Honestly, I could take Lester's reviews and just say "ditto" pretty much down the line -- including the picks of WEEK and WEAK. Despite that, if I have time at the store tomorrow, I'll try to write up a few notes of my own.

Until then: here's what we're getting this week, with CIVIL WAR like a bus. Nothing for a while, then, BOOM, six at once!


52 WEEK #8
ACTION COMICS #840
ALL NEW OFF HANDBOOK MARVEL UNIVERSE A TO Z #6
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #533 CW
AMERICAN WAY #5 (OF 8)
ANNIHILATION RONAN #3 (OF 4)
ANT #6
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #171
AVENGERS & POWER PACK ASSEMBLE #3 (OF 4)
BART SIMPSON COMICS #30
BATMAN #654
BETTY #157
BLACK PANTHER #17
BLUE BEETLE #4
CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #22
CATWOMAN #56
CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #2 (OF 10)
CRISIS AFTERMATH THE SPECTRE #2 (OF 3)
DAREDEVIL #86
DCU BRAVE NEW WORLD #1
EXILES #83
FANTASTIC FOUR #538 CW
FATHOM #9
FORGOTTEN REALMS DARK ELF SOJOURN SEELEY CVR A #3 (OF 3)
GI JOE VS TRANSFORMERS VOL 3 ART OF WAR CVR A #4 (OF 5)
HAWKGIRL #53
INVINCIBLE #33
ION #3 (OF 12)
JLA CLASSIFIED #23
JUGHEAD #174
LAST CHRISTMAS #2 (OF 6)
LOVELESS #8
LUCIFER #75
MARVEL MILESTONES RAWHIDE KID& TWO GUN KID
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT NEIL GAIMAN SALVADOR LARROCA
MOON KNIGHT #3
NECROMANCER #6
NEW AVENGERS #21 CW
NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE #6
PVP #27
RUNAWAYS #17
SAVAGE DRAGON #127
SEA OF RED #11
SOLO #11
SPAWN #157
SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE #7
STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #6
STORM #5 (OF 6)
SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #19
SUPERMAN RETURNS LOIS LANE
TEEN TITANS GO #32
TEENAGE MURDER BAIT ONE SHOT
THUNDERBOLT JAXON #5 (OF 5)
TRUTH JUSTIN & AMERICAN WAY #3 (OF 5)
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #96
WARLORD #5
WOLVERINE #43 CW
X-FACTOR #8 CW
X-MEN #187
YOUNG AVENGERS #12

Books / Mags / Stuff
DC NEW FRONTIER SER 1 INNER CASE ASST
DECIMATION GENERATION M TP
DOWN WARREN ELLIS TP
EARTH X TP NEW PTG
FANTASTIC FOUR J MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI VOL 1 TP
FOOLS GOLD VOL 1 GN
GHOST RIDER ROAD TO DAMNATIONPREMIERE HC
HEAVY METAL SUMMER 2006
JUXTAPOZ JULY 2006 VOL 14 #7
LADY SNOWBLOOD VOL 4 TP RETRIBUTION PART 2 TP
MARK SCHULTZ VARIOUS DRAWINGSVOL 2 SC
PREVIEWS VOL XVI #7
SOUTHLAND TALES BK 1 TWO ROADS DIVERGE
SUPREME POWER NIGHTHAWK TP
WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE JLA TURNER CVR #178
VIRGIN COMICS #0 (EACHES) (NET)


I normally skip listing promo material, but I liked the "eaches" for that Virigin Comics #0 just too much to lose it.

What looks good to you?


-B Click Here to Read More...

Seems like a seriously huge week for comics, huh? I mean, you've seen that shipping list--all we needed was a new issue of Ultimate Hulk Vs. Wolverine to go with Astonishing and Ultimates and it would've put an end to about 95% of the "when is _______ coming out" questions I get every week from Marvel fans--so you'd assume that yesterday would've been a "tall dollars" day, right?

Right. But, weirdly, it seemed the vast bulk of it was from out-of-towners, first-timers, gift shoppers and people shopping for the classics: I sold a copy of Maus yesterday, for example. A copy of Jimmy Corrigan. (One guy took five steps into the store, looked to his two o'clock, snagged the copy of Watchmen he saw there, paid and left. Total time from entrance to exit: approximately 45 seconds.) I don't doubt this week's new books will continue to move off the shelves (although I couldn't tell you if it'll happen this weekend or the next, when people get paid) but it really suprised me.

And as to that deluge:

52 WEEK #7: So Superman of Earth 2 was so annoyed by the events of Zero Hour he started punching stuff? Nice to know I wasn't alone on that one. The whole issue felt ham-handed but in a more-or-less fun kind of way. (I really liked Ralph's renunciation of Booster on TV: "This man is no hero! He's using his knowledge of the future to further his own selfish interests! When he should've been using his knowledge of the future to further *my own* selfish interests!") OK, but eye-rollingly so.

(Also, did anyone think maybe some dialogue or caption boxes dropped out of the last two pages of the main story? I asked Hibbs, and he was like, "What is there to say? Starfire flies around, finds a big space shovel and sees a Sentinel reaching for it. Kinda self-evident, right?" And yet, I wonder...)

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #4: My only problem with this was that it was too short--it had to wrap up just as it was picking up steam. That's probably because it took too long to get the situation properly set up, but everything was so delightful and wonky nothing felt draggy. I dug it. Very Good.

ANNIHILATION NOVA #3: Way too many scenes of Quasar asking for help and Nova equivocating, but Annhilus actually looked cool and menacing rather than his typical "grasshopper-with-bad-fashion-sense" self. Barely OK, but I could retroactively yank that higher if Nova gets something more to do in the last issue than whinge and be made fun of.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #15: I'll be honest: there were tons of problems with this. But having Wolverine talk like Little Nemo? Priceless. I say Good, but understand if you think otherwise. I admit it's still a long way from that great first arc.

BIRDS OF PREY #95: First copy of this I've read since the initial OYL issue. (For the first time in several months, there were copies of Robin and BoP still on the shelves, which means that either Hibbs has started skewing his orders upwards or some buyers are skewing their purchases downwards, maybe?) It was highly OK, maybe even Good but I feel like this is the seventh or eighth "we're incredibly outclassed but if we push ourselves to the limit, maybe we can beat [name of villain] to a standstill and live to fight another day" type of issue. Yeah, it's dramatic the first couple of times, but a little played out by now.
OK.

BITE CLUB VAMPIRE CRIME UNIT #3: You know, if you'd told me that there could be a comic with a vampire female prison shower fight in it and it would still be boring, I would've called you a liar. And then you would've shown me this comic book, and I would've tearfully admitted you were right. Sweet jesus, how you were right. Awful stuff.

CASANOVA #1: Matt Fraction is dangerously close to being the Quentin Tarantino of comics--a witty raconteur with a love for genre trash, a streak of formalist playfulness and a canny ear for dialogue. I thought this first issue was head-spinningly fun and jammed with oddball twists, setpieces and classic pop references and influences (If Grant Morrison was ever to cheat on his wife with a comic book, it'd be this one.) Kind of a drag it came out the same week as every other title under god's green earth, but I was still able to handsell some copies. The closest thing I have to a complaint is I can't really imagine where it'll go with issue #2, but I guess I'll just have to see, won't I? Very Good stuff and worth your time and coin.

CLAW THE UNCONQUERED #1: A lot of shit to make fun of in this "senses-shattering first issue" (which, you know, "senses?" Did the scratch-and-sniff card fall out or something?) including a really absurd page of a severed demon claw killing a deer and lines like "You do not grasp the nature of the claw." (Ummmm, for grasping, maybe?) But, embarrassingly, I liked it anyway. It's got just enough interesting elements to be more than a base Conan rip-off, and yet it's basically a base Conan rip-off so it's got everything you'd want in such a book. And Chuck Dixon almost always does good work with this genre stuff. Or maybe common sense was one of the senses shattered by this first issue. Either way, highly OK.

CONAN #29: Mignola does a great job putting his Mignola-ish obsessions on what the editors say is little more than a fragment from REH--not that Conan has punched out any Nazis yet, but it's only the first issue of three. Good with the potential to get better. Fingers are crossed.

ETERNALS #1: I'm a Kirby fan and a John Romita, Jr. fan and any page with the Celestials on it rendered me insensible with drooling, so you'd have to crap up this book something awful for me to dislike it. And I didn't dislike it, far from it, but it was surprisingly klutzy for guys as accomplished at Gaiman and Romita, Jr: all of the dialogue sounded stilted and forced, like Gaiman was trying too hard to be light and breezy, and the encounters between Ike and Mark started and stopped too abruptly with too little reaction from Mark. But maybe with a different artist it would've felt more, I dunno, dream-like and deliberately delicate and unreal--Romita, Jr.'s square-shouldered characters seem about as delicate and unreal as a slab of steak cooked rare--instead of unbelievable and flat. (Also? If you saw that cover and could think of anything besides "Someone needs to clean that Miracleman fish tank," you're a far better person than I.) OK, but at $3.99, only barely.

EX MACHINA #21: Haven't seen subber Mark Shveima in a while and I hope he'll forgive me for saying this (and/or for mangling the spelling of his last name) but maybe Tony Harris should...move on to another title or something. I really enjoyed that Chris Sprouse two-shot and maybe BKV's work loses a little something when the artist has some minor depth perception issues and gives the characters "First word? No, first syllable! Sounds like...scratch? Itch?" body language. Or maybe Mr. Vaughan's work on this title really waxes and wanes. I honestly can't tell. Either way, I was eager to pick this issue up and was very Eh when I put it back down.

FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1: Wow. This stunk. Confusing storytelling (I had to read that opening action scene three times to figure out what was going on), unlikeable characters ("So, Allen...hot daterape last night?"), bullshit that just came out of nowhere("The Speed Force is gone...but what if it's not? What if it's turned E-vill?")--nobody involved had any fucking idea what they were doing, did they? Makes me wish DC Editorial had just held off on a relaunch until they were absolutely sure how they were gonna move on this, because unless next issue is fucking ambrosia on toast, this book will be dead in a year and a half. No joke. Craptacular.

GOLGO 13 VOL 3 TPB: I'm getting the impression the editors of the line are choosing the more Tom Clancyish storylines (which are impressive with their knowledge of real world situations and hot spots) rather than the more absurd "Golgo 13 gets two nuns to give it up for him in less than a page, then he snipes a satellite using DirectTV dish and an M-16" stories. Me, I'd prefer the latter, to be honest, but this issue has its kooky charms: in one issue, Golgo slits some throats and snipes some copters while having reminiscences with his good pal Nelson Mandela. In the other story... well, I can't top Jog's description so lemme just steal it outright:

It's kind of like Syriana crossed with a Carl Barks duck short, one that focuses on how rich Uncle Scrooge really is, only it's 78 pages long and features a man knocking a helicopter into the ocean with one shot.

So it's still pretty awesome, is what I'm saying. Good, but, yeah, more over-the-top crazy sex-crammed kill sprees, please.

