and learn the name of said weapon and as much of its history as can fit in a caption! The science-fiction aspects are enjoyably campy in retrospect (We don't celebrate "Independence Day," but "Impossible Day"! We Thanagarians don't use wedding rings - We use wedding earrings! But only for women! We have our own words for "hour" and "week," but like using "day," if that's okay with you!), which kind of sums up a lot of what makes the stories as enjoyable as they are - it's not that they're good, per se, but they're funny and charming for maybe the wrong reasons. It doesn't stop them being entirely readable, of course, even when Murphy Anderson is drawing. For the first third of the book, though, you'll barely notice that there are any words; your eyes will be fixed on the shot of the talking bird in the beautiful pen-and-ink tree. Or the staircase rendered in loose, thin brushstrokes. Or the profile shot of Carter with his helmet, where the shadow falls perfectly to draw your eye across the panel. Or... Well, you get what I'm saying. It's enjoyably Okay overall, but worth it for the opening stories alone.

Well, Why Not: Jeff Liveblogs the First Six Hours of Friday...

...even after I said I wouldn't. What follows are the notes I tapped out while working, unedited except for spelling and clarification, of my first six hours at the shop. Might be interesting for some of you who wonder what our store's like and who shops there, even though this is 100% pure anecdote and things may well be utterly different the other six days of the week. Wherever possible, I've tried to keep everyone anonymous so that subscribers, regular shoppers and lonely guys buying porn can retain their privacy.  

***

11:24 a.m.: Okay. Store is open, music is playing (Elastica's first album, which is directly attributable to reading Mr. Gillen's endpapers in Phonogram), two people are in the store currently. Arune called hoping to get in touch with Graeme, and UPS just dropped off Diamond's blackline, which means work on a new newsletter has to start soon.

First purchase of the day? Somebody buying a copy of Small Favors, Ho Che Anderson's Eros comic (Temple Duncan or something like that), and the third issue of Conan and the Midnight God. It'd be easier to make fun of such a purchase if I didn't actually like Small Favors and up until recently read Conan.

Second purchase of the day? A copy of Civil War: The Initiative and Wolverine, from a guy who was looking for the latest issue of the Transformers movie comic. Nice guy, too. Seemed very happy that we had still had the first printing of The Initiative.

I've read the latest 52, and All-Star Superman #7. I think I've missed the last page importance of All-Star Superman, though. So the Sbarro pizza chain is a weird genetic offshoot of Bizarro? I guess it kinda makes sense....

11:35: Wow. That Elastica album is SHORT. There's a guy looking through the DC Showcase volumes, with the tag from his shirt sticking out about three inches. It looks like a black polyester transmitter jutting out of his neck. Two guys walking around the store, talking to each other in, I dunno, Italian or Portuguese, have just been joined by three other friends. As one, the group of five loudly descend on the porn rack. It's going to be one of those days, it looks like.

11:40 a.m. : Caller asking when X-23 is coming out. After that, there's a pause and then he asks what every retailer loves to hear: "Hey, what about the next issue of that Ultimate Hulk Vs. Wolverine? Is that ever gonna come out?"

11:45 a.m.: The five guys leave with compliments for the store in their halting English. Turns out they're Brazilian musicians traveling and one guy really wants this Giger hardcover that we have, but is worried it weighs too much to travel with. Says they'll try to come back.

11:50 a.m.: Two more Brazilian guys, unrelated to the first group, remarkably enough. One wants to see the Walking Dead books. The other is looking for Dabel Brothers books because his friend did the art on one of the issues.

Another call (busy phone morning) from a guy wanting old Milestone issues. We've got four issues of Static Shock in our starter sets for cheap, recommend he come down and browse our other sets--the Milestone stuff seems to appear and disappear from that section reuglarly.

11:58 a.m.: The first Brazilian (the Walking Dead guy) asks about Bone, and wow do I wish I had one of those big Bone-In-One volumes to show him. Instead, Point him to the color version adn also show him the first two issues of the Shazam mini, which amuses and delights him.

12:05 p.m.: The two Brazilians leave, one buying that Dabel Brothers book and the 300: The Art Of book which he tells me is actually really hard to find. His friend gets that second volume of Walking Dead and also Tiny Tyrant. The first guy asks me when the next volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is due out. I swear to god, one day the riddle of the sphinx is going to be posed to me, and it's going to be "Hey, did the second issue of Daredevil: Target ever come out?"

12:10: One dude with a khaki cap browsed for a few minutes, left, now a bespectacled guy with an Ideo messenger bag is browsing the Vertigo comics section. At this rate, between the whole customers and describing-the-customers thing, I'll never get a chance to read any comics, will I?

12: 15: Did I mention I'm listening to The Good, The Bad & The Queen now?

12:18: Perusing the blackline and, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to post anything I'm seeing. I will say that I yelped aloud at a certain Omnibus announcement.

12:24 p. m.: Joe Ideo is gone, having purchased several back issues of NewUniversal, the latest Fell, Buffy #2, All-Star Superman #7, and the latest issue of Optic Nerve. I hesitate to call him a prototypical CE customer but he skews pretty close, dontcha think?

12:38 p.m.: First sub of the day just left with a handful of great stuff. Second sub showed up 45 seconds after and is still browsing the store. Mentions that the Wilco song playing sounds like it's going to break into the Batman theme at any second. Funny and also, if I listen carefully, kinda true.

12:43 p.m.: There's also a manga announcement in the new Blackline I'm pretty damn happy about. And a cool webcomic collection from Dark Horse, too?

12:45 p.m.: Danny (the second subber) is gone so store's empty now. Wonder how long that'll last.

12:46 p.m.: Answer: approximately 90 seconds.

12:48 p.m. : And now the store's empty again. So it goes.

1:18 p.m.: First woman to set foot in the store today. Shows up with her boyfriend. They are both dressed entirely in black. Right behind her a trio of kids, all boys between the ages of what looks like 13 and 16, the oldest of which buys a Batman shirt.

1:23 p.m .: Wilco's done. Just put on Compounds + Elements: An Introduction to All Saints Records. I've read (in reverse order) Fell, Blade, New Avengers, Uncanny X-Men. I could use some lunch--less for the food and more for the desire to get my ass out of the store for a few minutes. (This is why people who work retail, smoke.)

1:32 p.m.: The couple leaves, having bought two issues of Fell, two issues of Wormwood, and two issues of 30 Days of Night. Ben Templesmith fans would be what I'm thinking.

Forty seconds after them, a long haired kid with green streaks buys Iron Man #15, Nightwing #131 and that latest issue of the Scarface mini. Huh.

1:36 p.m.: The fourth sub's out the door and, yeah, forgot to mention subscriber number three, sorry. After buying a handful of Vertigo titles and the latest Optic Nerve. See? Optic Nerve. Big, big seller for us. Asks if the second Rocketo trade has come out yet. (Uh, no?)

1:45 p.m.: Current store count: subber number five, a pair of women, and a tall guy with a camo ruck, a Cure haircut, a flannel shirt and an angular sunburned face. Oh, and a trucker cap. The tall guy has enough interesting quirks to his appearance for five people.

1:47 p.m.: Trucker cap leaves empty-handed, but very pleasant. One of the women asks about back issues of Anders Nilssen's Big Questions, and I can't help her--we've just got two of his trades. I give her an APE bookmark and suggest she look there, but she says she's from out of town. She gives the bookmark to her friend, who says she'll go and look for the books if her friend makes a list of what to look for. Awww. That's a friend for you. On the way out the door, the woman who says she'll go to APE says to her friend, "Yeah, [guy's name] is having Art Spiegelman do all this stuff?" Which suggest she's probably better-connected to finding those issues of Big Questions then she either realizes or lets on.

1:51 p.m.: Mail call! And nothing for me. Although the excitement of opening and setting out the free screening tickets for Severance is mine and mine alone.

1:57 pm.: GRAEME!! stops by for a few as he's getting ready to head out of town for the weekend with Kate. I finally loan him my copy of Empowered. He essentially has stopped by to tell me that he's very excited about next week's signing, which is great becuase I am too, but he's excited in that "not puking blood" overreacting kind of way and I am. (He also already knew about the Omnibus, damn it.)

3:03 p.m.: And suddenly it's over an hour later. Graeme leaves, along with sub no. 5. A few weeks ago, I'd talked briefly over the phone to an ex-retailer in the U.K. who was coming over here to shop for silver age books. At the time, I turned him on to Al's and a few other places, but he and his friend stop by today anyway, just to make sure we don't have anything.

