Careful where you put those dialogue bubbles

I may just be misreading this panel, but did that lady just say something about Nightwing's butt...


...and it answered her?!

Dark Knight, Black Friday

Yes, what is Batman going to get all his teammates on the Justice League and Outsiders for Christmas this year? Check out Every Day Is Like Wednesday every day between December 5th and December 23rd to find out!

A half-dozen or so links

1.) Meanwhile, in Las Vegas… : This week’s Las Vegas Weekly comics column features a review of League of Extraordinary Gentleman: Black Dossier. Anyone who’s managed to slog through it already, please let me know what you thought of the book in the comments section below. The reviews I’ve read so far have been a bit mixed, but I honestly can’t hear enough reactions to it, given how strange it is.

One question that occurred to me while reading was whether or not it even counts as a true graphic novel, given how much of it is actually what we consider prose as opposed to sequential art. But given the fact that we’re still wrestling with the term “graphic novel,” maybe we’re not ready for a discussion of how to define hybrid books like this yet.




2.) “Bad” isn’t a style: Check out this excellent analysis of the cover work of Michael Turner. If you come here often, you know that Turner’s cover work is a fairly frequent target of abuse, although my problems with it tend to revolve around the comical lengths he goes to not draw feet (it is, in fact, the principle around which his covers are composed), the complete lack of backgrounds, and the incredibly boring compositions of, like, one-to-ten super-people just kinda standing around, not doing anything.

Something I didn’t notice, however, is just how bad he is with anatomy. Okay, well, yeah, everyone knows his Supergirl had a few dozen ribs too many, that his Power Girl was a horrifying freak and that his Namor had a fist coming out of his belly, but this thorough essay shows how Turner’s anatomy is completely inconsistent within the single image drawings (two people in the same image having radically different skeletons, for example, or one character having arms of two completely different lengths).

It’s a nice write-up anyway, and a good one to bookmark and post links to any time anyone tells you that the lack of quality in Turner’s cover work is just his “style.”




3.) You’re either with Gail Simone or you’re against her: On Monday, Savage Critic Diana Kingston-Gabai reviewed DC writer Gail Simone’s Welcome to Tranquility #12, spending about 450 words assessing the book, the series, and (to a much lesser extent) Simone’s recent output in general. Kingston-Gabai gave the book an “Awful,” the second lowest grade on the Savage Critic’s seven-grade rating system.

I didn’t read the issue in question, or any issues of the series, as I agree with Kingston-Gabai that “Gail Simone seems seriously off her game lately.” I think Simone is a very solid super-comic writer in general, turning in consistently good work often featuring a sense of humor, something that’s all too often missing in the work of her peers, especially at DC these days.

But after All-New Atom’s nose-dive in quality (encouraged by DC launching the series before apparently finding an artist), the Secret Six mini’s meandering (fun stuff, but not a story), the post-OYL slump of Birds of Prey and the downright appalling first issue of Gen 13, her name alone on Welcome to Tranquility wasn’t enough to entice me to try it out.

So I don’t know, maybe it was “Awful,” as Kingston-Gabai rated it. Maybe it was actually “Crap” or “Excellent,” the lowest and highest ratings on the Savage Critic scale. I just can’t speak to the quality of Welcome to Tranquility.

I can speak to the quality of Kingston-Gabai’s comics criticism though. I’ve no read it a couple times, and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it that I could see. It wasn’t the single best piece of comics criticism I’d seen on the Internet, but it was well-written and supported the opinions expressed in it. And, most important to me, it was fun to read, even for someone who doesn’t have any firsthand experience with the book in question.

Gail Simone disagreed. Hard.

The second response on the thread, which you really ought to go read for yourself, if you haven’t already (this post will still be here when you get back), was Simone, accusing Kingston-Gabai of “outright factual errors,” calling the review dumb, and, essentially offering her reviews of the reviews on the site. In that initial—and probably ill-considered—post, Simone wrote:



“Didn't this site used to be good at snark, and not just random unhappy carping stated poorly (and more to the point) tediously? I can't believe I miss the buckshot approach of Brian's first few years, but the vapid stuff you guys are doing now is too long-winded to even make for good bitchery. When was the last really worthwhile review here?”



What followed was 52 posts (as of this writing), a pretty gigantic thread for the site, with 20 of those posts coming from Simone herself. After some arguing between Simone and Kingston-Gabai, in which Simone condescendingly confesses ignorance of Kingston-Gabai’s work (easily accessible at the click of a label) and decries Savagecritic.com, things calmed down a bit, despite some venom from an anonymous poster who later revealed himself to be a pseudonymonous poster.