JUSTICE #6: Gorgeous, but there's a weird melancholic tone to the whole project that occasionally results in an arresting scene--those few pages where Green Lantern encodes himself in his ring and then walks sadly around an empty green city really kicked my ass--but generally feels depressed and lethargic and unhealthy. Good stuff, I guess, but disquieting.

MANHUNTER #23: Hibbs had some really compelling issues why he didn't like this issue that sadly I can't remember (a shame, because I'm half-convinced the creative team worked in Sweeney Todd as a villain just to court Hibbs' approval). Me, I thought it on the high side of OK although the scenes between Kate and her Grandma, Phantom Lady, seemed like a desperate attempt to make Kate "matter" to the DCU. I can't really say I blame 'em, but has that trick ever worked? Like I said, OK.

MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #2: Somebody suggested I not write this book off on the basis of one issue, so I came back for a second helping and they were right: this was less an all-ages issue of Avengers than it was an all-ages issue of Marvel Team-Up and that suited it fine. Jeff Parker had some fun ideas about The Leader (unsurprisingly for someone with such a big head, The Leader is a bit of an egotist) and the unholy trinity of The Hulk, The Leader and The Abomination, Spider-Man gets some good lines in, and there's a quick little bit about the friendship between Hulk and Spidey I probably wouldn't have bought in the regular Marvel U that made me go "Awwwww...." here. I've got a few problems here and there with it, but a marked improvement over the first issue and a Good read overall. I'll be back next issue, certainly.

NAOKI URASAWAS MONSTER VOL 3 TPB: Ouch, pegged that one. My mind cued up The Lonely Man Theme from the Incredible Hulk TV show no less than three times this issue as Doc Tenma saves a blood-stained terrorist, an abused child, and a frustrated love between a country doctor and a dying woman, all while trying to hunt down fearsome super-monster Johan. Interestingly, the last story--where Inspector Lunge develops the theory that Johan is Tenma's murderous split-personality while solving cases and alienating everyone--is more the road I initially thought this series would go down. It's OK--to be honest, I could probably read manga about doctors and cooks 'til the cows come home--and maybe it'll return to the fascinatingly complex mix of murder mystery and hospital drama (because, I mean, come on, where's a better place to set a tale about split-personality serial killers than post-unification Germany?) but my enthusiasm is now officially dimmed.

NEW AVENGERS #20: Ever gotten a handjob from someone so passionate but inexperienced they nearly yanked away your entire epidermal layer and tossed you into the next room to boot? This arc of New Avengers is pretty much just like that: I can see how Bendis really was trying to craft a cool widescreen epic that would rock my fanboy world, but I just feel embarrassed and uncomfortable and contused by how unsubtle, poorly paced and misprioritized it all is. (When, in your team book of roughly a half-dozen superheroes, the only character who has any sort of dramatic arc and does anything at all surprising is an agent of SHIELD, and when the only character who can save everyone's bacon with their crucial superpower is the other agent of SHIELD, you've done something very, very wrong.) I should take the time to pick apart all the Xorn related problems but I'm too mortified and really just want to pretend the whole thing didn't happen. Thanks for the wonderful time, Brian. I'll...call you. Awful.

ROBIN #151: As mentioned in my BOP review, this is the first issue of Robin since the first OYL issue and, uh, I'm kinda pissed. The creative team here does everything with a lot of energy and flair but making Cassandra Cain into an angry murdering antihero really sucks. Not only is it contrary to the character's overall conception and character arc, but, on the heels of Spoiler's death, Leslie Tompkin's betrayal and the distancing of Birds of Prey, it more or less completes the Boy's Clubification of the Batman Family. Yeah, I can see how it opens up a bunch of storylines but I still think it sucks. OK for the execution, Awful for the conception--let's call it a peevish Eh.

SUPERMAN BATMAN #27: Huh? What was the point of all that, other than to make the reader wonder if the pageturn was going to bring the world's most disquieting lesbian sex scene? I totally agree with Chris Butcher--Jeph Loeb had already salted the earth on this title, but DC coulda tried at least a little. Awful.

TESTAMENT #7: Okay, so God rejected Cain's sacrifice because it came from nature, but accepted Abel's sacrifice because...why? Cows come from a wafflemaker or something? Just one of many "wait, wha?" moments in this issue, plus Vertigo was apparently too chickenshit to show genitalia on Adam and Eve. Considering this series has breasts-a-plenty and this issue has Cain and Abel arguing over who gets to marry their mother once Adam is dead, that bit of modesty may be the biggest "wait, wha?" of all. An Awful waste.

ULTIMATES 2 #11: Yeah, compare and contrast this with New Avengers--it's really not until you breathlessly finish reading this issue that you realize that more or less nothing happens (Hulk and probably Thor are put back on the board and the stage is set for Iron Man to come back as a 300 foot high transformer satellite/giant robot firing ICBMs out of his enormous iron nipples or something). There's a lot of running and yelling and misdirection, sure, but very little of actual importance really happens. But it's done with a tremendous amount of skill, which is part of what separates the Good from the Awful. If it can pull off the widescreen over-the-top ass-kickery next issue, it might even be great.

UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #1: Hmm. You can neatly split this issue in two--one half concerns Ororo's semi-conscious musings on her love life and her feelings for the Black Panther, and the other concerns the X-Men trapped in a Black Hawk Down style showdown with militia soldiers. And like Black Hawk Down, the X-Men showdown side is arguably racist (I know there was another phrase the X-Men used regarding the attacking soldiers besides "third world thugs" but I'm blocking on it. "Third world thugs" was probably bad enough, though.) and the Ororo side is arguably imperialist. (It's okay for Storm to marry the Panther because she's also from a line of royalty. Huzzah!) Not really a great day for Marvel Comics, if you ask me. Also? Pretty dull. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: All-Star Superman #4? Casanova #1? If you live in a state with no sales tax, you can get 'em both for just a buck more than the first issue of Eternals.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Flash The Fastest Man Alive #1. You, my friend, were horrible.

TRADE PICK: I feel like a dick because I really, honestly do love Ellen Forney's work but $18.95 for 112 pages? (And I think I already have a third?) I just can't recommend I LOVE LED ZEPPLIN SC as much as I dig her stuff.

No, I'm gonna have to go with the greatness-by-the-pound of SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN VOL 2 TPB where nearly any page is kinda hilarious and mind-bending. (I opened it up just now to a panel where Superman grabs Lois, thinking "Some unknown force is urging me to kiss Lois...so I will!" (If I wasn't such a lazy bastard, I'd just take photos of choice panels and post 'em.) If they ever release one of these where it's all Lois Lane stories illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger, the delight might well kill me.

MANGA PICK: It's a shame ADV Manga is more or less down for the count because the first three volumes of Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma are great. I thought it'd be typical "loveable kid teaches everyone valuable life lessons" crap but it's really more like "witty people amuse themselves and each other as a loveable kid threatens to drive them all nuts" which is much, much better. If you like the deadpan joshing and teasing Scott Pilgrim and his friends engage in, you'll really like Yotsuba&!. If you can find 'em, you should get 'em.

Okay, so that was a lot of words, but a lot of books. Next week: less words, less books, and hopefully a review of that Bollywood superhero flick, Krrish.

Labels: Jeff

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Dog-sitting, sleep deprivation, GTA: LCS for the PS2, dog-barfing, writing deadlines, co-worker frustration, dog-farting, exhaustion, dog hair tumbleweeds rolling across the kitchen floor, father's day, furniture moving, carpet cleaning, neighbor hating, muscle pulling, vicodin.

It's been a week.

52 WEEK #6: This+Checkmate #3= mild confusion. So the world is almost pushed to war because of China's superhero program, but nobody really looks at it in any detail until Checkmate, one year later? Hmmm. I thought this week's Moment of Melodrama was more than a little shrill (I love how "It's All His Fault!" is written eleven million times and then there's a picture with Booster circled and a "Him! This guy! His Fault!" notation--like Rip (or whomever) wrote "It's All His Fault!" eleven million times, then reread it and thought, "Hmmm. Yeah, that's not really as clear as it could be, is it?") but it was fun read. OK but it would be nice if we were getting payoffs as well as set-ups.

ANNIHILATION SUPER SKRULL #3: Pacing mistakes made in issue #1 come back to swamp the mini this issue as we get the lifestory of female-alien-we-don't-care-about jammed into the front of the book in the hopes of emotional identification from the reader when previous emtional center turns traitor. Were I prone to nitpicking, I'd also point to aforementioned female alien's backstory centering on several months of torture post-Annihilation Day despite the fact that the current story is quite clearly dated as less than two months after Annihilation Day. Awful overall, and clearly the worst of the four Annihilation minis.

CANT GET NO: I'm a fan of Veitch's work, particularly when he works in either elliptical (Volumes 2 and 3 of Rarebit Fiends is some of my favorite comics stuff, ever) or super-formalist formats (those keen issues of Swamp Thing). So you'd think I'd really dig this, his elliptical, super-formalist summary of a man whose life unravels at the same time 9/11 hits.

Alas, no.

Can't Get No has amibition by the buttload but Veitch chooses to tell his story with no dialogue and captions that only elliptically comment on the action. That's all fine and good but it puts a tremendous weight on the writing which is precisely where Can't Get No is weakest. Jim Woodring is able to use this technique to powerful effect, but Woodring's prose is exquisite and evocative on its own right with an ear for original language and organic imagery that keeps it taut. By contrast, Veitch's prose here reads like overly florid automatic writing with an injudicious use of free association: at one point, there's a series of captions of something like, "the indelicate ambergris of desire stirring at the core of the leviathan until you're green in the gills," which is just--yuck. (Whale ambergris to the archetypal conception of the Leviathan, okay, fine, but considering whales are mammals and do not have gills, the whole thing comes off as bad beatnik poetry.)

Pictorially, there's images here that I loved--the abandoned park with the giant President heads, the Family-Circus style path taken by an eyeless dog, those frail and tiny people looking out the windows of the WTC at the deathly snout of the passenger plane one second before impact--and CAN'T GET NO is absolutely a noble failure. But, wow, failure it is. Tragically Eh.

CIVIL WAR #2: Okay. I'm assuming you know by now the big "shock ending" of Civil War #2. If not, don't read this (or Graeme's review or most of the comics blogosphere) because I want to whinge just a teeny tad about it.

First, as far as the rest of the issue goes without the ending factored in, it's more or less OK. It suffers from what Graeme has nailed down as Millar's biggest weakness as a writer--it's a given that every character is a self-centered prick to some degree--and from some weirdo pacing problems (unregistered superheroes are hunted like dogs by professional SHIELD teams 24 hours after the Act passes?) but also looks cool and has some really neat moments (although, like 52, some of those really neat moments feel like they were cribbed from Watchmen). Unlike House of M, this fucker moves, even if it's just from one fanboy cockpunch to the next.