We don't, but nevertheless he buys a Batman year one t-shirt (second one of the day, weirdly enough) and shoots the breeze while waiting for his cab to show up and shuttle him out to the avenues.

While he's here, more people show up including a semi-regular who picked up the first two issues of Joss's Buffy last week and so I recommended Runaways #1 to her--she also buys Y: The Last Man from us so I figured it'd be a pretty good fit--and so she's back to start in on our Runaways back issues. Then there's the couple from San Jose--she ends up buying Optic Nerve and Love & Rockets, he buys fifty gajillion back issues, including a huge chunk of Daredevil back issues by Bendis and Maleev. She makes a joke about staying in bed all weekend together and reading comics. Awwww.

Another subscriber, in and out in under ten minutes. A very quiet older gentleman steps up to the register with a great handful of books--both Don Rosa Scrooge books, volumes 1 and 2 of the Superman Chronicles, It Rhymes with Lust and the girly art cartoons of an artist I always think is Dan DeCarlo but isn't (or maybe it is). [Ed.: I'm 90% sure it's The Glamor Girls of Don Flowers.]

I really should get lunch soon.

3:15 p.m.: A teen girl suddenly appears in the doorway with wide eyes. "Do you have Naruto?" Her family trails in a few seconds later; they're traveling from Omaha to (I think?) Washington. The mom tells me, "My daughter looked you up on Google when she found out we were coming here, so... it works!" The daughter buys two volumes of Naruto while the family walks around the store, caught somewhere between awe and amusement that such a thing exists. Or maybe they're just burnt out by their time on the road. The mom and (I assume) the dad look through a few volumes of Tintin, having heard from someone else that they're reallly good, but they don't buy anything and then they're gone.

3:30 p.m.: A tall guy in running shorts with a black IPod strapped to his arm, comes in and asks if the latest issue of Buffy is out and seems really excited about it. "Really? Issue #2? It's out? When?" He's just started jogging but assures me he'll be back.

So, yeah, I'm starting to see what Hibbs is talking about when he says that this Whedon Buffy stuff could have legs for us.

3:40 p.m.: My friend Theresa calls on my cell to tell me her sister Jean just had a baby. Of course, this being the real world, the store phone rings at the same time and it's the guy from the Bay Guardian calling to remind us about the deadline for the ad we're placing promoting the signing. I'm really glad he called because Edi sent the ad to him yesterday. After a few seconds of him checking his inbox, then looking at the attachment to see if it's formatted correctly, we're good to go but it ends up cutting my time with Theresa short.

3:50 p.m.: The jogger is back, true to his word. Asks about Runaways, but doesn't pick it up. One of the two subbers who buys 2000 A.D. drops by for his weekly fix and, to my delight, picks up The Professor's Daughter just "because it looks good. "

Oh, and after forty-five minutes of browsing, the eccentric lurker of the day (dressed in all black, bearing luggage, wearing galoshes) leaves. He asks several questions ranging from the very knowledgeable ("Do you have any works by Tardi?") to the, uh, less than knowledgeable ("Image? That's Marvel, right?" which sounds kinda crazy but since he follows this up with asking if Vertigo is DC, it actually makes a weird kinda sense.)

Now, if this other subber buys his books and heads out before someone else comes in, I can grab "lunch." I probably shoulda booted him or galoshes guy for a few minutes but I actually brought food with me today so I'm not dying or anything.

3:57 p.m.: Subber leaves and of course a guy comes in at the same time. I'll give him two minutes and hit lunch.

Also, forty-five seconds after the last subber leaves, I realize I went to college with the guy. Forty-five seconds after that, I realize he's left behind one of the books he bought. Shit.

I call the number we have on file for him in the hopes that it'll be his cell phone but it's an old answering machine where "The Girl From Ipanema" is playing on the background through a rainstorm as funnelled through a paper towel roll. (Good ol' answering machines.) I leave a message, write out a note explaining what's happened, and put the book back in his slot.

During all this drama, three more people have come in: a dude who does a lap around the store and heads out, and a couple browsing the crime section. Another subber comes in, fills out the form, shoots the shit. Topics range from The Boys to The Secret Six (he didn't know about the crossover with Birds of Prey so I hunt that up) to Y: The Last Man. Then he goes and checks the racks. When he asks what I'm reading and what's good, I go and hunt up a copy of The Professor's Daughter which he looks through and nods.

4:22 p.m.: The Brazilian musician who wanted the Geiger book is back to browse. Someone else comes in with a bottle of orange sports drink, gets a call on his cell phone and leaves. It's just five people quietly browsing comics, the radio playing old UB40 and my stomach, gurgling merrily. I can handle missing lunch, but I can't handle old UB40. I get up and put on the soundtrack to One From the Heart.

4:33 p.m.: Maybe it's the hunger talking, but this Dr. 13 story by Azzarello and Chiang in the latest Tales of the Unexpected is kinda brilliant and really, really amusingly savage about the current state of DC affairs. And just unbelievably gorgeous art by Cliff Chiang. I pray to god this sucker gets collected in a trade because I haven't been buying the issues.

4:40 p.m.: A German (or maybe Austrian?) guy comes in asking what's "good." His benchmark, when asked? "Oh, I liked Spawn five or six years ago." I point him to Walking Dead and cross my fingers.

4:43 p.m.: So the guy I pointed to Walking Dead after he said he likes Spawn? Comes to the front with....Kafka, that biography with art by Crumb. Go figure. The guy tells me a little bit about the Yerba Buena Crumb show which I've entirely forgotten about until he mentions it. Not a big show, according to the guy. "Just one room, and not even any Fritz The Cat." Hmmm.

5:00 p.m.: And suddenly everyone leaves at once: the two subbers, the couple who was browsing the crime section (French), a bunch of other guys. Somebody shows up to pass out cards for APE related showings and it turns out it's Dave Crosland! Holy crap!

***

And that's where I had to stop because (a) Rob Bennett showed up to see how I was doing and brought Guinness; (b) I had to go get something to eat, finally; and (c) it got even busier from there on out. Although the quality of my anecdotes would have improved because Ian Brill, James Masente, Dave Robson (also bringing beer, bless him) and Peter Wong all showed up and spent time hanging out and shooting the shit, I just didn't have time to even take notes. And Lord knows how I'm gonna write reviews this week since I read so little and during so much business...

But, anyway, there's your peek behind the curtain. Surprising, or no?

The Carpenter and the Walrus: Jeff Does the Non-Comics Thing for a Sec...

Forgot I'm at the store on my own today, so the liveblogging? Ain't happening. Wow. I'm just full of broken promises this week, aren't I? And while the tank's still on empty as far as comic books go, here's a film or two I've seen in the last week, and maybe I can still wrangle an uncomfortable comic book comparison or two:

THE LOOKOUT: I think my wife may have developed a "thing" for Joseph Gordon-Levitt after watching Brick, because this film suddenly jumped to the top of our to-see list once it came out. It's a very solid film written and directed by Scott Frank (for whom the warm spot in my heart for adapting Out of Sight is mitigated by the very cool spot in my heart for writing Dead Again), caught somewhere between a crime film and a character study. Gordon-Levitt plays a brain-damaged guy working as the janitor and night man at a small time bank who's embroiled in to a plot to rob the bank. As I say, it's a very solid film with a near-great performance by Gordon-Levitt who nicely underplays the part, and a script that's an astonishing piece of craft. Despite all that, it's no more than highly OK--Edi and I talked about the film a day or so later and realized neither of us had thought about it for more than a second after seeing it--maybe because Scott as first-time director plays his visuals a little too safe, or maybe because, as sometimes happens in tightly crafted crime pieces, people act only as little cogs that move the plot forward. Worth a rental, though.

SHOOTER: Yeah, I never heard back when I asked if anyone saw this and now I know why: after you walk out of this movie, you'll go to great lengths to pretend you never saw it. This "adaptation" of Stephen Hunter's deeply engrossing Point of Impact cuts everything out of Hunter's book the filmmakers thought the audience would find dated, corny, overly complex, or satisfying and puts in a whole bunch corny, overly simplistic, dull talky stuff that will age badly.

Here's a good example: in the book, after Swagger is double-crossed and shot, he manages to make it far downstream, makes his way into some scrublands, and finds and kills a boar, whose protein rich liver he is able to eat raw, giving him the strength to go on even though he's steadly bleeding out. It's a cool scene, filled with fun facts about eating why the liver is one of the few organs you actually can eat raw, but okay, I can see how it might look a little ridiculous to your average filmgoer and the filmmakers needed something different. Okay. So in the film, Swagger manages to make it far downstream, steal a truck, make his way into a small little town, finds some tin foil in a dumpster, shorts the lights in the country store so he can't be seen by the clerk, buys some sugar, salt, water, and a turkey thermometer, goes on to create a rejuvenating concoction, and injects this concoction by shooting himself up with the turkey thermometer in a gas station. Yeah---that looked a lot less ridiculous, guys. Nice job.