All in all, it’s a pretty shocking display. Simone attacking a review or the site regarding the quality of the writing or criticism might not have looked quite so bad if it wasn’t, you know, a negative review of one of her own works she was specifically replying to, but, well, there it is.

What I found most distressing is that Simone, who shows such a sense of humor in her comics writing, seems to lack one here.

She accused Kingston-Gabai of making “factual errors” in a review, but never gets around to pointing out what any of them are, despite days worth of 20 posts, other than the fact that she says Welcome to Tranquility is not, in fact, cancelled (Although no issues of the monthly comic book have been solicited for the next three months, so whether it’s cancelled or not renewed for additional issues like Highwaymen or not cancelled but not being published anymore either like Manhunter seems like a semantic argument, particularly since Kingston-Gabai doesn’t have an inside track on Wildstorm’s future publishing plans).

Wait, scratch that. What I found most distressing is a letter from a ten-year-old that Simone posted in the thread, reviewing her Wonder Woman #14. Do you realize what that means? There are parents out there who allow their ten-year-old child to read the violent, perverted, morally bankrupt comics of the modern DCU!




4.) Attention Columbusites and Central Ohioans!: Don’t forget this weekend is the annual post-Thanksgiving feast of pop culture, Mid-Ohio-Con. Regulars (and EDILW favorites) Sergio Aragones, Jan Duuresema and Tom Mandrake will be there, as will Steve Rude, Mark Evanier, Joe Benitez and Arthur Suydam. I won’t be going, because I can’t trust myself to be in the same building as the guy who drew this


and this


But if you go, be sure to plead with Suydam to stop drawing zombie variants, and break Benitez’s pencils for me, will you?

And don’t forget, tomorrow night is the Panel “Unmasked” pre-party. Go buy the Panel-ists’ latest anthology, and buy them some drinks while you’re at it. More info here.




5.) DC should really talk to Art Baltazar about a Watchmen Babies one-shot: I’m the 532nd person to mention this, having waited four days, but how weird is it to be living in a world in which Alan Moore’s conflicts with DC Comics over Watchmen are the source of a joke on The Simpsons?

That was the first time I’d actually heard Alan Moore’s voice, although I’m sure there’s an awful lot of him talking, singing and reading poetry available on recordings and online, and he’s a pretty damn good voice actor. He totally sounded like a scary British wizard, which is pretty much how I think of him.

It was probably the funniest episode of The Simpsons I’ve seen in quite a while, and it’s worth noting that The Simpsons in general has been in sharper form this season then they have been in…well, years. I don’t know if the movie energized the creators—I know my main reaction to the film was, “Oh yeah, The Simpsons used to be funny!”—or the encroachment of Seth McFarlane onto their Sunday night territory lighting a fire under their asses, but the show is great shape this year.

That said, what the fuck was up with that episode? The beginning had nothing to do with the rest of it, and the entire Comic Book Guy vs. Jack Black Voiced Guy segment was basically a way too long set-up for Marge to walk by a Wonder Woman cut-out and kick off the women’s gym plot. Is The Android’s Dungeon finished? Is Jack Black Voiced Guy going to be a regular? Why was the everything-goes-back-to-normal-at-the-end-of-the-episode formula violated?

I’ve noticed that increasingly The Simpsons episodes have begun with scenes that have nothing to do with the main plot of the episode, and I’ve always theorized that it had to do with the need to fill a certain amount of time. I imagined the writers would assemble an episode with a particular story, and then work backwards from there, piling on scenes and segues at the beginning until they hit their target length.

This episode seemed to be the most padded with such warm-up material of any I can remember seeing. Now, the padding is all fine—the funniest parts of the episode, whether you’re watching it as a big huge comics nerd or not—but it really did seem like two completely unconnected stories put together.

Anyway, it’s been fun seeing the comics blogsphere’s reaction all week, but the strangest thing I’ve read about it was from the episode’s writer, Matt Selman:



There are references in the first act of this thing you never thought you'd see on Adult Swim at three in the morning, let alone on Fox during prime time. Here's a taste of what you'll get: the guest voices are Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, and Dan Clowes. DAN CLOWES? On network TV??? How the Hell did we pull that off? Fox doesn’t want Alan Moore, they want Mandy Moore. Hell, they would rather have Mighty Mouse than the author of Maus. (At least Mighty Mouse is cute and doesn't talk about 9/11.) Scoring these indie comic book mega-talents to be in a regular TV show for regular people is a F-ing miracle!



You know, as cool as it was that a Fox show had a poster for Lost Girls up in the background, I was really wondering just how obscure any of that actually is.