As for Spidey....they did a very good job building up the personal justifications for the unmasking in ASM but I was sure they'd pull the ol' "rampaging villain and/or Captain America rescue squad crushes press conference just at crucial moment" thing because, hmm, how do I put this? Because Peter Parker's secret identity is the second most archetypal thing about Spider-Man (the first being, of course, the spider powers) and stripping him of that bones the character's appeal far worse than any sort of marriage.

If you ask me, what makes Spider-Man work in the first place is how Stan and team approached the whole Pete/Spidey duality. Unlike the relatively binary set-up of secret identities for superheroes (usually hero is lauded, secret identity is dumped on--the Superman/Clark Kent blueprint) which makes them such satisfyingly simple ego-fantasies, Stan made that duality more complex: the happier Peter Parker would be in his personal life, the more fucked up things would get for Spidey, and vice-versa.

Seriously. Check out the first hundred or so issues of Amazing Spider-Man. What makes the title work isn't that Peter is a miserable bastard, or that Spidey is a shat-upon superhero, it's that the two rarely happened at the same time. As Pete gets a girlfriend and a life, Spider-Man becomes a hounded superhero (and when Pete was more miserable in high school, Spider-Man actually had a stronger public following). Part of that--the miserable super-hero--is what we think of as "Spider-Man," but it's really that distance that's so archetypal, because it taps into the universal frustation about how the distance between one's fantasy life and one's real life always stays constant. (Which is why "Spider-Man No More" is so potent--despite what we'd like to believe, people give up on trying to fulfill their fantasy lives all the time.) Anyone who's struggled between, say, spending time with one's significant other and making time for one's hobby or art can understand it.

So, for me, the more that distance closes--as Peter's life and Spider-Man's life becomes the same--the less archetypal Spider-Man is. It doesn't matter if (for example) because of Peter's unmasking, Mary Jane gets killed and Peter becomes miserable again and the "And it's all my fault!" anguish is put back into the Pete/Spidey dynamic. Short of a big ol' reset button, a huge part of the Spider-Man mystique is toast. The only draw now is seeing if it's gonna be as big a mess as I think.

FUN HOME: The last in today's triptych of mouthiness (I forgot to mention I barely read any comics since I helped Hibbs re-organize the back issues on Friday) is a book I read about a month ago and absolutely loved. I wish I'd written about it then but I was caught short after discussing it with Bri. Fun Home is Allison Bechdel's memoir about growing up in a funeral home in a small town and the complex feelings she has for her deceased father.

I think it's brilliant, an astonishingly assured memoir that winds together reminescence, imagination and exquisite literary allusion to show the quietly devastating effects the father's closeted homosexuality had on his family.

Hibbs thought it was dull. To paraphrase (and badly): "It just said the same thing over and over, showing us the same stuff over and over. Autobio comix is supposed to show us what happens, how it affects the cartoonist, and moves on. It tells a story. This just showed the father dying, and then built up to it, then returned to it, again and again." As a result, we had a long talk about the difference between "autobio" and "memoir," and I found myself really unable to nail down why I thought Hibbs was wrong--or at least fixated on the wrong things. The trick lies at least in large part in the difference between autobio comix and literary memoirs. Fun Home is not Persepolis, where lots of little events happen and a picture of a time and place and family emerges, nor is Fun Home a Crumbian recounting that pushes the narrator front and center. Fun Home is a lot more like Mary Karr's The Liar Club or Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss where events crucial to the development of the narrator are recounted as part of an attempt is made by the narrator to understand a parent and a parent's influence, and in the end, the reader has the sense the parent is fully rendered, if not fully understood.

Because Bechdel points out the intensely literary nature of her father and her household, the rich literary allusions (opening with Daedelus and closing, of course, with Joyce) are not only a way of understanding her father's life the way he himself did, it's a commentary on the aloofness his self-loathing has engendered. (At one point, Bechdel mentions that the closest she feels to her parents is when she understands them as literary characters.) (And, if you want, compare and contrast this with Mary Karr's description of her mother's face in terms of punctuation in The Liar's Club.)

In the end, Fun Home works with levels of allusion Can't Get No can do little more than aspire toward. My worry is that, in the end, Fun Home will be overlooked in the direct market anyway, as the current genre expectations of "autobio comix" hobble reader enjoyment of more subdued affairs. As it is, yesterday's review of the New York Times Book Review suggests that the mainstream literary establishment may not know how to treat such a work, either: the reviewer gives Fun Home a thumb's up and then, with no interest in dissembling its complexity, talks about how accurate the drawings in the book are and how you can use the illustrated map of the small town as an actual map if you visit. Fortunately, the reviewer hit their word count before talking about how the book tasted, or what color curtains would like nice if the book is placed nearby. (I keep hearing this recurring rapping noise in the distance since early yesterday morning, and kinda assume it's Bechdel banging her head repeatedly against a wall in frustration.)

Anyway, If you like a rich narrative voice and tasty thematic musing, Fun Home is for you. Between it, The Fate of the Artist and the upcoming Curses, 2006 has at least three intensely literary graphic novels under its belt. I couldn't be happier.

PICK OF THE WEEK/TRADE PICK: Yeah, it's all about Fun Home this week.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Going by sheer inept and flat reading experiences, Annihilation: Super Skrull. Going by deeply cynical money-chasing and potential character wrecking, Civil War #2.

Next week: More books! Less words! No dog!

Labels: Jeff

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Had a wonderful Father's Day, thanks for asking, whihc follows hot on the heels of a loverly 39th birthday, so I'm pretty celebrated out!

My major goal for the back half of the year is to get back to my novel (over 2 years fallow, thanks to having Ben running around the house), which means I need to buckle my ass down, and stop wasting time with video games and well, probably comics reviews, too. I'll squeeze in what I can on Tuesday mornings between doing my paperwork and when the books actually arrive, but expect me to be a LOT quieter here (as if such a thing is actually possible)

Here's what's arriving this week, and, OMFG, that's a big week. Lots and lots of Class-1 Big Books.

2000 AD #1488
2000 AD #1489
52 WEEK #7
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #35 (A)
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #4
ANNIHILATION NOVA #3 (OF 4)
ARCHIE #567
ARMY OF DARKNESS #8
ASTONISHING X-MEN #15
BIRDS OF PREY #95
BITE CLUB VAMPIRE CRIME UNIT #3 (OF 5)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #19
CASANOVA #1
CITY OF HEROES #14
CLAW THE UNCONQUERED #1
CONAN #29
CONAN BOOK OF THOTH #4 (OF 4)
CRIMINAL MACABRE FEAT OF CLAY
DORK TOWER #34
DR BLINK SUPERHERO SHRINK #3
ETERNALS #1 (OF 6)
EX MACHINA #21
FALLEN ANGEL IDW #6
FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #1
GARGOYLES #1
GIANT SIZE HULK #1
GIRLS #14
HAUNT OF HORROR EDGAR ALLAN POE #2 (OF 3)
HELLBLAZER #221
HORRORWOOD #2 (OF 4)
HOW TO SELF PUBLISH COMICS #4(OF 4)
IRON MAN #9
JSA CLASSIFIED #13
JUSTICE #6 (OF 12)
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #115
KONI WAVES #2 (OF 3)
LAI WAN #1
LAST PLANET STANDING #4 (OF 5)
LITTLE SCROWLIE #14
LOVE AND CAPES #1
MAN-BAT #3 (OF 5)
MANHUNTER #23
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #2
MARVEL WESTERNS OUTLAW FILES
NEW AVENGERS #20
NEW EXCALIBUR #8
NOBLE CAUSES #21
NODWICK #33
PRINCESS NATASHA #1 (OF 4)
PURGATORI (DDP) #6
REAR ENTRY #12 (A)
RED SONJA #11
RISING STARS UNTOUCHABLE #5 (OF 5)
ROBIN #151
SCOOBY DOO #109
SEX-MEN #1 (A)
SGT ROCK THE PROPHECY #6 (OF 6)
SHADOWHAWK #13
SHADOWPACT #2
SIMPSONS COMICS #119
STAR WARS LEGACY #1
STAR WARS REBELLION #3
STARDUST KID #4 (OF 5)
SUPERMAN BATMAN #27
SUPERMAN RETURNS LEX LUTHOR
SWAMP THING #28
TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #12
TESTAMENT #7
TRAILER PARK TERROR COLOR SPECIAL #4
ULTIMATES 2 #11
UNCANNY X-MEN #474
UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #1
WALT DISNEYS COMICS & STORIES #670
WITCHBLADE #99
X ISLE #1 (OF 5)
X-MEN FAIRY TALES #2 (OF 4)


Book / Mag / Stuff
110 PER CENT GN
AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 TP
ANGEL OLD FRIENDS TP
BATMAN DYNAMIC DUO ARCHIVES VOL 2 HC
CHAMPIONS CLASSIC VOL 1 TP
CINEFEX #106 JULY 2006
COMIC BOOK HOLOCAUST GN
COMICS BUYERS GUIDE SEPT 2006 #1620
CONAN VOL 3 TOWER OF THE ELEPHANT & STORIES TP
CONTINUITY GN
ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK VOL1 TP
FEAR AGENT VOL 1 REIGNITION TP
GOLGO 13 VOL 3 GN
GREEN LANTERN CORPS RECHARGE TP
HOGANS ALLEY #14
I LOVE LED ZEPPLIN SC
INVINCIBLE VOL 6 DIFFERENT WORLD TP
JUDGE DREDD THE ART OF KENNY WHO? TP
KEEP TP
LOVE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE #5
MAD CLASSICS #8
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN VOL 3 DOOM WITH VIEW DIGEST TP
MEGATOKYO VOL 4
MY MOST SECRET DESIRE 10TH ANNIVERSARY ED HC
NAOKI URASAWAS MONSTER VOL 3 TP
ORIGINAL BONDAGE FAIRIES VOL 1 TP (A)
SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN VOL 2 TP
SIGHT UNSEEN TP
SINGAPORES GREATEST COMICS
SIZZLE #30 (A)
SUPERGIRL POWER TP
SUPERMAN BATMAN COLLECTOR SET
TOMMYROT ART OF BEN TEMPLESMITH
UNCANNY X-MEN THE NEW AGE VOL4 END OF GREYS TP
UNCLE SCROOGE #355
WHITECHAPEL FREAK GN NEW PTG
WONDER WOMAN VOL 4 DESTINY CALLING TP


What looks good to you?

-B Click Here to Read More...

The World Cup! A time when America wakes up to the international love of football, thinks about it for a second, shrugs and goes back to sleep. But yesterday, when my dad – still in town, for those keeping track of my familial visits – told me that America had drawn in their match with Italy, I said as a joke, “Have Italy forgotten how to play football?” Little did I know that the answer actually was yes, and that America hadn’t actually scored the equalizing score themselves. In a week when Marvel get a massive amount of publicity for Spider-Man revealing his identity to the Marvel world-at-large and thereby ending one of the core parts of the Spider-Man concept, it seems fitting to start off reviews by thinking about that familiar concept called “the own goal,” doesn’t it?