In fact, there's a distressing amount of emergency shopping in Shooter--so much so, you wonder if they should've called it Shopper, instead. Once Swagger makes it to the home of his dead buddy's ex-fiancee and convinces her to help him, he gives her a massive shopping list of stuff she'll need to conduct surgery and remove the bullet. (Of course, this involves eighteen cans of whipped cream, so that Swagger can use the nitrous as anesthetic--and no, I'm not kidding.) Later, when Swagger and the FBI agent who's decided to help him have to prepare for an assault on the trap that's been set for them, they go to a big-ass department store and race up and down the aisles with their shopping carts, pulling in huge swathes of shirts and nails and other goods they'll MacGyver into C4 and napalm and booby traps. The message is clear--when your precious government is riddled with corrupt black-op agencies working for the highest bidder, the only way you can fight them is by shopping. It's a strange updating of Hunter's Second Amendment oriented thriller--one wonders if the Swagger of the movie drives a pick-up with a "You can take my charge card when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers" bumper sticker.

Oh, and the action scenes are dull and there aren't enough of 'em. Truly Awful.

GRINDHOUSE: I'm supposed to see this tomorrow but I couldn't hold out any longer and caught a matinee yesterday. I could bore you with a million different thoughts about the thing but I'll stick to one central point: Rodriguez and Tarantino may now own the grindhouse, but apparently John Carpenter built it. Rodriguez's Planet Terror is riddled with classic Carpenter flourishes, from the self-composed keyboard hums, to the disastrous fate that befalls a child, to the mixture of jokey, aw-shucks humor mixed with outrageously disgusting effects. (Admittedly, Rodriguez pulls from a bunch of different other sources as well, but the Carpenter stuff is the stuff that really sticks.) Similarly, Tarantino's Death Proof tries to throw a lot of different stuff into the mix, but the long, near-interminable conversations between the first four girls mirrors the far crisper, naturalistic conversations among the four girls in Halloween. Throw in Eli Roth's trailer, and Grindhouse is a veritable John Carpenter tribute joint.

Which is all fine and good. I quite enjoyed Grindhouse, but every failing that Grindhouse has (including, arguably, its financial one) comes from emulating just about everything Carpenter did while ignoring how Carpenter had to do it. I don't know if you've ever listened to one of the Kurt Russell-less John Carpenter commentaries, but Carpenter gives (in a bored, laconic tone) some advice that really reinforces how much money mattered in his early films: in one commentary, he talks about running the title credits on a black background because it's that much more time you can fill up without having to shoot any film. Carpenter had to come up with ways to get his films to run ninety minutes because he only had the budget to shoot eighty-some-odd minutes of film. By contrast, Rodriguez and Tarantino have trouble keeping their movies to length, because anything they can think of--endless credit sequence of naked women feet, genital-leaking rape scenes, that chick from the Black-Eyed Peas bending over a car engine--they can get.

That said? Quite enjoyable, highly Good, and unlike The Lookout, there's stuff I'm still pondering a day later. As I said, I'll spare you the rest of it, but you could fill a book with the comparison and contrast and strange subtextual rumblings running through Grindhouse, and hopefully someday someone will.

I am I am I am Superman and I know what's happening: Graeme gushes about 4/11.

So, I read Tom Spurgeon describe All-Star Superman as "one of the best superhero comics of the last 30 years" this week and thought, wow, that's pretty high praise. And then I read ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #7, and re-read the first six issues (released in collected form this week as ALL-STAR SUPERMAN VOLUME 1 HC) and thought, you know, maybe he's not giving them enough credit. As much fun as the series is in single issue sittings, there's a lot to be gained from reading the first half of the series in one go. You catch the running themes (multiple identities, mortality, the multiplicity of the Superman character type) much more clearly when you can sit there and connect the dots. Although the series is constructed so that even though every issue is a story in and of itself, each issue is structured to play off what has come before and set up what comes after - the fifth issue, for example, ends with Lex Luthor embracing death because he's murdered Superman before the sixth shows the first time that Superman had to deal with mortality experienced from three different periods of Clark Kent's life (with the third perspective an Easter Egg for longtime Grant Morrison fans, who've read DC One Million and know that Superman Prime is our Superman in the far, far future); even the cliffhanger ending of issue 7, the first real two-parter of the series (Even though #2 and 3 were kind of a two-parter), manages to provide a conclusion for the main plotline with the defeat of the Bizarro World before branching out into the two-page set-up for the next issue. It's not that the series is being written for the trade, as the kids say, but just another illustration of how much thought and care has been put into its creation.

This is, without a doubt, a labor of love for Grant Morrison. You can see that, more than anything, he believes in Superman; this is a book, first and foremost, about Superman as a force for good and not something that worries about deconstructing the character or making him relevant for modern times. That's not to say that it's dated or retro, however... As much as the book's focus on Superman as not only perfect but almost unrelatably so may bring to mind the Silver Age take on the character, this is timeless instead of old-fashioned. Morrison's talked in the past about approaching super-heroes on a mythic level, but this is the first time for me where he's actually achieved that, perhaps because of the lack of the self-consciousness that shines through on the rest of his mainstream superhero work (Compare an issue of this with his Batman, for example, or his Wildcats - in those books, he's almost trying too hard to live up to his reputation, where here everything just works. There's a calmness and focus, instead of "Grant Morrison, he's so crazy"). Which isn't to say that there isn't imagination on show here, but it's imagination used in service of the story - and imagination where the ideas come slower but are more followed through, as opposed to his other work - which makes all the difference.

A lot of the calm that the book exudes - fittingly, considering the unflappable, serene nature of its star - comes from the art, which shows off Frank Quitely's very personal sense of design, pacing and space better than anything else he's done; We3 may have been more formally inventive, but All-Star Superman gives him the ability to compose a page and control your eye without the need for hyperactive bullet-dodging cyber-rabbits. It's widescreen art, but not in the traditional comic sense of the term - the panels stretch across the page to show surroundings, movement and the characters in a beautifully cinematic way, gracefully and allowing the reader to feel that everything is real, or at least, exists outside of the confines of that particular panel. There's a sense of life in the work, if that makes sense. "Digital inker" and colorist Jamie Grant's work helps dramatically in that, it has to be said - especially in the sixth issue - subtly reinforcing Quitely's linework while giving it more depth and weight, and completely earning his name being on the cover.

So, I'm reading these seven comics last night, and realizing that there's not a wrong step in any of them. The tone is perfect for Superman stories, the plots the right mix of adventure and overwrought emotion, the execution an ideal balance of humor and grace. It's so stunning a series that delays between issues don't seem to matter, because you know that the wait will be worth it, and when taken along with Jeff Smith's Shazam series, a successful one-two punch for DC of superhero comics that make you feel like you did when reading comics as a kid, even though you're an adult. Excellent, and then some.

No reviews for me tomorrow (or Sunday, for that matter) - It's Kate's and my wedding anniversary today, and we're celebrating five years of Kate not coming to her senses and dumping my comic-readin' ass by heading out of town for the weekend. Expect to see me recharged and full of snark in a couple of days, though.

Eight Days Away....

It's almost ready. Are you?

Sorry for being so tardy with the posting lately. I sat down this morning to write a few reviews and found myself stuck: I spent over an hour typing sentences and deleting 'em, typing and deleting in turn. Anyway, I have tentative plans to try liveblogging from the store tomorrow so hopefully that'll work out a bit better. Lord knows there's enough coming out....

Wampeters, Foma and Superheroes: Graeme on 4/11, Vonnegut.