Art Spiegelman’s Maus is one of the few comics/ -x/ graphic novels that everyone on earth who cares about such things would put in a comics/ -x/ graphic novel canon, isn’t it? Dude’s spent years at The New Yorker covers and been interviewed, profiled, and reviewed by every respectable media venue for over 20 years now.

I would be more shocked to see Big Two stalwarts like, I don’t know, Peter David, Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas or Mark Waid on a “regular TV show for regular people” than Art Spiegelman, really.

Similarly, Moore’s Watchmen is up there with Maus in the non-nerd collective comics consciousness, three big studio films have been made out of his work (one of which wasn’t even completely awful!), and Watchmen is on the way, being often talked online.

And Dan Clowes has written two films, both based on his comics work, one of which was nominated for an Academy Award and he has a comic strip in The New York Times.

The trio are about as mainstream as you can get in terms of comics talents, this side of current Hollywood darling Frank Miller and maybe Neil Gaiman (whose probably better known for prose work than comics at this point).

Selman’s enthusiasm is quite understandable—I don’t think I was ever that excited about an episode of The Simpsons prior to it airing, to be honest—but if he’s not just being hyperbolic for comedic effect in his column, then that seems reflective of a weird comic book industry insider view of the world, in which DC and Marvel and superheroes represent “the mainstream,” and everything else, the stuff that’s non-superhero in genre, the stuff that is more likely to be seen, bought, read, and written about outside the direct market is considered indie and obscure, when, in fact, it’s the exact opposite way around.

...

Man, is there nothing I can’t find something to complain about?




6.) Oh yeah, it’s some sort of holiday today, isn’t it?: Well, I’m thankful for all of you who read EDILW and post comments.

Weekly Haul: November 21st

Action Comics #859 (DC Comics) It’s part two of “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes,” which tells the tale of Superman journeying to the future to meet The Legion v. 5.0…or maybe this is just a time travel rejiggered version of the original Legion? Or a re-rejiggered version of the Legion that showed up in “Lightning Saga?” Man, I don’t know, and that’s why I hate the fucking Legion.

Writer Geoff Johns puts them front and center for the bulk of this issue, as the three founders run afoul of the 31st Century version of the Justice League—former Legion rejects who wear Nazi-style armbands, preach xenophobia and have perverted Superman’s memory—while Dawnstar, Colossal Boy and Wildfire give readers a little exposition.

I’m definitely not the target audience here, and while Johns is a little too narrowly focused on the actual (too narrow) audience, he at least does a decent job of informing us who the hell all the players are with little text boxes pointing to each new Legionnaire.

Artists Gary Frank and John Sibal do a great job redesigning the Legion—I think this may actually be the best-looking version of these guys I’ve seen—and setting up quite a visual contrast between Superman and the teams he inspired. Whereas the original Legionnaires were all capes, tights and chest symbols like Superman, now everyone’s rocking more millennial, Authority/Ultimates-esque gear. I love Saturn Girl’s current look, too. That’s definitely the best she’s ever looked.





Birds of Prey #112 (DC) Tony Bedard, DC’s designated fill-in writer, finishes up his stalling stint between the conclusion of Gail Simone’s run and the start of Sean McKeever’s with a Lady Blackhawk-focused issue that I almost left on the shelf due to the first and last pages (Both of which feature mourning for Big Barda, which set off Countdown/Death of the New Gods tie-in alarm bells).

And while mourning for the temporarily dead Barda is involved, it’s only in a rather tangential way, as Zinda skips the Hall of Justice calling hours, gets drunk, engages in a bar fight and then hijacks a cab to drive her cross country so she can do a little something to commemorate Barda at a West Coast watering hole (cameo-ing Hal Jordan!). And, because this is a superhero comic, some villains attack her, leading to a chases scene involving a rapid succession of unusual chase scene vehicles.

It’s a decently told done-in-one featuring “your short-skirted, two-fisted, hard-drinkin’, hellbound sister,” with pretty great artwork from David Cole and Doug Hazlewood. They have a lot of clean, crisp lines, and a style similar enough to regular artist Nicola Scott that at first I didn’t even notice her absence.




The Brave and the Bold #8 (DC) If you read only one DC super-comic, this should be the one. Not only because the rotating spotlight format of the team-up book will eventually cover everyone, but because the creative team ensures that when the big DC superheroes do appear here, they’re going to be better written and better drawn then they are anywhere else. This issue is a Flash/Doom Patrol team-up, featuring special guest-star Metamorpho (Not wearing dress pants, but showing off his mismatched, gunky-looking gams in all their groovy glory).