4 #30: Call me a strange internet ghoul if you must, but for some reason, this final issue seemed like the perfect time for me to try out Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s version of the Fantastic Four for the first time. It’s something that I’d been meaning to do for awhile, mostly because Ed Cunard – a man of wealth and taste… Well, taste, anyway – has been a secret fan of this series and recommending it to me for months. Perhaps if I’d heeded his advice sooner, I would’ve provided the book with the one sale it needed to stay alive. Anyway, maybe it’s because I was so horrified by JMS’s version of the characters over in their main title the other month, but I kind of enjoyed Aguirre-Sacasa’s more traditional take on the team. The issue has lots of faults – not least of which a lack of actual plot, as it concentrates more on what seems to be revisiting past storylines from this series – but I liked seeing a Fantastic Four that felt like a family as opposed to the meanspirited characatures that seem to populate the other books these days, and the light tone (especially with Super Apes beating up Namor) was equally welcome. Okay, and enough to make me wish I’d paid attention to Ed earlier.

52 WEEK SIX: Wasn’t I complaining about the writers introducing too many plots last week? Well, the majority of this issue deals with not a new plot, but many new characters, whether new to the series (the Green Lanterns) or entirely new altogether (the Great Ten), which gives the same “Wait, get back to those stories you were telling before” feeling. That’s something that’s only amplified by the two returning plots in this issue, neither of which move forward a great deal but nonetheless play for time in a fascinating way – especially the Booster Gold plot, which suddenly becomes something much, much larger than what I’d been expecting. If it wasn’t for the fact that various DC writers have made comments to the effect of “Hypertime will never be mentioned again, ever,” I’d be counting the weeks until we had a return to Mark Waid’s semi-forgotten Kingdom mini-event… but that’s because I’m a big DC geek. I have to wonder what non-DC fans make of the series at this point, because with each step towards continuity nerd-dom that makes me enjoy it more, I’m convinced that more sane minds are deciding that it’s not worth the trouble. Good, with the admission that this kind of thing bypasses my critical faculties.

CIVIL WAR #2: So, wait, Spider-Man is Peter Parker? Why didn’t anyone tell me?!? Again, Marvel’s hype machine outdoes itself and removes all suspense and surprise from this issue: We knew that it was going to be Captain America versus Iron Man from the get-go, and thanks to the tidal wave of press midweek, even the castaways on the mysterious island in Lost know that Spider-Man unmasked himself at the end of the issue, so actually reading the story was somewhat underwhelming. Hopefully someone in Marvel’s press department is going to realize that they’re not helping matters by giving everything away ahead of time, and the next big shock reveals will actually stay big shocks until, you know, the comics actually come out. As far as the quality of this issue, eh. Mark Millar’s dialogue still sounds the same no matter who says it, his characters still act out of character for the sake of spectacle (Captain America throws a defenseless man out of a moving vehicle into oncoming traffic? What?) although that does help mask whether or not Iron Man is a Machiavellian bastard behind everything or just clueless, and the art is pretty but still kind of awkward. It hits all the points it wants to, I’m just not sure that I’m interested. I was probably more upset about the Spider-Man Unmasked idea before I read it, such are the anaesthetic effects this book had on me. Okay, but those who like it will probably love it to death.

EX MACHINA SPECIAL #2: Hey, Brian K. Vaughan? Can I nitpick with you about your definition of “Special”? Because this conclusion of your two-part story, that because Tony Harris didn’t draw it – Chris Sprouse did, and very well, I may add – gets shunted off into its own spin-off series, felt more like a fill-in inventory story that adds nothing to the main series whatsoever than anything I’ve read in years. Not that it was bad or anything (Just Eh, really), but it definitely wasn’t that special.

JLA CLASSIFIED #22: I admit it; I was a fan of the Detroit era Justice League. In my defense, I was about 11 at the time and didn’t know any better. Nonetheless, that old bastard Nostalgia saw the solicitation for this, months ago, and thought “Detroit era JLA? As written by Steve Englehart, the man who wrote my other guilty pleasure Millennium? I have to read that!” The reason that Nostalgia is a bastard, my friends, is because it blinds you to simple facts like “Steve Englehart was wonderful in his prime – and his prime lasted for a long time, way into the late eighties with things like West Coast Avengers and Green Lantern Corps – but he hasn’t written anything really great in quite some time, and anyway, that Detroit League? They were kind of sucky characters. Especially Vibe, with his accent-cum-speech impediment.” All those facts that flood into your mind when you read something like this, and spend the entire time wondering “What is the point?” and “How many other suckers bought this because they were 11 when the Detroit League and didn’t know any better?” Which is to say, Ass. And I’m sorry.

SUPERMARKET #3: My wife Kate’s sitting beside me as I write this, and when she saw me write “Supermarket”, she told me to write “Is good”. It’s her third favorite comic these days, next to Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, although she’s very disappointed in the main character for irresponsibly spending money on a hotel room and then acknowledging it in her narration. She does like the tattoos, though. Me, I liked it; it’s got Brian Wood merging the emotional core of Demo with the dumb-action of Couriers in a way that’s more successful than DMZ (although that may be me misreading the intent of DMZ, which may be more “Channel Zero but more thought through”), and Kristian Donaldson does some of the best art – specifically, some of the best coloring – in the business right now. Very Good, and not just because Kate and I agree.

(Kate’s just added that she’s glad that I said something nice about a book. Earlier, when I was writing about JLA Classified, she asked me how I’d feel if Steve Englehart jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge because I was mean about his book. When you put it like that, it does kind of make you think.)

UMBRA #1: Robson, you didn’t steer me wrong on this one. Without your convincing dulcet tones, I would’ve stayed thrown off by the mono-monicker of the writer (“Murphy”, although the copyright notice admits that he’s really called Stephen) and a cover that manages to be nicely colored but entirely unexciting, and missed out on this unusual and unusually enjoyable mystery. There’s something very Whiteout-esque about this book – perhaps the lesbian-detective-in-snowy-surroundings set-up, but more likely the narration, which reads like Rucka before he got his teeth into the DC Universe – but the central plot, about the apparent shooting of a neanderthal wearing modern clothing is something else entirely. The appeal of the series is confusing, as I found myself wishing that we could see more of the personal life of the lead character at the same time as wanting to read more about the central, seemingly time-travel-related, murder mystery, but nonetheless… I want more. Very Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK is probably Umbra, which turned out to be an unexpected pleasure, if reading about impossible murders can be called a “pleasure”, and PICK OF THE WEAK is easily JLA Classified, because… well. Just because. TRADE OF THE WEEK is a bit of a cheat, but I finally managed to get through THE FIVE FISTS OF SCIENCE this weekend, and even though it’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets a History of Science in America textbook in many ways, it’s a lot of fun and enough to make you want a Matt Fraction-written ongoing “Adventures of Mark Twain” series each and every month – Instead, we get him doing Punisher War Journal (boo) and the as-fun-as-FFOS Casanova, which launches next week unless I’m misremembering. Something the lot of you should pick up, whenever it appears, though.

Next week: Less football talk, I promise. Click Here to Read More...

Ooops, I haven't posted this yet, have I?

100 BULLETS #73
52 WEEK #6
AMERICAN VIRGIN #4
ANNIHILATION SUPER SKRULL #3 (OF 4)
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #101
ARCHIE DIGEST #226
BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #207
BATMAN STRIKES #22
BATTLE POPE #8 (RES)
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #143
BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #114
CABLE DEADPOOL #29
CAPTAIN ATOM ARMAGEDDON #9 (OF 9)
CHECKMATE #3
CIVIL WAR #2 (OF 7)
CRISIS AFTERMATH THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN #5 (OF 6)
DMZ #8
DONALD DUCK AND FRIENDS #341
ELRIC MAKING OF A SORCERER #3(OF 4) (RES)
EX MACHINA SPECIAL #2 (OF 2)
EXILES #82
FABLES #50 (NOTE PRICE)
FEAR AGENT #5 (RES)
FINAL DESTINATION SPRING BREAK #2 (OF 5)
FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #26
FOUR #30
GREEN ARROW #63
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1
GRIMM FAIRY TALES #6
JLA CLASSIFIED #22
MAD MAGAZINE #467
MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #13
MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX LOVE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD
MARVEL WESTERNS TWO GUN KID
MAXIMUM FORCE SPECIAL #1 (O/A)
MICKEY MOUSE AND FRIENDS #290
MONSTER HOUSE ONE SHOT
MS MARVEL #4
NIGHTWING #121
POISON ELVES DOMINION #4
PORTENT #3 (OF 4)
PUBLIC ENEMY #0
RED SONJA CLAW DEVILS HANDS #4 (OF 4)
SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #27
SHRUGGED #1
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #163
SPIDER-GIRL #99
SQUADRON SUPREME #4
SUPER F$$$$$S #3
SUPERMAN #653
SUPERMAN RETURNS MA KENT
SUPERMARKET #3 (OF 4)
SUPERNATURAL LAW #1 WITH A SILVER BULLET
THUNDERBOLTS #103
ULTIMATE X-MEN #71
UMBRA #1 (OF 3)
URSA MINORS #1
VERONICA #171
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #3

Books / Mags / Stuff
BATTLE ANGEL ALITA LAST ORDERVOL 7 TP
CANT GET NO SC
CINEFANTASTIQUE JULY AUG 06 VOL 38 #5
COMIC BOOK NERD #1
CRYING FREEMAN VOL 2 TP
DAREDEVIL VOL 5 HC
DREADFUL ED HC
FLAMING CARROT VOL 6 FIRST IMAGE SERIES VOL TP
FUN HOME GN
GIANT ROBOT #42
GRAPHIC CLASSICS VOL 1 EDGAR ALLAN POE 3RD PTG
HELLSPAWN ASHLEY WOOD COLL TP
INFINITY GAUNTLET TP NEW PTG
JLA CLASSIFIED NEW MAPS OF HELL TP
LITTLE LULU VOL 10 ALL DRESSED TP
MAGE VOL 2 HERO DEFINED TP
MARVEL TEAM-UP VOL 3 LEAGUE OF LOSERS TP
MOME VOL 4 GN
PHOENIX VOL 7 TP
REIKO THE ZOMBIE SHOP VOL 3 TP
SHE-HULK VOL 3 TIME TRIALS TP
SQUIRREL MOTHER GN
STAR WARS OMNIBUS X-WING ROGUE SQUADRON VOL 1 TP
STRUGGLERS GN
STUPID COMICS COLL TP
SUPERMAN BATMAN SER 2 INNER CASE ASST
SUPERMAN VERSUS LEX LUTHOR TP
TALES OF WOODMAN PETE GN
THE DROWNERS TP
TOYFARE PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN CVR #108
WRITING FOR COMICS WITH PETERDAVID SC
YOSHITAKA AMANO FAIRIES HC


What looks good to you?

-B Click Here to Read More...

Funny. It's probably the most anemic release week in six or seven months and you've got all three of us contributing reviews. Whether there's a connection between the two events, I can't really say. Nonetheless, I'll be pretty brief here, because most of the really good points were hit by Graeme & Bri.