Firstly, Kurt Vonnegut, RIP. I was a massive fan of the man; my favorite book of his was Timequake, which just struck me as exactly the book that he'd wanted to write all along, all anecdotes and ponderings under the attempt of science-fiction, mixing Slaughterhouse Five with Palm Sunday. I went through a period, when I was still in art school and my mind was still trying to suck everything in to figure out who and how to be, when I read his stuff voraciously, book after book after book, entirely out of order. I remember clearly getting to Breakfast of Champions and being surprised and depressed by the misanthropy of the book, of the way Vonnegut seemed to feel when writing it; I kept reading even though it felt as if he wanted to kill himself and punish all of his characters for being in his head, and can remember clearly feeling relieved when he saw the light of... what, I'm still not sure. Optimism? Humanism? Not-killing-yourselfism? in the middle of the book. It's one of those things that you're sure that Clarence the Angel would point to, if he found you trying to throw yourself off a bridge on Christmas Eve, even if he couldn't tell you why it was so important, either. I saw Vonnegut on the Daily Show, last year, and was struck by how frail he looked. Sure, he was 84 at the time, and I hope I'm still around and healthy enough to make talk show appearances at that age (Not that I'd want to make talk show appearances, but you know what I mean), but... man. I wanted him to be as vibrant and healthy as his writing, you know? Sly and funny and so, so human. Ah, well. So it goes, as he said. Onto happier things:

SPIDER-MAN AND THE FANTASTIC FOUR #1: Jeff Parker proves, once again, that he's the go-to man at Marvel for stories that don't suck or ask you to buy into totalitarian police states where superheroes can literally get away with murder, with this new, entirely unnecessary-yet-fun miniseries that just coincidentally stars the House of Ideas' two summer movie franchises of the year - What's surprising about that isn't so much that it's a movie tie-in, but that it's a movie tie-in that's not going to be released in trade in time for said movies; either Marvel have screwed up their schedules, or they're beginning to look at the direct market and single issues as a viable source of money in light of Civil War sales... Or maybe both. Who knows?

Anyway, this is pretty much what you'd expect from a non-continuity story by Parker and Mike Weiringo; it's light and throwaway purposefully, focusing less on the angst and more on the derring-do and imaginative adventure of the whole thing. You can tell that Parker's worked on the all-ages Adventures books, because this has a similar feel, and there are a number of scenes that set up the characters and their relationships pretty clearly for new readers (Ben plays a trick on Johnny to show off their rivalry, Spider-Man is insulted by people who later praise the FF to show their particular public standings, and so on) without being too obvious about it. There's something wonderfully old-fashioned about it, in the best way - It's written as if it's someone's first comic, but in such a way as to not alienate old readers who'll instead appreciate the character bits.

Likewise, Weiringo's art is a joy; clear and easy to follow, attractively cartoony while being dynamic enough for readers who've been at this for awhile. He's one of Marvel's secret weapons even if they haven't really realized that for awhile, and a pitch-perfect match for Parker's writing. Both of them seem uninterested in post-modern takes on superhero icons, preferring instead to offer up stories that aren't tied to any particular movement or zeitgeist and have no agenda other than to entertain. Depressingly enough, that probably guarantees that this will be seen as old-fashioned and unnecessary by the majority of fandom, but feh. Their loss; this is Good and in many ways closer to the movie versions of the characters than the regular books. Here's hoping the potential new audience finds this and gobbles it up, instead of Civil War Chronicles or whatever.

Robert Downey Jr. has his work cut out for him: Graeme 0n 4/11.

Perhaps fittingly, considering what's currently going on in the Marvel Universe, IRON MAN #16 is a rather uncomfortable comic. It's not uncomfortable for the good reasons - It prods places in the reader's mind that they wouldn't want to consider at the best of times, for example, or it offers up some inconvenient truth (Al Gore as Tony Stark; what a concept) - but because it just doesn't hang together well at all. For one thing, Iron Man as a character (That is, Tony Stark when he's wearing his technological supersuit) doesn't really appear in the book, other than in flashback in one scene. The rest of the book revolves around Tony Stark as Director of SHIELD, bring so driven to take down terrorists that he doesn't give a damn about military protocol. Which is a potentially interesting take, but one that doesn't really sit well with his portrayal in other books, where his following the letter of the law over what his instincts may say causes him to, say, set a trap involving a pretend corpse of Captain America (Oh, and also: The book isn't called "Tony Stark: Goateed Defender of America"). Sure, Stark comes across as a dick in this book as much as he does in other books, but it's a different kind of dick, and that sort of thing should be important, somehow. (There's a moment of supreme dickishness towards the end of the issue, where Dum-Dum Dugan is giving Stark a lesson in how to be a good military leader. Dugan says, "As our commanding officer, you will make life-or-death decisions. When you do, you must ask yourself one very important question: Did your decisions today make for a better world tomorrow?" The dickish moment comes when Stark replies, with a smirk, "Yes." It was a rhetorical question, Tony! And even if it wasn't, that smarmy certainty isn't going to win you any points.)

The end of the issue, where Stark speaks at the funeral of fallen SHIELD agents, is one of the few places where the characterisation of Stark seems consistent with the way he appears elsewhere, and it's arguably accidental; speaking in tribute to the fallen soldiers, Stark says "I have had the distinct honor of fighting alongside hundreds of super-heroes in my life... but very few heroes." And it's such an odd line that what I took away was that Stark doesn't consider super-heroes actual heroes. Which, you know, ties in with his Civil War persona of "superheroes are idiots who need to be registered and trained" and all, but at the same time makes you stop and think, Wait, why aren't super-heroes heroes? Is their desire to do the right thing despite their personal cost somehow invalidated by them wearing costumes or something? ("I'm sorry, Spider-Man. Yes, you saved that nun and her band of orphans from certain death in that burning building, but I happen to have the exact mathematical formula for heroism here and, ohhhh, you were just slightly off. Better luck next time.") That said, I'm convinced that such thinking isn't what the writers intended, and instead they were just reaching for just another "You know who the real heroes are, America? Our brave boys and girls in uniform" moment, a la Civil War #7.

But here's the thing: The events of Civil War, for better or worse, have ultimately pushed this character into the position of being not just a super-villain, but a pretty successful super-villain - He has created clones who kill people, manipulated governments, tried to ignite international war, and not only gotten away with it, but been rewarded for it. Books like New Avengers play the character as a villain fairly openly, and it's in that light that you can get away with him devaluing the sacrifice of others while telling people with certainty that he has made a better world. But as a hero himself or even just as a sympathetic character, that arrogance and lack of self-doubt doesn't make for interesting reading. Yes, he will inevitably be heading for a fall and will regain some humility prior to his movie launching, but without any attempt at moral uncertainty at this point, I find myself unable to care. In his own series, not only does Iron Man know that what he's doing is right, but two issues into the new status quo, the creators appear to agree with him; there's no ambiguity here, and that makes for dull reading. Eh.

Hibbs says "Bye-eee!"

Off to Vegas, be back on... well from your POV, probably Sunday. (Maybe MOnday, when I think of it) Sorry I've been slack the last few days -- lots on my mind!

One other thing I forgot to mention: in addition to the shipping-from-Diamond list I posted, we ALSO got these items in this week, via Baker & Taylor:

ALIAS THE CAT HC (Kim Deitch) BLINDSPOT GN (Kevin Pyle -- I really really liked this one, though it's a smidge expensive for how long it takes to read) FLIGHT v1 & v2 -- the new "Ballentine" editions PROFESSOR'S DAUGHTER TINY TYRANT -- both from FirstSecond, and, I think, the strongest two books in this "wave" of releases.

As far as I know, we're the only store in SF to have these books currently, as DIamond hasn't distributed them yet. That's one reason I bought them via B&T.

In addition to that, they're CHEAPER from B&T -- Diamond offered them all at a "H" discount (max 40%), while B&T had them for about 46%, once you calculate the free shipping, the extra pre-order discount, and the additional "pay on time" discount.

Plus, they're returnable. (not that I order anything to return - but its nice to know that option is potentially available)

So, the BOOKSTORE distributor beats the COMICS-SPECIFIC distributor on a) time, b) discount, and c) returnability.

There's something very very wrong with this picture. (which, amazingly, will get worse once they're no longer "new" -- Diamond's discount will drop to a pathetic 37% on these as reorders, while I can not possibly order them for B&T for less than 43%)

Can you guess one of my prime topics for the ComicsPRO meeting?

Anyway, see you in a while!

-B

Readying My Purple Jumpsuit: Jeff's Still Reading the 4/4 Books.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA CVR A #7: I'm reviewing this issue because I found it a much better read than Cover B. No, no, just kidding. Although it's yet another issue of nearly no action (I'm fully expecting Meltzer to wrap up his run with the conclusion of the god-damned election of the JLA head, or maybe a dramatic motion by the Sargeant-At-Arms to table the reading of the minutes of the last meeting until after everyone's finished eating cookies), I'm a sucker for the uber-reverential tack Meltzer is taking--if Red Arrow didn't get me, the good ol' Hall of Justice would've. One could argue (probably quite successfully, I should add) that this is all just nostalgia and easy symmetry cranked up to 11, cheap fanboy pandering at its hucksterish. And yet I'm digging it, I admit it. Highly Good, and I might even go higher if I wasn't paying fifty-one extra cents every issue. MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS #1: I'm with Hibbs and MacMillan, although I was always kinda lukewarm on Madman for a reason I couldn't quite put my finger on until now. Flipping through the rehash, I realized that Allred was pretty self-indulgent with Madman, crossing the character over with every other god-damned comic hero ever created and not hesitating to use him to promote any other project, comic series, album, movie, or underwear line Allred was undertaking at any given time. So I think it'd be awesome if Madman ends up one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because, say, Allred's starting up a crazed religious cult (of which he would of course be the charismatic, cartooning, sludgey-guitar-playing head) and he wants to get his message of the End Times (and the purple tracksuited, free-loving individuals only he can save) out to the comic book reading population.