This was my first exposure to the West kids (and, come to think of it, Wally and Linda West, since their nonsensical disappearance in Infinite Crisis and less-sensical reappearance in “Lighting Saga”), and Mark Waid did his usual excellent job introducing every character. As for the plot, Niles Caulder has developed a potential cure for the West kids’ unstable molecule problem, and he invites the family to Doom Patrol HQ.

Wally is cagey because of how creepy Caulder is, the kids are cagey because the Patrol can be a creepy bunch (the way they introduce themselves is a fun sequence) and Linda is cagey because they can’t get through a meal without Robot Man taking his brain out of his head and grossing her the hell out.

I hear words like “old school” and “classic” thrown around a lot when discussing this title, and it’s really a shame that its merits are the sorts of things that are so uncommon in big company comics that we’ve come to associate them with the super-comics from yesteryear: A complete story told in a single issue, properly introduced characters and continuity that includes rather than repels newcomers, sharply realized characters with individual personalities and speech patterns, beautiful art that distinguishes the characters as individual people rather than cut-outs recognizable only by their hair color and costumes, detailed artwork, backgrounds, and on and on.




Detective Comics #838 (DC) What a terrible comic book. This is either the third, fourth or fifth installment of “The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul”—depending on whether you want to count the prelude in the last issue of Batman or the unofficial prelude in the last Robin annual—and art chores are handled in such a lazy, incompetent style that Tony Daniel’s poor work in that Batman prelude seems like the work of an accomplished comics master.

Ryan Benjamin is the penciller handling the art, and he seems to be the one to blame for most of the problems. At least, I’m not sure to what degree Dini should be blamed. Does he write ’TEC in the old Marvel style, where the pencil artist chooses how to lay out the pages while the writer plots and dialogues? Or are his scripts just really terrible, including things like “Careful not to draw a background on any of these pages” and “Tight close-up on Robin’s brow, so we can’t see anything else”? I’m guessing it’s Benjamin who’s not doing such a hot job here, as a lot of Dini’s past comics work has been pretty great (mainly for Oni and Dark Horse, come to think of it), but it could just be that he’s usually paired with great artists.

Now, I hate to be negative here, and I’m not saying this just to be mean to Benjamin, whom for all I know is a decent human being and maybe even a decent artist, one who got this script and five days to turn it into a comic book and did the best he could in that time (like too many DC comics of late, there’s a visible sense of being rushed on every page, and I wonder about how much lead time the artists on this crossover actually got), but this book is about as badly drawn as any comic I’ve ever read.

Benjamin’s style is of a scratchy, old school Image influenced, Daniel-esque sort, and I’m not overly enamored of his designs, which differ greatly from those in the previous installments (Was an explanation given for why Ra’s is no longer a mummy in last week’s issue of Nightwing? Cause I skipped that because, you know, no good has ever come of anyone reading an issue of Nightwing), and little thought seemed to go into them (You’re mountain climbing in the Himalayas guys, put on a hat and gloves, huh?).

But it’s not just a style thing. There’s not even a half-hearted attempt to match the images up with the dialogue. The first panel is a full, space-wasting splash, in which Ra’s says “Gently, gently” as if his minions are carrying his two unconscious captives toward him. But in the image, they’ve already been laid on the ground, with the minions standing erect, their hands at their sides.

(Above: Page one)

The following pages are just a mess of staging, and they don’t read the least bit intuitively. Who's saying what in the last panel of page three there, and why does Robin spin away from the person apparently addressing him in it in the very next panel? Why is there a panel between Ra's entrance line and his appearance to the reader?

(Pages three and four)

It’s really too bad, because Dini spreads the spotlight around quite evenly here, checking in with almost all of our major players, and presenting some neat character moments—Ra’s tempting Robin, the Incredible I-Ching marveling at Batman living up to his namesake, Alfred vs. Ubu—but it’s constantly undermined by the art. Not that the script itself is golden—I’m not quite sure why Batman clumsily thanks Talia for the chain mail armor and gauntlets, other than the fact that he was wearing something similar in that one teaser image from forever go, and thus had to wear it at some point here, and Dini has to make sure he points out some reason for Batman to be wearing chainmail over his Kevlar all of a sudden. (Or is that something else explained in last week’s Nightwing?)




Reptilia (IDW Publishing) IDW’s first manga offering is a nice collection of classic 1960s horror comics from Drifting Classroom creator and horizontal stripe aficionado Kazuo Umezu. All three of the stories collected here feature little girls imperiled by snake women, in stories that now read like a mixture of classic Asian ghost stories about animal spirits and ‘80s slasher hero horror movies, and none of which seem the least bit dated (In fact, the long drapes of women’s hair, crawling women in nightgowns and their tendency to emerge from wells and holes or cling to ceilings and walls make story elements seem as if they were concocted to tap into the J horror zeitgeist, rather than, you know, prefiguring it by decades).