But, first! Hats off to Justin Riegner, whose letter to Robert Kirkman ends up on the next-to-last page of Walking Dead #28. Justin asks Kirkman quite openly why he can't get his creator-owned books on schedule and how shipping issues two weeks in a row hurts retailers. Justin then goes on to point Kirkman to Hibbs' articles on Newsarama for a full explanation of what he's talkign about.

Justin, seriously, you are my hero.

To give Kirkman his due, he did print the letter, but I wish he'd had a little more to of a response than "We're getting the book back on track. That's all I can say." All that really does, frankly, is dodge and ignore the main issues while acting like they're being addressed.

And, on an unrelated note, if you're a Lovecraft fan, you should go to this site, and get this movie. It just showed at the latest "Hole In The Head" Indiefest at the Roxie, and I thought it was great. Admittedly, I'm a fan of silent movies anyway, but this adaptation of "The Call of Cthulhu" really nailed 95% of the essence of Lovecraft's stories, I thought. It's awesome.

And so:

52 WEEK #5: Pretty much what G & B thought, except I seemed to like it a little bit more than they did--Hibbs thought that scene with the Red Tornado's voicebox yelling "52! 52!" was cheesy, I thought it was neat. That scene between Buddy Baker and Starfire made everything else worthwhile. On the other hand, as Graeme pointed out, it's funny as hell watching a batch of writers who've never really had to worry about real-time pacing struggle with the concept. They better figure it out fast or it's only going to get worse. Highly OK.

ANNIHILATION SILVER SURFER #3: Fucking mother of god, that pneumatic lettering directly on the background art is awful. Are we all too good for caption boxes or something? And if that wasn't the nitpicky enough, I've decided the secret to a good cosmic epic is thick ink lines. Seriously, all the classics of the Marvel cosmic epics had a thick-ass ink line to really make you feel like the scenes are powerful enough to command your attention. Here, each scene feels like the cosmic debris you see floating throughouth, untethered, unimportant, weightless. It's not bad or anything but it seems deeply inconsequential, which is the opposite of the intended effect, I think. Eh.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #9: Weiringo art? Lovely as hell. David story? Deeply annoying to my inner fanboy, as I was hoping this would be a Spider-Man book from which I could take refuge from all of JMS's mystical blah-de-blah and technotastic Spidey-McSuits and we could see, you know, Spider-Man. Being Friendly. In a Neighborhood. Instead, we've had mystical wrestlers, imaginary stories chiding the mentally ill, and origins of time-travelling Hobgoblins. Check, please! Eh.

HARD TIME SEASON TWO #7: Again with the ugly lettering dropped directly onto the art--but rather than it being just the where and when like Annhilation, it's the meat of the story. Fuckin' great. While I doubt the ballsiness of Gerber's conceit would have worked, it really needed every single element working at 100% to have it come off and that wasn't the case. Frankly, I liked the issue but I'm self-aware enough to know that, in large part, it's because it reminded of some of the really bold shit Gerber used to do (and pull off) back in the '70s. OK, at best.

LUBAS COMICS & STORIES #8: Beto's recent Luba-related output (the last, I dunno, five years, more or less?) has always made me a little nervous and uncomfortable, and this issue seems to finally point out why--more or less every character ends up getting what they've more or less always wanted, and somehow this simultaneously fulfills and destroys the person, simultaneously. Nothing seems to underline this point more than Doralis who comes out as a radical queer and then wastes away and dies in the space of a few pages while babbling about how happy she is. Rather than make it an illustrative death to warn the readers of the perils of this or that, Beto keeps the details minimal and maximizes the attention to Doralis's joy. Milo Manara is always quick to play the "I worked with Fellini card," but Beto's work (here and in his other Heartbreak Soup stories) strikes me as a true successor to Fellini's awareness of the simultaneous joy and horror at work in desire and excess, and the feelings of titillation and dread those things provoke in a spectator. It's not everyone's cup of tea--I'm still trying to figure out if it's mine, in fact--but there's no denying this is Very Good work.

WALKING DEAD #28: Alot of the characters in this book speak the same, ploddingly spelling out their feelings and their worries and their frustrations, so The Governor comes off as shocking just in the brutally direct way he cuts to the core of what he wants. The chopping and the raping and the callousness is just icing on the creepy cake. No matter what else he tackles, Kirkman's work seems the most assured and provocative on Walking Dead and I hope he never loses that while chasing the tall dollars. Very Good.

WONDER WOMAN #1: I read and agree with everyone's complaints about this (in fact, I have many more) but, on the other hand, I dug it. It looked great, it read like a more cohesive Jeph Loeb story (hey, here's all of Wonder Woman's rogue's gallery in six pages!) and that last page brought back many happy memories. Hopefully when the next issue comes out--you know, seven months from now--I'll feel the same. Good.

Y THE LAST MAN #46: This, too, was Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK: LUBAS COMICS & STORIES #8 or WALKING DEAD #28, depending on your tastes.

PICK OF THE WEAK: FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #9. I admit it, I'm unimaginative. I'd like to have at least one title where Spider-Man fights, like, The Prowler and shit. Does that make me a bad person?

TRADE PICK: ACTION PHILOSOPHERS VOL 1 GIANT SIZED THING TPB has the first three issues of Action Philosophers for only $6.95! Really great stuff. There's some other awesome trade stuff--I haven't read it, but that Essential Fantastic Four volume is sheer opium for the eyes.

Also, no time to write it up now, but Graeme lent me his advance copy of Curses by Kevin Huizenga and oh, sweet jesus, is it great. I'd missed most of this material when it first appeared and it knocked me on my ass. Between "28th Street," "Curses" and "Jasper Johnson," this should really grab people's attention. [Note to D&Q people: You must get this into the hands of the New Yorker review staff. Seriously.] I hope to write more on it later.

Labels: Jeff

Click Here to Read More...

Ah, to be healthy and actually reasonably current with what’s come out this week. No longer do I have to look online for spoilers about what happened in that week’s books, now I only have to look online for spoilers of things to write about on Newsarama. Another benefit of being healthy: Going to see French wonder Camille tonight at Bimbo’s. I admit it, I’m a fan of the singing in languages I can’t understand. For all I know, she’s singing something about hating all Scottish comic-reading men over thirty-years old, but all I hear is breathy loveliness. Sigh…

52 WEEK FIVE: By this point, having read weeks two through four in a batch earlier this week before reading the latest issue, it’s becoming kind of obvious that this would be a much better series without the central “real time” gimmick. The plots that the writers are trying to tell are (with the exception of the Black Adam storyline, which seems like just the latest version of “A hero who goes too far”) interesting enough, but things seem to fall apart when you take each scene’s timestamp into account: Did a cult of Superboy really have time to learn all about Kryptonian mythology, including resurrection myths, and recruit Wonder Girl, before defacing Sue Dibny’s grave in just five days? How did Booster Gold get all his sponsorship deals in those same five days, and why did he apparently forget about looking for Rip Hunter for two weeks after realizing that something was wrong with time? Did the majority of this issue really happen the day after the last issue’s cliffhanger? And so on. Another problem is that plotlines keep appearing while existing plots get seemingly backburnered – Part of this, I think, is down to sleight of hand, because I’m convinced that the Steel, Luthor and Will Magnus threads are all part of the same overall story – After a big deal being made of the missing Mad Scientists in issue two, for example, it’s apparently not been something that anyone’s been thinking about since then; me, I think that Luthor is the one collecting the scientists, and that’s how he apparently has been able to synthesize the metagene, but I could be wrong… Overall, the book’s been interesting despite itself; the writing (and editing) has been sloppy and the art unspectacular and fairly generic, but there’s still something that keeps me from thinking that it’s a disaster, even if I can’t tell you what it is. A month in, though, it’s definitely not the creative success that Dan Didio was hyping back in that first issue. Eh.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #0: It’s obvious that Greg Pak is a fan of the series, but he doesn’t have a handle on any of the characters’ voices yet (although he comes close in the first conversation between Adama and Roslyn, especially the “It’s a pleasant idea, isn’t it?” response). Similarly, the plot is close to something that the show would do, but executed in such a way as to seem just slightly off. Part of the fault with the execution definitely lies with Nigel Raynor’s art, which lacks any of the visual aesthetic that the show has spent two years perfecting, instead looking like a 2000AD strip in the mid-90s. Sadly, a bit of a misfire. Frak. Eh.

CIVIL WAR: FRONT LINE #1: Oh, where to start… Why not the worst part of the whole book, the third strip that somehow tries to suggest that Spider-Man wondering whether or not to reveal his identity is just like the Japanese being forced into internment camps in World War II? As if that isn’t offensive enough, the way that the internment camps are treated, with a Japanese father explained to his daughter that they’re moving to a new home because it’s their duty as Americans to help the war effort, as they happily walk towards their camp, and captions avoiding any use of negative connotations by describing the event as “one of the largest controlled migrations in history” before going on to explain “these relocation centers had the highest live-birth rate and the lowest death rate in wartime United States”, just adds insult to insensitive injury. Hey, I wish I’d been able to have been “relocated” to one of those wonderful, safe, centers back then! Utterly, completely, shameful.

The rest of the book couldn’t come close to such crassness, but it tries. In the first story of the issue, we learn that 9-11 was just a prelude to Civil War (“This was put in motion the day some angry extremists decided to fly a couple of planes into some tall buildings in Manhattan”) as Paul Jenkins does his best to fulfill Marvel’s desire to make Civil War politically “relevant”. References to Fox News and Bill O’Reilly abound, and we discover that that real life wars are nothing compared with even the most trivial Marvel superheroes (“Johnny had been on at least four tours of Bosnia, three to Afghanistan and maybe eight or nice to Baghdad with CNN. Last year, he won an Emmy nomination for his bit on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and from there he graduated to [working on the New Warriors’ reality show]. This was his big break.”). I’m sure that this will be another success for Marvel, and that Civil War will break the internet in half and everything, but this is hitting a new low on the shameless scale. Ass.

DETECTIVE COMICS #820: Is it just me, or has James Robinson completely lose control of the story here? If, as seems to happen here, the identity of the murderer of various C-level supervillains – You know, what seemed to be the entire point to the plot at the start of this crossover – is revealed almost as an afterthought in the back-up strip, then I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything good. While everything gets dragged into the much less interesting return of Two-Face, there’s still enough here to keep your attention, not least of which is Batman making up for being a dick to a new supporting character in Robinson’s first issue. Andy Clarke’s inks continue to make Leonard Kirk’s art look much better than usual, as well. Despite the main plot being revealed to be a McGuffin, this is still, surprisingly, Good.