Obviously, I'm not emotionally involved with the character enough to go more than Eh either way, but I obviously (still!) resent having to sit through Astroesque enough that I probably would've stuck to that rating if this had actually been good.

MARVEL ZOMBIES ARMY OF DARKNESS #2: Like Hibbs, I thought the Blob gag and the last page were great. Unlike Hibbs, I probably will pretend that cliffhanger is true and that's the end of the mini. Two Good pages and a whole bunch of stuff I don't care about (actually, now that I think about it, the fact that Dazzler is apparently Ash's idea of a perfect woman is pretty funny too) puts it on either high Eh or low OK.

MIDNIGHTER #6: I picked this up because of Jog's mention of it (although re-reading the post now, I realize I missed his dismissal of the story as "actually really overwrought and kind of awful") and quite liked it. I have no idea where it fits into continuity (I kinda stopped paying attention to the book once Midnighter crushed Hitler's ball--has anyone in modern comix written as much about Hitler's testicle as Garth Ennis?) and kinda don't care. Did I want to read Shogun Assassin with 80% more gay? Turns out I did. Call me crazy, but Good. Here's hoping next issue is The Duelists...with 40% more gay!

OMEGA FLIGHT #1: Oh, man. I remember after Bendis wiped out Alpha Flight in New Avengers, he or Quesada or somebody was all, "Don't worry. We love Alpha Flight and this is just our first step to bringing 'em back in a way Alpha Flight fans are gonna love." So, yeah, you get to the last page of this book where apparently Sasquatch is beat to death by the Wrecking Crew and I gotta tell ya, I could just feel the love coming off the pages. Awful stuff, even with art by Scott Kolins (I know some of you will be inclined to replace "even" with "especially."

It's hard to review when you don't know what you think: Graeme, 4/4.

Here's the odd thing; I didn't really like SAVAGE TALES #1 that much, but I'm not sure I could tell you why. I mean, sure, I could say that three of the four stories in this relaunch of the fantasy anthology are unsatisfying first chapters, not able to find enough of a middle ground between character work and action to provide me with any reason to come back (The one exception to this is Ron Marz and Adriano Batista's opening Red Sonja story, which manages to use what reads as a pretty throwaway scene as a sneaky way to introduce Sonja to any new readers, showing us not only the character herself but also her reputation and the world in which she lives - It's actually a surprisingly successful way around what would otherwise have had to be an exposition dump either in dialogue or narration, and just one of the reasons why this is easily the best story of the issue; I'll get to some of the others later), but I'm unsure whether that opinion is really a failure of the creators or partially a result of my expectations of the title based on its format.

Anthologies like this, you see - Adventure-based anthologies, I guess you could call them - are all, in mind, up against 2000AD as some kind of ideal of what they should be. And not any particular issue of 2000AD, but a dream issue; something that probably never existed, but merges the best of their strips together into some kind of superprog. This is partially because I grew up, like most comic readers from the UK, reading 2000AD every week even when most of the stories were crap even to an undiscerning fourteen-year-old, but also partially because 2000AD did a lot of things right (to me, at least) when it came to working in this format. One of those things in particular was that the writers knew how to write serials in 5-page episodes - they kept things moving, even if it was only the illusion of the advancement of plot, and when they couldn't do that, they'd overwhelm you with dialogue that was funny, or stylish, or incomprehensible or whatever, but which gave each series its own personality. Because of that, there would be episodes where nothing would happen, or everything would happen even if it made no sense (Both of these, admittedly, happened more often as 2000AD got older and its readers started growing up; the writers that started it, Alan Grant, Pat Mills, John Wagner and the like, were old pros at making sure that each five page episode had at least one action sequence, even if it was just a very dramatic argument between characters. I'm thinking now of writers like John Smith or even some of Grant Morrison's stuff like Really and Truly), and you wouldn't care, because the personality of the story was so strong that that was what you were really reading for, coming back for every issue.

And that, maybe, is what is missing in the strips in Savage Tales: Personality. Each strip, including the Marz Red Sonja one, is pretty homogenous. There's a sameness of tone to them, a manneredness to the writing that restrains the dialogue and the imagination just as it keeps the visuals to a pretty generic superhero book level (with the notable exception of Pablo Marcos's work on one strip, which is completely elevated - I'm tempted to say "saved" - by the coloring that gives it a painted finish), and that might be the one thing that disappointed me more than anything else. I mean, yes, Leah Moore and John Reppion's story is all set-up and no actual story (Showing two panels of a mystery man in a hood with glowing eyes doesn't count), and Luke Lieberman and Mike Oeming focus on action at the expense of coherent storytelling and, you know, telling the reader the name of their main character (No-one is really given any introduction, and as a result, it's hard to care about the story because we have no idea of the context), but there's no variation in tone between them, nothing to make them stand out against everything else in the book. The same goes for Mike Raicht's Lovecraftian story at the back of the book - Yes, there's more of a horror element, but it's treated in exactly the same way as the other stories: Po-faced, earnest and without any sense of humor; Marz's story opens with comedy, which is another of its saving graces. As, for that matter, is that it's the only story that attempts a cliffhanger to draw the reader back for issue 2 - The hero is in direct, if somewhat vague, peril as opposed to the other three stories, all of which close on "slight sense of unease with foreboding last line."

So, yeah. It's not that the stories are bad, as much as bland. But when you have such little space to work in or offer the reader some reason to come back next month, then maybe that blandness is the worst thing that this title could have to offer. Technically, it's Okay, I'm sure; if I had more affinity to the subject matter, maybe I would like it more, but to me...? Eh.

Arriving 4/11

So, yeah, I took the Holiday Weekend "off" (not really, but off from writing at least), and I'll have something for you tomorrow, but on Wednesday I'm off to Vegas for the first ComicsPRO meeting, so this is pretty much just Jeff and Graeme's Show this week. LOTS of stuff coming this week:

2000 AD #1529 2000 AD #1530 52 WEEK #49 A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #55 (A) AFTER THE CAPE #2 (OF 3) ALL STAR SUPERMAN #7 AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #7 AMELIA RULES #17 ARCHIE #574 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #178 BATMAN STRIKES #32 BATTLESTAR GALACTICA CYLON APOCALYPSE #2 BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ZAREK #4 BIG BANG COMICS PRESENTS TEENREX #5 BLADE #8 BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #124 BOMB QUEEN III #2 (OF 4) BPRD GARDEN OF SOULS #2 (OF 5) BREATHE CVR A #1 (OF 4) CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #12 CLIVE BARKERS GREAT & SECRET SHOW #11 (OF 12) CONAN & THE MIDNIGHT GOD #3 (OF 5) DESPERADOES BUFFALO DREAMS #3 (OF 4) EMO BOY #11 FABLES #60 FELL #8 (RES) FIENDISH FABLES ONE SHOT #1 (RES) FRANK FRAZETTAS DEATH DEALER #1 GEN 13 #7 GHOST RIDER #10 GREEN ARROW #73 GREEN LANTERN CORPS #11 GRIFTER MIDNIGHTER #2 (OF 6) HIGHLANDER #6 IRON MAN #16 JLA CLASSIFIED #37 LEGION OF MONSTERS MAN-THING #1 LONERS #1 (OF 6) LOVELESS #17 MAD MAGAZINE #477 MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #23 MARVEL ILLUSTRATED JUNGLE BOOK MR STUFFINS #1 (OF 3) NEW AVENGERS #29 CWI NEW X-MEN #37 NEWUNIVERSAL #5 NIGHTLY NEWS #5 (OF 6) NOVA #1 PIRATES VS NINJAS #4 (OF 4) PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #6 SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE SLEEP OF REASON #5 (OF 5) SHE-HULK 2 #17 SPIDER-MAN BACK IN BLACK HANDBOOK SPIDER-MAN FAMILY 2ND PTG KIRK VAR #1 (PP #758) SPIDER-MAN FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (OF 4) SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #17 SPIDER-MAN MAGAZINE STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #15 STORMWATCH PHD #6 TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED #7 (OF 8) TEEN TITANS #45 THUNDERBOLTS #113 CWI TMNT MOVIE ADAPTATION #1 TMNT MOVIE PREQUEL 3 DONATELLO TRIALS OF SHAZAM #6 (OF 12) TWO GUNS #1 (OF 4) UNCANNY X-MEN #485 WASTELAND #8 (NOTE PRICE) WHITE TIGER #5 (OF 6) WOLFSKIN #3 (OF 3) WOLVERINE ORIGINS #13 WONDER WOMAN #7 XOMBIE SEELEY CVR A #1 (OF 6)

Books / Mags / Stuff ALL STAR SUPERMAN VOL 1 HC APEX TREASURY BEST OF BIJOU FUNNIES TP (O/A) (A) ASLEEP IN A FOREIGN PLACE ART BOOK BATTLE POPE VOL 3 TP PILLOW TALK CIVIL WAR TP CLASSIC DAN DARE THE MAN FROM NOWHERE HC COMPLETE PEANUTS VOL 7 1963-1964 HC CONLUVIO TP CRISIS AFTERMATH THE SPECTRE TP DARK GOODBYE VOL 1 GN (OF 3) DEATH NOTE VOL 11 TP DOOMED PRESENTS ASHLEY WOOD TP DRAGON HEAD VOL 6 GN (OF 10) EDU MANGA MOTHER TERESA GN FERRO CITY VOL 1 TP FLOWER & FADE GN FRUITS BASKET VOL 16 GN (OF 20) HACK SLASH VOL 1 FIRST CUT TP NEW PTG HACK SLASH VOL 2 DEATH BY SEQUEL TP HARRY THE RAT WITH WOMEN NOVEL HEROES FOR HIRE VOL 1 CIVIL WAR TP INU YASHA VOL 29 TP KAFKA GN MARVEL ADVENTURES FF VOL 5 ALL 4 ONE 4 FOR ALL DIGEST TP MOME VOL 7 GN NIKOLAI DANTE TSAR WARS VOL 2 TP SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE VOL 5 DR DEATH TP SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN FERAL TP SPIDER-MAN REIGN PREMIERE HC STAR TREK COMICS CLASSICS VOL 5 CONVERGENCE TP STREET MAGIK GN TOYFARE SPIDER-MAN 3 MOVIE CVR #118 WASTELAND BOOK 1 CITIES IN DUST TP WIZARD MAG 2007 MEGA MOVIE COLL ED SPIDEY 3 CVR (187B)

What looks good to you?

-B

Late To The Party: More Review from Jeff of the 4/4 Books.

I'm finally watching season three of Battlestar Galactica, on maybe episode eight or something, and....wow. I'll be curious to see what they do with the next ten or twelve episodes but, occasional clunker or two notwithstanding, it's one hell of a season so far. In other late adapter news, I just read my first volume of Naruto last week.

And next week, the missus and I are getting one of them new-fangled rotary-dial telephones! No more party lines for us!

Oh, and what a drag Johnny Hart died just a day short of Easter Sunday, huh? I think the timing of that would've made him grin a litttle. I'll spare you the standard story, but suffice it to say my brothers and I had about 15 to 20 B.C. paperbacks growing up and read 'em until the spines dissolved.

And, anyway:

DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN #3: I don't know; I'm getting a little more underwhelmed with each issue. I mean, it looks lovely, but it reads like Cormac McCarthy doing a rewrite of The Sword and The Sorceror. And while that was initially okay, it's getting a little dullish--the big action in this issue is a dude batting a decapitated head twenty feet, and someone getting their finger knocked off with a slingshot. At this rate, we're gonna have people blinding each other with straw wrappers and/or falling after running with scissors by issue #5. Lovely but really when you factor in the price and the back-patting extra features? Eh.

DETECTIVE COMICS #831: I run hot and cold on the art team of Kramer & Faucher--if nothing else, whenever the Ventriloquist pops up I can't help but notice how much everyone looks like a mannequin--but some fault also lies with Dini who, as Hibbs pointed out in the store on Friday, still writes his action scenes for animation. I'm also not down with Harley being rehabilitated (if nothing else, I think it's the third rogue to do so in Dini's run, which suggests either a very slowly developed story arc or a distracted writer) but, on the other hand, it's a pretty competent done-in-one and us Batman fans gotta take our thrills where we can get 'em these days. So, OK.

FALLEN SON DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA WOLVERINE: Nice art, but I got to the point where Wolverine recruits Daredevil for DD's heightened senses and I never quite recovered. (Isn't that like Iron Man recruiting War Machine because he needs someone with armor and high-tech weaponry?) I'll probably keep checking these out, if only to see if Loeb falls back on his crutch of excerpting lengthy historical speeches for cheap and easy resonance. Please don't mistake that for a recommendation: pretty pictures pull this up to Eh.

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #4: Ups the awesome by about 200% and probably just in time--dashed-off steampunk hyperbole meets wacky kung-fu hijinks and old-school convoluted Marvel continuity to give you that classic '70s comic book feeling of a book that can access every genre conceivable and still have guys in funny suits punching people in the face. Also reminded me a bit of reading Ellis's superhero work but without the nagging feeling the author was vomiting in a wastebasket every four pages. Very Good stuff, in short. I liked it quite a bit.

IRON MAN HYPERVELOCITY #4: In a way, this is almost like Adam Warren's rewrite of Livewires, as you get a lot of the same ideas and motifs--a fixation on "mecha" culture, artificial personality and cat-and-mouse games with high-tech covert intelligence agencies--but all of the dullness carved away: Warren not only throws his protagonist from the frying pan into the fire at the end of every issue (as he notes on the last page here) but at least once more per issue, as well. It's currently running the risk of being too one-note at this point, but I'm inclined to believe he'll change things up for the final act. Highly Good stuff, and it'll either make an awesome trade or an exhausting one. I'll be curious to see where it goes.

JONAH HEX #18: If the nation's Grindhouse fever keeps up for more than a week or two--or happened at all, if the movie's earnings are any indication--maybe DC could figure out how to advertise this book in a way that makes explicit the links between this and those scuzzy theaters with their cheap and nasty double features. Like many of those lovely films, this issue was a nasty piece of work with little more in mind than putting its arm around you, offering to school you in mankind's most detestable behavior, and then punching you in the stomach when you drop your guard and lean in closer to listen. Pretty OK, although just about every issue I put down feels about two to five pages too short.

Bunny or No Bunny: Graeme runs at some more 4/4 books.

I really need to look at calendars more often. It's Easter already? Where's my egg? 52 WEEK FORTY-EIGHT: If Richard Corben and Phil Jiminez had a baby, it would be Darick Robertson's art in this issue, which manages to jump back and forth over the line that separates looking rushed and particularly stylized. We're in the rather rushed end-run of the series, now, and it's coming more into focus that things aren't going to really come to a complete conclusion in the next four issues -Intergang may be trying to turn Gotham City into Apokolips (It's the fire pits that gave it away, even though commentators over at Doug Wolk's blog think that they're actually Lazarus Pits), but I can't see any way for that plot to even be properly introduced never mind completed, considering the other plots that still have to be dealt with. Unlike Hibbs, I'm not so happy about the idea of Batwoman dying this issue, if only it feels like the character never really transcended the hype surrounding her sexuality and debut in the New York Times. I mean, sure, it explains why we've not seen the character outside of this series, but still, it's a waste of whatever potential was in there in the first place. Okay, but at this point, I don't want to see characters dying and issues spent entirely on one plotline anymore.

DANGER GIRL: BODYSHOTS #1: It's Alias meets Charlie's Angels, and curiously enjoyable in a trashy kind of way. I've avoided Danger Girl until this series, mostly because I didn't really see the point, but... Eh. It's fun, if you set your sights low enough, and always interesting to see a creator-owned book continue without any input from said creator.

THE IMMORTAL IRON FIST #4: By this point, the co-writing team of Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction has shifted more towards a Fraction-esque direction - When airships crash into mythical cities and men in top hats emerge with guns, you start to wonder whether Matt's taking more of a lead in plotting, or whether Ed has started to be infected by his writing partner. Balancing expositionary introduction of the Iron Fist history with kung-fu and shootin' action and corporate takeovers, this continues to be much more enjoyable than it has any right to be. Good, even as I'm not the biggest fan of the Steel Serpent.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7: I'm such a sap. I really shouldn't enjoy this; the individual scenes don't work, I don't buy half of the character development, but... I kind of dig the new Hall of Justice/Watchtower headquarters. I'm happy that Dinah gets to be the chair of the team in this new setup. And even as the "fate decided the team" theme voiced by the characters mirrors the first three issues of Bendis' New Avengers too much for my liking, I have to admit that this seemed surprisingly Good to me. I'm sure that everyone else may find it somewhat less impressive, but, feh. This completely sucked up to my DC fanboyishness, and won me over.