STAR WARS: LEGACY #0: As Bri’s already pointed out, this is more a guidebook to the “Legacy” universe than anything else, but that’s not enough reason for me not to complain about it. Legacy, for those of you lucky enough not to know about this, is “Star Wars… One Hundred Years Later,” and more than anything else, an example of the death of creativity in the halls of Lucasfilm. Reading this primer, you discover that a hundred years after the destruction of the Empire, we have… the New Empire! A hundred years after Darth Vader, the last of the Sith, turns back towards the light, we have… the New Sith! But that’s not to say there aren’t some shocking turns; Luke Skywalker’s descendent is… Han Solo! Okay, not exactly; he’s called “Cade Skywalker,” but he’s a bounty hunter and smuggler. Other characters include Jabba The Hutt As A Girl, and A Wookie Smuggler Who Pilots A Smuggling Ship But Isn’t Chewbacca, Honest. It’s depressing that Star Wars: Legacy seems to be less Star Trek: The Next Generation and more Saved By The Bell: The New Class, but maybe that’s more a reflection on knowing what their audience wants. Either way, this is Crap, and makes me want to avoid the new series more than anything else…

WONDER WOMAN #1: I have no idea. CE sold out in a couple of days, so I’m expecting a press release and reprint announcement any day now. Still, DC’s got to be happy about that, because when was the last time that Wonder Woman sold out without the help of a crossover or guest star?

Given the relatively disappointing haul this week, I’m going to cheat with my PICK OF THE WEEK (PICK OF THE WEAK is Civil War: Front Line, which also gets the first YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED, JOE QUESADA award. Which I’ve just invented, but remain confident I’ll be able to award on at least a monthly basis if not weekly. Especially having heard the rumors about Spider-Man, which will unleash a fanboyish rant like you wouldn’t expect when they come true. And not only from myself.) and award it to the same book as my TRADE OF THE WEEK: De:Tales, the short story collection by Brazilian creators Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba. I’ve been a fan of the two since their first US release, Ursula, came out from AiT a couple of years ago, but this is a much more impressive book than that (very enjoyable) fairy tale, a bunch of magical realism centering around romance, optimism and the fear of missed opportunities. If you’ve ever wanted to read a comic version of Amelie, then this is the book for you; alternatively, if you’re just looking for some of the most impressive black and white art around (If you’ve seen Fabio’s work in AiT’s Smoke and Guns last year or previews of Gabriel’s art in Image’s upcoming Casanova, then you know what to expect), then this is well worth the $14.95 you’d be paying for it.

Next week, Civil War #2 comes out, and I will, more than likely, complain very strongly about the events therein. Just you wait. Click Here to Read More...

You know what I wonder? How many blogs would get written if it wasn’t for their writers being bored (or trying to avoid work) at their regular jobs?

I ask because I know of at least 2 people (heh) who appear to do most of their writing at their (well paid) work. Heck, even I’m writing this at the counter of the store, where I’m trapped for the full 8-hour shift today. If I was at home, I’d be doing something more entertaining – maybe playing Oblivion, or City of Heroes (apparently my account has been reactivated until Sunday for free – dare I play again for 2-3 days?). But, instead, I’ve wasted enough time running through the SF Weekly, the Chronicle and the SF Bay Guardian (you can vote for SF’s Best Comic Shop in their annual reader’s poll at http://www.sfbg.com/vote/ , should you feel so inclined), and I don’t feel like getting working on the set-making I should accomplish this afternoon, or sorting through the 3 long boxes of back issues we’ve just bought, so I’ll start working on the reviews, in the order in which I read this week…


52 WEEK 5: I have to say that this week’s installment was a big improvement over last’s, but in and of itself, it was pretty much just OK. The big problem of this series is kinda turning out to be the art – there were sections of week 4 where I couldn’t tell what was happening at all – but there’s also a few panel-to-panel writing things that jar, too, like how GL and Steel get all wrapped up in their own angst while Mal has seizures a foot behind them. And what they hell are they doing to Hawkgirl a few pages later? The low point for me, however, is “52! 52!” which just feels like a shark being jumped (already?) On the other hand, having Buddy completely ignore Starfire’s brazen nakedness as he worries about his family was pretty much pure brilliance. I know *I* would rather see a new Buddy Baker series than, say, UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. Still, the weakest link of all of this, is absolutely the backup story – a “history” that has spent FOUR installments now doing the History of CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, and there’s clearly at least one more to go.

The PROBLEM with this approach is that as an after-INFINITE CRISIS project, this is all wholly irrelevant and dull dull dull – so what if FLASHDANCE-Supergirl died (20 years ago, at that)? As far as I know that didn’t happen to “our” Superman, because if it DID, then that basically invalidates the TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL Supergirl and the most recent Loeb version – neither of which might be a bad idea, necessarily, when you think bout it, but that’s not the point. The POINT is, I want to know where the CHARACTERS stand, not the freakin’ multiverse. If you don’t know about CRISIS, 52 is absolutely the wrong place to find out about it, and if you DO know about it, you just want to punch Dan Jurgens in the face for wasting so much time. God, it makes me want to scream.

One last thing: is EVERY issue going to have that white background on the cover? Bad call, IMO.

WONDER WOMAN #1: We remember that the SAVAGE CRITIC is a place where there can be spoilers, right? We try hard not to wreck your enjoyment of a tale, because we know not everyone is a Wednesday regular, but every once in a while it’s impossible to separate plot from content (or something)

So, put in some SPOILER SPACE here, and skip the rest of this entry if you’re squeamish at all.










So, WW is now Donna Troy, huh? To me, this is an extremely weak dodge for the essential character problems they ended the Diana version on. Rather than thinking of how to get D out of the corner they painted her into (probably not easy), they just ignore the whole thing.

I guess Donna is meant as an example of the “legacy” of the DCU, which would be fine if she was wasn’t one of the most singularly confusing character histories, or if you could explain her character in 100 words or less. Heinberg does an OK stab at it, but seems to ignore a whole lot for a try at simplicity – all of that New Chronus crap, or even her current as-of-52 role as NuHarbinger. Where’s her “star hair”? Why would anyone take on the mantle of Wonder Woman, considering the failure of the last try, or the fact there is no longer a Themiscryia? Sure, I can give them 2-3 issues to fill in those blanks, I guess, but it sets up a real emotional distance for me as a reader, and makes it very hard for me to approach this with any impartiality.

On the other hand, it LOOKS swell, and, thanks to there being basically nothing shipping this week, it sold like a monster on day #1 – we’re nearly out, pretty much because there’s nothing else to try this week.

Still, I could log-line this in less than 25 words (Donna is Wonder Woman, she fights a bit, Diana is in a jumpsuit – there, 13 words), so there wasn’t much there there, and I’m not “Oh my god, I need to find out what happens next!” like a good first issue should give you. A mild OK, I guess, and I was expecting much more.

SUPERMAN RETURNS: KRYPTON TO EARTH: though it is now “SUPERMAN RETURNS PREQUEL #1 (of 4)”. Here’s the thing: if you were looking for an adaptation of the first 20 minutes or so of Donner’s SUPERMAN film, you’re going to be really thrilled. It’s pretty, it’s scripted well. But it doesn’t add anything you haven’t already seen in a 30 year old movie, not one thing, and I sort of wonder why anyone would WANT an adaptation of the first 20 minutes or so of Donner’s SUPERMAN, this late after the fact? A low GOOD, but, again, why?

Y THE LAST MAN #46: a decent enough end to the arc, and I thought the reunion was touchingly sweet. OK

DETECTIVE #820: quite liked it (esp the Harper sequence), though it does spend a lot of time telling us why Scarecrow needs to be removed from Batman’s rogue’s gallery. It also sorta seems like the “who killed the C-Listers?” plot is a bit back-burnered now, doesn’t it? Either way, I’ll still go with GOOD

HARD TIME SEASON TWO #7: The “49 years later” blurb was, I guess, clever, if a bit insular. I’d tried reading, but stopped hard and cold when the Big Blocks of Text appeared, and thought “Meh, who cares how it turns out, anyway? It is cancelled!” And, so, an Angel dies. INCOMPLETE.

OUTSIDERS #37: Eh, not really down with all of the lecturing and posturing. EH.

WALKING DEAD #28: Strong stuff, and a shocking lot of action in a book that has largely been character study all of these issues. Hope this resolves before we get to the actual rape, though. I also wish that Kirkman could be a responsible creator when it comes to shipping and solicitation. Still, GOOD.

INVINCIBLE #32: On the other hand, I’m bored here. The shipping delays are killing any forward momentum here. EH.

CIVIL WAR: FRONTLINE #1: I was pretty much OK with the main story, though there was an awful lot of covering the ground from CW #1 – while every comic IS someone’s first, I can’t really imagine someone buying this and not the parent book…. Or at least being aware of the major points. Backup #1 (the Speedball thing) was also OK, but the comparison to WW2’s forced relocation of the Japanese Americans in backup #2 was woefully wrongheaded, and, I thought, pretty offensively dismissive to that dark period of America. Sour taste in my mouth gives me a low AWFUL, sorry.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #9: PAD goes to wrap up some of his own 10-year old plotlines, and while it isn’t badly done, it feels pretty irrelevant to me. EH.

LAST PLANET STANDING #3: This is selling really well for us (well, at least relative to a SPIDER-GIRL spinoff), which is surprising because this is as old-school “hoo-haa” as you can get. Competent, if not thrilling. OK.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #21: Some of the worst art I’ve ever seen in a Marvel comic, stunted and stilted. The story would have worked better, I think, as an 8-pager in SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED or something. All in all, AWFUL.

PUNISHER #34: Yeah, a good laugh, I guess. OK

NEW X-MEN #27: I never really “got” Stryker as a villain, and here I do even less. EH.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #16: Just look at the cover. There, you’ve read the comic, and not had to spend $2.99. AWFUL.

JSA #86: I feel like I’ve been reading this storyline for 6 months or more – this wasn’t worthy of more than 2 issues, really. EH.

ANGEL SPOTLIGHT WESLEY: Never really watched more than a few episodes of the ANGEL TV show, so I don’t know who these people are or anything. Read OK, despite that, though.

ANNIHILATION SILVER SURFER #3: I’m not feeling any of this crossover, but, then, I don’t really like “cosmic” OR any o the characters involved. Still, I suppose this is “significant” because Surfer becomes the Herald of the Big G again? Not that can last too long… EH.

JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #22: My problem is when Gypsy does all of that detective work to uncover the connections to Deacon that “no one could ever prove”. JL stories should play to the strengths of the characters, not make them all super-competent in fields outside their own. EH.

LUBAS COMICS AND STORIES #8: As I think I’ve said before, I find the work of the Hernandez brothers to be technically thrilling, but it never emotionally touches me. This is a problem of me, not the work, I think. OK.

CHICANOS #8: I think Risso’s art is swell, so I always like these little detective stories. Still, not obviously better than OK.

BATMAN JOURNEY INTO KNIGHT #10: It just goes on and on and on, and it’s all so uninteresting. Awful.

BATMAN SECRETS #4: The padding issue, where nothing happens. I quit liked that page of just the two-shots, though. OK.

JONAH HEX #8: Besides the jarring transition between artists in the middle of the book, I thought this was another fine done-in-one issue. A very high OK.