OMEGA FLIGHT #1: Again with the slow build! Only two of the characters on the cover appear inside this way-too-self-conscious first issue of a series that shows surprisingly clearly that whoever decided that this shouldn't be an ongoing book after all made the right decision. Bri had it right, pointing out that this book is far too American-centric for a Canadian team. When the whole concept seems to be "American supervillains are invading Canada, so American superheroes have to save the Canadians," there's something weirdly patronizing going on. But why am I surprised? Crap.

SUPERMAN #661: As much as I enjoy Kurt Busiek's one-shots, I have to admit, I'm pretty much done with fill-ins by now. It's not that I'm desperate to get back to the ongoing Camelot Falls arc (Although I am, and it's interesting that the four months of filler on Action Comics is getting such bad press, but the four months of fill-in skip by without commentary on this title; Maybe because regular writer Busiek has been on the book all along?), but there's something almost weightless, in a way, about this issue; a feeling that no-one, not even the creators, really cared about it that much. It's enjoyable enough, but there's something very Eh about the whole thing.

Coming up either tomorrow or Tuesday, we'll see if I can get my thoughts about the Savage Tales relaunch to amount to more than just "It's not Ron Mars, whoever spellchecks the Dynamite books..."

Sky-Blue But Stinking of Vinegar: Jeff's Opening Reviews for the 04/04 Books.

Writing comic book reviews on Easter Sunday morning? I cannot tell if I am to be admired or pitied on this, one of our more deeply confusing holidays [cue the whole Jesus/Easter Bunny/salvation/colored egg thing, done to death by thousands of stand-ups, here). Hats off to Dave Robson, who told me he was going to spend Easter morning watching Grindhouse. I can only hope this will become a trend that will transform the face of the holiday, and 100 years from now parents will have to explain how looking for Easter eggs and watching "Hobo With A Shotgun" ties in to the story of Jesus.... 52 WEEK #48: Montoya becomes The Question and it's highly OK but I was really underwhelmed. I find that especially troubling because I'd argue that Montoya's story arc has been the most solid one in 52, overall: the character beats are there; the motivation is there; verbal and visual metaphorical use of the Question motif, etc. In talking about it with Hibbs, he suggested that maybe because it was a foregone conclusion it didn't have the "oomph" it might have, and there's something to that.

But I still blame the '80s. Yes, that's right. I blame an entire decade for my general listlessness to the Montoya/Question storyline, because if there's one thing that decade taught me to be wary of, it's a woman in a fedora.

As you young whippersnappers probably know from history class, MTV started back in the '80s and in those early, pre-Real World days they actually showed music videos. Music videos in those days were infamous for showing you unreal things filmed cheaply out in the real world, and leaving it to you to sort out what was real and what wasn't. I think it took me over ten years to realize that if you drop a rose on a checkered ceramic floor, it doesn't shatter like glass. Also, if you are in the water with a woman--say, at the beach or a tropical lagoon--and the two of you come out of the water at the same time, you have other options than gripping each other at the arms and screaming. Even if you are in slow motion. Also, no matter how much you clean it first, a sexy woman is not going to dance all over your car. It's just not going to happen.

So whenever I see a woman in a fedora, I find myself getting anxious. It's true. Up until she became the Question, every scene in which Montoya tugged on her hat led me to believe she would next be in a shoving-dancing match with her pimp, rubbing herself all over her hair-metal boyfriend's car, or dancing with a suspendered cartoon cat. I think this may have hampered my enjoyment of 52 #48 which was, as I said, probably a pretty OK issue, overall.

ALL NEW ATOM #10: I wonder if something got changed in the drafting process--you know, another pass to tighten up the plotting that changed the character's relationships, maybe--because I really, really can't buy that (a) Ryan is still going to be friends with the woman who married the dude who savagely beat him before her eyes and would have murdered him if fate hadn't intervened; or (b) that woman would have married the dude who savagely beat her friend almost to death before her eyes. And maybe it'll pick up next issue, but I also wish it was a little less Sometimes They Come Back and a little more Chinese Ghost Story (parts 1 or 2). Still some stuff to like, but lower end of Eh for me.

AVENGERS INITIATIVE #1: I wasn't fond of the death scene, partly because it seemed pretty telegraphed, but more than that I found the book kinda muddle-headed. Here, the Initiative is being an extension of the military whereas the other Civil War comparisons I've seen liken it to police firefighting service--which I think really affects the tenor of the thing. If registering your superpowers is like registering a handgun, and you have to pass some sort of very basic training in order to be licensed, that's one thing. But if it means you're shipped off to a base where people holler at you and you crawl in the mud and get accidentally killed, then that's essentially a draft and I think there would be a very different national reaction to it. (I know there are lots of factors in play, but I think a huge difference between the current war and the Vietnam War is that there is no draft hanging over the head of today's college kids and, as a result, a lot less protesting.) Considering half of the book's hook is the Initiative, it'd be great if, now that Civil War is over and there's not as much tightly-knit deadline sensitive cross-continuity going on, Marvel might take the time to really iron out all their ideas on it. (And considering the other half of the hook was the Avengers in the title, it'd be great if we got to see more than Yellowjacket.) Slott does a an okay job with what he's got, but instead of war movie cliches with a superhero gloss, we got some deeply wonky military nut who could use the previous history of our armed forces as a basis for the behind-the-scenes drama of military men who need to figure out standardized training for people with non-standardized powers. To paraphrase the great bluesmen, "Well, the men don't know, but the Tom Clancy fans understand."

Anyway, for those who prefer their reviews without so much Monday (or, in this case, Sunday) morning quarterbacking: deeply Eh.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #2: I agree with the G; this was much stronger than the first issue (which I liked just fine) and so like this even more. Another thing that I think Graeme nailed in his review is his reference to Joss's "swagger." A couple of people on our comments and elsewhere have protested that they don't understand Whedon's popularity, and I'd say it's precisely this swagger that makes Whedon stand out. It's not that he's especially great at any one thing (although his sitcom training tends to give his dialogue both a lot of zest and a tendency to sound all the same, sometimes) but more that he's good enough at a lot of things to know how the rules of how they work and how to break those rules when it suits him. (For example, he's done that sudden change-up to a dream or fantasy sequence several times before but he nailed me with it here because of how he plays with the page pacing.) The high level of craft plus that extra bit of zing is what can make him a very entertaining writer and, when he's on, you get Very Good work like you do here.

More tomorrow, most likely. Happy Easter!

Countdown to Awesome.

Less than two weeks until the signing? Holy Cow, that's just crazy.

Oh, and since I posted this on a Saturday, you can probably count on it showing up in the middle of this upcoming week (and probably next week as well, come to think of it.)

Hope any of you inclined to show up will do so. It oughta be awesome.

Mad, Bad and Depressing to Know: Graeme on Allred, 4/4.

Continuing the trend from Brian's last post: Something else that Annalee liked? Grindhouse, which she and the lovely Charlie Anders invited Kate, myself and a theater row of others to watch at the Bridge last night. Perhaps because I am young, innocent and Scottish, I'm not so familiar with the whole grindhouse thing - I've seen some of the movies and trailers themselves, but outside of the context of grindhouse culture, so the whole package that surrounded the movie last night (Including about half an hour of trailers for genuine grindhouse movies) was both surprising and very, very enjoyable. The actual movie was both only moreso, especially the Rodriguez half, which just piles more and more over-the-topness throughout itself to give you the feeling that This may be the greatest achievement in cinema history more than once. Tarantino's half starts slowly, but just when you're getting worried that you're going to be bored by the whole thing, kicks in the awesome to such an extent that you'll be cheering along with the best of them. Kate's and my love of Rose McGowan aside - and that's a pretty big thing to put aside, let me tell you - the best thing in the movie for me may be the trailers between the two movies: "Don't!" being something that makes me laugh much more than it should even a day later. Consider the movie Very Good... But anyway! Because I said I would yesterday! MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS #1: Wow, what a spectacular misfire. Whenever I think of Madman, I tend to think of absurd, colorful, retro fun that occasionally strays into the existential, sure, but fun nonetheless. Maybe I've only got this impression because I've not read enough Madman in the past, and the series itself has actually always been a downer with a surface glee, because if there's one thing that this opening issue of the new ongoing series isn't, it's fun in the slightest.

The plot of the issue, such as it is, is the following: Frank Einstein, the eponymous Madman, finds that everyone in the world is dead. After reliving his past in the exposition-heavy bulk of the issue, he's told that that past wasn't real, and he's not a superhero at all, he's actually the personification of one of the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse; he's actually Death. The end. I've got quite a few problems with this, the first one being - You spend an entire issue on exposition summing up the character's history, only to spend the last three pages saying that none of it is true? Then haven't you just wasted everyone's time and money...? That really seems like the case here, especially considering that the exposition isn't particularly inventively done; it reads more or less like a Marvel Saga issue, but less so, not focusing on recurring themes or the big events but apparently just recapping almost every issue (with the exception of the cross-company crossovers, although Superman, Nexus and the Savage Dragon all appear in there). Why spend so many pages building up a history that doesn't matter for, I assume, new readers like me, only to pull it away at the last moment? The shock "That's not who you are" reveal doesn't work, because we've only really been told who Frank thought he was, instead of shown, and the shift in tone (Frank isn't a fun superhero, he's Death!) doesn't even seem particularly jarring, because the book started with the horror theme of Frank finding rotting corpses everywhere. It just seems... dull, kind of.

I almost wish that I had been reading the series long-term, just because I wonder what the reaction of longer-term readers would be to the ending of the issue. Would it seem more dramatic? Or would they, as Brian seems to be, have been turned off by the essentially-issue-length recap of things that they already knew up to that point?

(Also, for that matter, if we're to believe that the end of this issue isn't a giant swerve, hasn't Mike Allred just killed demand for his expensive Madman Gargantua collection by saying that none of it happened in continuity? Or don't people care about things like that?)

It's a strange move, I think, spending your first issue more or less spinning your wheels before trying an "everything you know is wrong!" ending - You haven't earned the gravity that that ending should have because, hey, it's a first issue (Yes, the book has been around in many other incarnations by this point, but you don't fill an issue with recap unless you think that you're reaching new readers who haven't read that stuff before, so obviously on some level Allred is treating this as a first issue - "First smashing issue! Jump on for the ride of this life!" as the cover blurb screams), and so it feels like a cheat and kind of like shock for the sake of shock, which tends to kill goodwill from the reader. There's something oddly reminiscent of early '90s Image in it, the way that Liefeld and Lee and all the rest tried to pull X-Men style reveals on characters that they'd introduced at most two issues earlier, so maybe the whole thing is some meta joke now that this book is being published by Image, but... I don't know.

Don't get me wrong, the new direction, if it takes (and I kind of hope that it does; not that I like the new direction, because either Frank goes along with it and becomes Death which is, you know, not what I want from this book at all, or he doesn't, and becomes the cliched "monster who denies his destiny and tries to do good" that Hellboy has had covered for the last decade and a bit, so... But at this point, I feel like Allred can't just reveal that this is an entire fake-out because if it is, then he really has just wasted that first issue entirely) may end up being the best thing since sliced bread, and the book is still pretty damn pretty to look at. But that doesn't change the fact that this is a very disappointing first issue, not only because of the lack of fun, but also because of the worthlessness of pulling the rug out from people who weren't standing on it in the first place. Crap.

Brain and brain, what is brain? Hibbs continues 4/4

Wow, how cool would it have been if "Spock's Brain" was about zombies, huh? That's my mini-theme this entry, with two zombie reviews:

MARVEL ZOMBIES / ARMY OF DARKNESS #2: I actually can't tell you how much I'd like it if that cliffhanger were true, and that was the last we saw of Ash -- what a perfect, absurd ending that would have been.

In fact, I'll even say that that last page may be my favorite last page of a comic book so far in 2007.

I also really really laughed hard and out loud at the Blob sequence, even though it was background and only a page long.

So, yeah (and I honestly don't beleive I am typing this): GOOD.

RAISE THE DEAD: Also under the auspices of Dynamite, this is a lot more pedestrian. I feel like I've read "trapped in a truck stop diner" ten thousand times before, even though I have probably not.

The characters are reasonably well voiced, the suspense level is adequate, and despite the slightly awkward, "our gun is from children" bits, this is generally compelling drama. But there's nothing, in this first issue at least, that really STANDS OUT -- nothing to differentiate this from, say, WALKING DEAD (sorry, sorry! Too obvious a compariosn, I know, but there it is). Or 20 or 30 different movies or TV episodes or something that I've watched over the years. In a genre as well-mined as "zombie survival", you need to have something DIFFERENT to get to a worn out soul like mine. And while this was competant, maybe even very much so, I didn't get much of a tingle from this first issue.

I'll check back with it, because, y'know, I own a comic book shop and I can read comics for free, but not because of "Wow! That was fresh/new/exciting!". Which is pretty much the cardinal sin for a new (ongoing? I think?) title.

A strong OK, but only OK.

What did you think?

-B

PS: Analee liked OPTIC NERVE #11

Hank Pym: The Next Pussycat Doll. Graeme, more 4/4.

So, for once I actually get time to sit down and write reviews ahead of time, and then Brian manages to beat me to every single one. I was going to post about Madman today, but considering Hibbs' review is below, I'll do that one tomorrow, and today go for... AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #1: Color me surprised that Hibbs disliked this more than I did, and also that he didn't mention the really, really bum note that opened the book - It starts in Iraq, where one of the new characters is introduced fighting terrorist insurgents... who are from the Marvel Universe terrorist organization, Hydra. Now, as much as I liked Hydra and know that they've never really been portrayed as a joke within Marvel's books, and as much as I know that Marvel really really wants to be socially relevant and set in "the real world," there's something really odd and kind of cheap about seeing carbombers in Iraq yelling "Hail Hydra! Cut off a limb, two more will take its place!" as they try to drive into American soldiers. Is it weird that that disturbed me so much? It's literally one panel, but there was something about it...

Anyway, kind of like Hibbs, the first thing I thought about this book was that it was trying too hard to be serious and dark - I kind of feel for Dan Slott, whose previous recent series for Marvel have been lighter, more an old-school mix of action and comedy, and relative failures in the marketplace. Then he does this book, which is almost comedically bleak (The good guy with the heart of gold gets killed accidentally saving someone's life! Life is pain), and Marvel upgrades it from a miniseries to an ongoing before the first issue is even released; there's a lesson there, and it's not necessarily a good one. The thing is, I don't see what here could support an ongoing book; the characters certainly can't, as introduced here (Brian's right, there aren't many sympathetic ones), and the concept is essentially "Superheroes get trained to be superheroes," which we've seen waaaay too many times before, without too much of a twist. Or too much of an open twist, anyway.

The reason I mention an open twist is that there's a weird subtext in the structure and dialogue of the book. We're introduced to the main characters of the issue, but in the process, one of the characters screws up and is sent home, and the issue finishes with them walking off into the sunset... like some kind of reality show. And at first, that seems like a stretch, but here's the dialogue from the scene where she's told that she's leaving:

"I'm sorry, Armory, you've been washed out of the Initiative. We'll be confiscating your weapon. You're grounded."

Referring to the title of the book in the dialogue? "You've been washed out of the Initiative"? "You're grounded"? Am I the only person who can see this as the follow-up to "In fashion, some days you're in, some days you're out... I'm sorry [name of contestant], you're out" or "You're no longer in the running to become America's Next Top Model"? The introduction that the new characters get to their new situation is also kind of Tyra-esque:

"Here at Camp Hammond, you will be put through Avengers basic training. This includes combat, first aid, and superhuman ethics. Once you pass, your registration card will be upgraded to a full hero's license. And if you're among the best and brightest... You'll be offered a spot on of our fifty nationwide teams. Do that, and you've made it to 'The Show'."

Yes, he really offers them a chance to make it to "The Show" (whatever that is supposed to be - Has anyone ever referred to being a superhero as "The Show" before?). Maybe it's just me, but there's a definite reality show feeling to this book; I'm just not sure if it's intentional or not. Nonetheless, that also drives the feeling that this isn't a book that should be ongoing - There is, surely, a finite end to this story (When America's Next Top Avenger is crowned), and the idea of the series just shifting towards another cast at that point isn't an exciting one; similarly, the idea that none of these characters will ever become competent enough to graduate the Initiative or the series strains the credibility of the whole enterprise. I know this book has the Avengers name on it (even though, really, it doesn't need it - The characters are getting "Avengers basic training," whatever that is, but that's about the only link to the team in the entire first issue), and that means that Marvel will want to capitalize on their franchise for as long as possible, but this is really a book too far. Crap.