FANTASTIC FOUR FIRST FAMILY #4: Pretty, and even poignant in places, but it seems pretty drifty and pointless. EH.

FURY PEACEMAKER #5: EH.

EXERMINATORS #6: For a second I had a flash where this was a clever and interesting comic, but just for a second. Then I realized how many coincidences permeate the story, and how it isn’t going anywhere, fast. Look at how much plot and event occurred by, say, SANDMAN #6 or PREACHER #6, if you want to see how a Vertigo comic should be done. EH.

MANIFEST ETERNITY #1: Ugly AND dull! A real winner! AWFUL.

X-MEN THE END MEN AND X-MEN #6: This took 18 issues to get to? Sheesh! AWFUL.

STAR WARS LEGACY #0: Oh, it is the ALL NEW OFFICIAL HANDBOOK TO THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE, and not a story. Foo. Even for a mere quarter, I really don’t care. AWFUL.

SHADOWHAWK #12: Hadn’t read an issue of this since #3 or so, but the first thing that struck me was how little progress had been made since then. These just aren’t very compelling characters. EH.

NOBLE CAUSES #13: Haven’t read this in a while either, but here I had very little idea of who was what – couldn’t figure out why that video tape was so exciting, for example. Art really stank, which is odd given the nice sketchbook section at the back. Huh. EH.

PICK OF THE WEEK: I think what I liked best was WALKING DEAD #28 – but I still think Kirkman is a shmuck for not getting his scheduling shit in order.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Ugh, I’ll go with MARVEL TEAM-UP #21 – also by Kirkman, huh.

BOOK / TP OF THE WEEK: Man, this is not a great week for trades. Pretty much everything is flawed or compromised in some way. I’ll go with FANTASTIC FOUR IRON MAN BIG IN JAPAN by the late Seth Fisher, as my pick, except it really isn’t that good. Still, got to pick something…

So, what did you think?

-B Click Here to Read More...

Before I forget, I should point you all to the new page of Ben photos I just posted. Tzipora sent me these pics ages ago, and I'm a cad for not posting them sooner. The kid is earth-shatteringly cute.

Also, I finally, finally, finally added Graeme's column at Comic World News to our links which I've also been meaning to do forever. I also added a link to his new gig as part of the crew as the new and absurdly content-rich Blog @ Newsarama. Simiarly, the excellent lads at Comics Should Be Good (at their CBR location) had to be mentioned. I pruned a link or two as well, and need to talk to Hibbs about adding a few more, and need to add almost a year worth of my Fanboy columns, but that should keep you entertained until we power up the Snark Engines again...

Labels: Jeff

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So, I apologize for being such a suck-ass about reviewing lately -- I keep running out of time with stuff that HAS to get done (this week: setting up the Jun06 subs...), and reviews fall by the side.... so Lester does all of the heavy lifting, then I feel bad about it.

But, this week is painfully small in shipping size, so I'm pretty darn sure that sometime this week I'll write a "proper" Savage Critic, where I cover (most) every comic that came out this week, howzabout that?

Here's some of what you can look forward to commentary on (Well, not all of it -- I'll be arsed if I will review MARVEL SPOTLIGHT):



52 WEEK #5
ANGEL SPOTLIGHT WESLEY ONE SHOT
ANNIHILATION SILVER SURFER #3(OF 4)
ARCHENEMIES #3 (OF 4)
BATMAN JOURNEY INTO KNIGHT #10 (OF 12)
BATMAN SECRETS #4 (OF 5)
BETTY & VERONICA #218
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #166
BLOOD OF THE DEMON #16
BPRD UNIVERSAL MACHINE #3 (OF5)
CHICANOS #8
CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #1 (OF 10)
CYBERFORCE #0
DETECTIVE COMICS #820
EXTERMINATORS #6
FANTASTIC FOUR FIRST FAMILY #4 (OF 6)
FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #9
FURY PEACEMAKER #5 (OF 6)
HARD TIME SEASON TWO #7
HECTOR PLASM DE MORTUIS ONE SHOT
IN MY LIFETIME
INVINCIBLE #32
JONAH HEX #8
JSA #86
JUGHEADS DOUBLE DIGEST #122
JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #22
LAST PLANET STANDING #3 (OF 5)
LOONEY TUNES #139
LUBAS COMICS & STORIES #8
MANIFEST ETERNITY #1
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #16
MARVEL SPOTLIGHT MARK MILLAR STEVE MCNIVEN
MARVEL TEAM-UP #21
NEW X-MEN #27
NOBLE CAUSES #20
OUTSIDERS #37
PUNISHER #34
ROCKETO JOURNEY TO THE HIDDENSEA #9
SHADOWHAWK #12
SOULFIRE CHAOS REIGN #0
STAR WARS LEGACY #0
SUPERMAN RETURNS KRYPTON TO EARTH
TAG #1 (OF 3)
TRANSFORMERS GENERATIONS (IDW) #4 (NOTE PRICE)
UNDERWORLD #5 (OF 5)
WALKING DEAD #28
WONDER WOMAN #1
X-MEN THE END MEN AND X-MEN #6 (OF 6)
Y THE LAST MAN #46

Books / Mags / Stuff
ACTION PHILOSOPHERS VOL 1 GIANT SIZED THING TP
ALTER EGO #59
ANIMATION MAGAZINE JULY 2006 #162
ARF MUSEUM SC
BATMAN UNDER THE HOOD VOL 2 TP
CANNON GOD EXAXXION STAGE 5 VOL 5 TP
DE TALES VOL 1 TP
DMZ VOL 1 ON THE GROUND TP
EMBROIDERIES SC
ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 5 TP
FANTASTIC FOUR IRON MAN BIG IN JAPAN TP
LEES TOY REVIEW JUNE 2006 #164
LIBERTY MEADOWS VOL 1 TP NEW PRTG
LION GRAPHIC BIBLE GN NEW ED
MAJESTIC VOL 2 TP
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS WOLVERINE VOL 3 TP
MODERN MASTERS VOL 7 JOHN BYRNE SC
NARUTO VOL 10 TP
OH MY GODDESS VOL 23 RTL TP
ORIENTAL CINEMA #23
POWER GIRL TP
PUNISHER VS BULLSEYE TP
SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY OMNIBUS TP
SUPERMAN OUR WORLDS AT WAR COMPLETE EDITION
TREASURY VICTORIAN MURDER VOL8 MADELEINE SMITH HC
WIZARD BEST OF BASIC TRAININGSTORYTELLING

What, if anything, looks good to you?

Oh, and since Rj WILL ask, my ASSHAT OF THE WEEK is, hey! Robert Kirkman (yet again) for being insanely late on WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE, *and* shipping them both the same week...

-B Click Here to Read More...

I wish I knew why my incredibly talented fellow co-bloggers don't hype themselves at every turn. This is the Internet, after all.

I mean, we get a perfectly lovely entry from Graeme that not only utterly demolishes the first two issues of Moon Knight, but gives us a quick take on Scott Pilgrim and warns us of the West Coast Scottish invasion. You'd think he'd plug his appearance on Newsarama's new blog, wouldn't you?

Oh, sure, you guys probably know about it already, but just in case....

I've been meaning to update our links on the sidebar again, and this (plus Comics Should Be Good) gives me the perfect excuse. I'll try to get to that this week.

Labels: Jeff

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So, the problem with my last few weeks is that, between being sick and being overworked and being host to the start of a family invasion of San Francisco (Anyone here who has a problem with people from the west coast of Scotland, your frustration level is potentially going to rise over the next few weeks; My dad is already in town, soon to be followed by both of my sisters and their respective spouses and children. I’m very, very sorry), I am completely behind in the world of comics. The most recent thing that I’ve read was the new Scott Pilgrim – which I loved, albeit with a few reservations, not least of which is that it felt like an ending. As much as I enjoyed it, I’m not sure that I came away from it wanting to know where the story is going to go next, or even feeling as if there’s that much suspense about whether everything will work out for our now-seemingly-invincible eponymous hero – which is a couple of weeks old… which means that reviewing what I’ve been reading lately would be very dull for all of you kids who have probably already heard what the shocking ending of Wednesday’s Civil War #2 is. I was going to give the whole reviewing thing a pass this weekend.

And then Joe Quesada gave me the ultimate straight line, while talking about the new Moon Knight series at this week’s Wizard World Philadelphia.

“If you think it's been bad for the first two issues, it gets worse."

Oh, Joe. Having read the second issue, I’m not sure that’s even possible.

Ignoring David Finch’s overly-rendered but completely undynamic art – which, if nothing else, has improved from his Avengers Disassembled days when he couldn’t lay out a page to save his life – the book’s real problem lies with Charlie Huston’s writing, which seems to personify so many current superhero comic trends as to make me think that it’s actually a very subtle parody of mainstream comics these days: Decompression? Check out the one page that consists of twelve wordless panels where three things happen: a character licks his lips, the same character takes three steps forward, and a MoonKnightarang flies through the air. It doesn’t hit anything, of course – that happens on the next page. Terribly written captions that make Frank Miller’s All-Star Batman seem like poetry? How about this (spread across nine different captions in nine panels): “Blame God. And ask, how much more he wants. How many battles? How much blood till it’s enough? Disarm him. You only need a minute. But you hate him so much. Don’t you? And you’ve wanted this for so long,” Terribly written dialogue that read like Brian Bendis as played by Chris Claremont? Try this excerpt from a monologue towards the end of the issue: “I myself once worshipped at the altar of Dionysius. But then, who would know this better than the man who rescued me from my former abasements of self? That cowed avenger who bore such a striking resemblance to this stony-faced specter. If you will forgive me the play on words. Could it be that this unveiling forebodes the return of the Lunar Legionnaire?” Don’t worry, it’s not all about the technical aspects; there is also the hyperviolence that people seem to be concerned about in some of DC’s superhero books recently, as the flashback fight between Moon Knight and some unnamed bad guy ends with the “Lunar Legionnaire” hacking the bad guy’s face off and holding it up to the sky, triumphant.

Apparently, according to the Newsarama article linked above, this Moon Knight series is a “water cooler” book. Unless the talk around the water cooler is “Boy, did you see how bad that book is?”, then I’m completely lost. I couldn’t see anything to enjoy in the second issue at all. There was no joy, no excitement, no anything beyond the desperation to make Moon Knight something other than a kind of goofy Batman rip-off. If I say that the only thing that the book has going for it at all is that it stops Wolverine: Origins from being Marvel’s worst book, then that pretty much gives you an idea of just how Bowel-Shakingly Ass it is.

God, I can’t wait to read some good books again. What would you recommend, dear readers? Click Here to Read More...

First, I just want to thank everyone who posted on my last two entries. Normally, I try to respond to everyone who posts feedback or comments but I was just too lazy during my last few days of vacation to work up any sort of moxie. Nevertheless, whether it was Clint gloating over his Rom: Spaceknight purchases, Donnie's Wimbledon Green observation or Treacher bringing the Treacher, they were all really appreciated.

Second, X-Men: The Last Stand. I'll scrupulously avoid spoilers but I will say I didn't like it much. At all. Part of that was the cynicism: I honestly think the filmmakers were trying to give the comic geek audience such a nerdgasm in the first ten minutes (right before the awful title credits and right after) nobody would notice the messy plot, the awful dialogue, and just what an uninspired hash was made of most of the staging, setting and action scenes.

But also part of the problem (which some script review of AICN pointed out months and months ago) is that someone in the chain of higher-ups thinks Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman are the X-Men and that's just a HUGE mistake. Not only is Berry terrible here (and I have to give her credit, she's been awful three times in a row and in entirely different ways each time), but Jackman is the unconvincing poseur prettyboy I feared he'd be back before I saw X-Men: I didn't mind that Wolverine's the gruff guy with the heart of gold in this movie (after all, Claremont turned Logan into that long ago), but it's sad that Jackman has fallen into the Tom Cruise trap of making acting less of a physical act and more of a physical achievement. And there's nothing more unlike Wolverine than the idea of control and discipline that such achievement embodies. At best, Wolverine comes off like Hugh Jackman dressed up and acting like Wolverine for Halloween or something, and that's a huge comedown from the first two films.

Also (and this is kind of a spoiler so I apologize), on film, the Fastball Special looks like one of the dumbest fuckin' things ever. Did anyone involved with the movie bother to look at the comic books, or did they just go off a description provided by Avi Arad's reader? "So Colossus just, uh, throws Wolverine, huh? I guess we can do that... Just grab him by the pants and spin him around or something?"

Yeah. Didn't like it. Not cringingly awful, but far from a pleasure to watch.

Third:

52 WEEK #4: I kinda blew off Hibbs when he talked about how competent the first issue of 52 was, but I certainly saw his point after reading this issue: if the first had been as bad as this, I'd have stopped reading by now. The biggest sticking point was The Question cracking wise like he was Spider-Man (The Question making old-school Gauntlet jokes? Um, could we drop the Poochie factor by about 15%, please?) but the storytelling overall was just kludgy and awkward and not good. Hopefully just a hiccup, and probably sub-Eh (since that's what I gave issue #1) but I'll stick at Eh, anyway.

ACTION COMICS #839: I really liked the hook of having Superman feel his non-physical powers kick up to potentially Silver-Age levels, and Busiek & Johns appear to be playing with some of the ideas from Superman Returns (if the latest trailer I saw is any indication). I'm digging it. Good stuff.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #532: It's a clever cliffhanger in that you know Peter's not going to end up unmasking himself, but JMS does a great job of presenting why the people closest to him think he should, and why he'd listen to them. I'm not saying it justifies the year-plus of plot hammering to put him in this situation, but it was a Good issue.

APOCALYPSE NERD #3: First issue where I actually liked the main story, but it looked like they printed the issue straight from a fax machine or something. OK, I guess.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #0: At a quarter, definitely worth the money, but pretty much a mook's game, overall. The continuity in the first two seasons of BSG is just so taut (as my brother once put it, "they can't have somebody fart without everyone smelling it for the next three episodes"), the creators of the licensed material can't doing anything that will really matter (I think the tie-in novels are gonna be screwed for that reason, too, FWIW). There's also some other stuff to bitch about, but not for a quarter. OK but doomed, doomed, doomed.

CRISIS AFTERMATH THE SPECTRE #1: Nifty art but the Spectre with a goatee? No. Just...no. Thought the whole thing was more or less good (a comic where the Spectre quotes Voltaire is a step in the right direction) until I realized it was the first of a three issue mini--then it seemed disasarously slow. OK, coulda been better.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON #5: Khari Evans' art seems to have lost a little of the storytelling zing (or bling, perhaps) that gave the previous issues some spark, and Palmiotti and Gray's smart-ass bullshitting (The Daughters of The Dragon know the Punisher! And the Mole Man!) has gotten a little tired. Probably would've been much better as a four issue mini, but I haven't entirely lost hope yet. OK.

HERO SQUARED ONGOING #1: Anyone else end up with four silent pages at the end of their issue? Considering the absurdly high word count in the previous eighteen, I'm assuming it's a technical glitch and not, I dunno, Captain Valor going deaf. I really like the central conceit of this book (a romantic quadrangle between a superhero, a supervillain, and their unpowered parallel universe equivalents) but I'd be lying if I didn't admit it feels more like comfort food (Giffen and DeMatteis's hyperbreathless talky comedy) and less like a genuine meal. Good, but has the potential to be better.

INCREDIBLE HULK #95: Really sad how the editor mentions on the letter page the serendipity of finding a previous storyline with The Hulk and The Silver Surfer that has resonance with the current one, and talks about that like it's the most amazing discovery ever. (It's called "continuity," Mr. Editor-Guy. You should look into it. ) As for the story, I wish the art was good enough so I could've had my "yeah, I know I shouldn't suspend my disbelief, but there's the Silver Surfer using his surfboard as a gladiatorial shield and that's kinda rad" moment. Eh.

MY INNER BIMBO #1: Sometimes--for me, anyway--the story (the one the storyteller tells) isn't nearly as interesting as the metastory (the one the reader tells themself about why the writer is telling this particular story). Here, for example, the story--ostensibly about a sixty-year old man, his seventy-seven year old wife and a manifestation of the man's childlike inner bimbo--is too exposition-heavy and suffers from false starts, unbelievable dialogue and Evel-Knievel-over-Snake-Canyon leaps of logic, making it easy to put down and kinda head-hurty overall. But the metastory of this--trying to figure out just what the hell Kieth is trying to work out with this stuff, how much of it is emotionally autobigraphical, what reaction he's expecting--is fucking riveting. If it can come together, and the story can surpass the metastory, My Inner Bimbo could be a startling and devastating piece of work. As it is, this first issue is Eh (unless you like reading stuff that you just don't get a chance to see very often and/or don't mind entertaining yourself with all sorts of strange and potentially libelous ideas about a creator's personal life, in which case it's Good). It's certainly exceptionally bold work, either way.

PUNISHER THE TYGER: Wow. I don't really know what I was expecting, but that certainly wasn't it. Garth Ennis and John Severin have crafted a quiet little story that can be read as a rosetta stone for Frank Castle's obsessions (by and large, the story takes place when Castle is ten years old and learning about the sex, violence and crime lurking under everyday urban life) and also as its opposite: the story suggests we can't understand what makes Frank Castle the way he is any more than we can understand the creator of the tiger of Blake's poem. Severin does lovely period art, and his way with faces and expressions is perfect for such a strongly character-driven story, but it's Ennis's writing--particularly Castle's narration--that really knocked me out. It's writing that comes off as tough by not trying to be tough, and richly understated. This may be the best work Ennis has done for Marvel: Very Good stuff, and worth checking out.

THING #7: Slott's pretty good with the metacommentary. So does that mean this issue, where Ben fails at everything he tries to achieve by taking Alicia back in time, is a commentary on Slott's attempt to bring a more retro classic take on comic book storytelling? OK, because I thought the laughs were kind of cheap and the plot was really second-guessable, which usually isn't the case. But it was cute.

ULTIMATE EXTINCTION #5: Weird. You know what the action scenes of nine million bald women and fifteen million gun shots and twenty-one million blood spatters reminded me of? Those loading screens on Capcom fighting games: weirdly hyperkinetic and static at the same time. Maybe that's appropriate for this story, which took fifteen issues and three miniseries whipping itself up into a frenzy and then felt at the end... I dunno. Not perfunctory, exactly, and not flat but....done? Like a Michael Bay movie makes you feel: like you got your money's worth (and then some) but, given your druthers, the whole thing would've been over about twenty minutes sooner. OK.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #30: I like Millar's work the most when it (or he, via his best friend the Internet) isn't trying to grab you by the nads and telling you about how, by Christ, don't you understand, this is the most amazingly cock-shittingiest book you'll read this year. So I liked this issue, which seems no more absurd or hyperbolic or bowel-shakingly melodramatic than a regular superhero comic book should. Highly OK, in short.

WARREN ELLIS BLACK GAS WRAPAROUND #3: Underwhelming, despite a very good job by Ellis putting genuine tension in the couple's banter. (Are they on their way to becoming Tourette's-talking zombies? Or are they just under a shitload of stress?) But it's at best dutiful, and far from thrilling. Like Moore, Ellis enjoys taking genres apart and like Moore, Ellis's endings can feel like afterthoughts. However, apart from some of his work with Image, Moore's work never feels as emotionally stingy as some of Ellis's dabblings do. If pressed, I'd assume Ellis is going for terse and emotionally understated. But there are places where emotional understatement isn't particularly satisfying, and a zombie massacre story might be one of those places. Eh, unfortunately.

PICK OF THE WEEK: PUNISHER THE TYGER. As you can tell, I was really impressed with this.

PICK OF THE WEAK: I got nothing. I didn't read anything truly awful this week or if I did, I couldn't work up enough bile to care. (TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #38, you're off the hook.)

TRADE OF THE WEEK & MANGA FIX: Jim Kosmicki asked for a more in-depth review of BECK because he'd read the first two volumes and just didn't see the appeal. So I was kind of hoping this week's release of BECK MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD VOL4 would allow me to really turn out a laudatory review that could show him what he was missing. Unfortunately, after reading vol. 4 of BECK, I think I'm not going to be able to do so.

For one thing, like Vol. 3 of Scott Piigrim, this volume of BECK has its flaws--I found the transitions in the early part of the volume to be particularly jarring, for example, but a lot of the scenes in the middle just piddle out, there to show little more than how miserable parts of Koyuki's life are. Vol. 4 of BECK is not a laudatory, life-changing volume of manga if you've read the previous volumes and didn't much care. In fact, it'll probably just reinforce any already existing indifference.

But, if like me, you really loved the first three volumes of BECK--my god, is it satisfying! Sakuishi is able to capture all of the psychological freneticism of other manga without relying on the tranformation of characters into super-deformed versions, or the art into stick-figure diagramming to mirror the awkward embarrassment of situations: Sakuishi front-loads all of that into his style and his design of his lead, gangly, big-eyed Yukio, so even the broadest comedy feels almost deadpan. Additionally, we don't have to spend too much time in Yukio's head--we may get the occasional panel where he tries to cheer himself up or remind himself of what's important--but the creator doesn't have to sell the reader on it because it's all right there on the character's face.

But the real appeal of Vol. 4 is watching a character you feel for start to come into his own after three volumes of working his ass off and struggling to get by, and I found that tremendously satisfying. Some of that, I'm sure, comes from my own history as spindly kid outsider, but some of it comes from the pleasure of watching characters you care about become the people that they want to be and the price they have to pay for that. I don't know how anyone can't find the appeal in that.

Despite any criticisms I may have (and, oh yeah, that free Beck download is a sucky remix of a song I didn't like in the first place), BECK MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD VOL4 is absolutely my pick of the week. Recommended, oh my yes.

Howzabout you?

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