The first story is probably the strongest, as each successive one gets more and more complicated in its mythology. The second story in a sequel to the first, and the third a prequel to it, explaining where the snake woman came from in the first place. Sort of. In these two later stories, the snake woman is now able to infect others almost vampire-like with snake bites, turning them into snake people too, and the third one features a revenge plot so complicated I almost needed a chart to keep the players straight. All are well worth a look for horror fans.

My only real complaint regards the book design, a rather small matter, I know, but one I’m not above spending paragraphs talking about. It’s formatted in a thick digest size and reads left-to-right, but by the cover there’s no way to know that this is the work of Umezu, or even that it’s manga. The cover, by Ashley Wood, is a nice enough image, although one by Umezu would certainly be preferable. If I weren’t specifically looking for this in the shop today, I probably would have passed it on, assuming it was a 30 Days of Night book. Five pages of it are preview-able here.




The Spirit #11 (DC) The Darwyn Cooke, J. Bone and Dave Stewart creative team wind down their superlative run on Will Eisner’s signature character with the second half of a two-parter, one that actually would have made a decent finale for their run. It’s a great deal more serious than most of the previous issues, with a Spirit vs. an army of the undead conflict driving it, but even if it is just Denny Colt vs. zombies, they’re Cooke/Bone/Stewart zombies. I love the sugar skull Spirit with the dancing, fighting skeletons on the hat brim on the cover.




What If? Annihilation #1 (Marvel Comics) This is another of the more modern What If? books to have a nonsensical formulation as its official title, but at least on the cover it’s properly phrased as a question in English, as What If…Annihilation Reached Earth?. I kinda like the very existence of the book, which seemed to have been inspired by a very popular comics message board theory about how Civil War might have conceivably ended, with the menace of the Annihilation mini-event arriving on Earth, thus unifying the warring superheroes to face a common threat. Would that have been a better ending to Civil War? Probably. Of course, I have a hard time thinking of a worse ending to Civil War then the one Millar and company came up with, and, in that regard, I think I would be even more amused by the existence of the book if they integrated that sentiment into the title itself. Why not call it, oh, What If…Civil War Ended Not With a Whimper But a Bang? or What If…Cap Didn’t Just Puss Out at the End of Civil War and Give Up For No Reason?.

Writer David Hine asks the question, although this turns out to be a much better idea for a What If? than an actual story (If this were part of a monthly run, it’s relative weakness wouldn’t be such a problem, we might just take it as an off issue, but as a standalone one-shot, the weakness and essential inessentiality practically define it). Due to the nature of the story, Hine must summarize Annihilation and Civil War, let us know what’s different in this version, and then bring them to a different conclusion. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and he does it by having The Watcher narrate and Nova devote an awful lot of time to explanation (somewhat unnecessarily, since the first page has the normal prose summary of previous stories that’s been institutionalized at Marvel). The end result is too much summarizing of a comics story, and not enough of a comic story.

Two artists are involved, breaking the 24 pages of story up between them, and they seem to compliment one another fairly well. I didn’t even realize there were two different artists until I went back and checked the credits.

The last scene is a pretty nice ending to Cap and Tony’s conflict, probably the very best way to resolve it after all they’ve gone through, giving them a neat Butch and Sundance moment. Hine’s Watcher narration on these last two panels actually renders the moment pretty hilarious, although I’m pretty sure it’s not the desired intention.

Marvel's February previews reviewed

If last night saw the reviews of DC's previews, that can mean only one thing—Today, Marvel's previews are available for preemptive review! Open another window and click on over to Newsarama to follow along if you like.

Ready? Okay, let's see what Marvel will be getting us for Valentine's Day...




BLACK PANTHER ANNUAL #1 Written by REGINALD HUDLIN. Penciled by LARRY STROMAN & KEN LASHLEY. Cover by JUAN DOE. “BLACK TO THE FUTURE”: A special double-sized issue to commemorate Black History Month. It’s 2057 and the Watcher’s prediction came true: Wakanda is an Imperial Power steering the course for humanity’s future. As T’Challa prepares the next Black Panther for the great responsibility ahead, he must first reflect on the road traveled–a long and winding journey filled with surprises.

I’ve recently dropped Hudlin’s Black Panther for, like, the third time now. Something or another keeps driving me away from the title, but then something or another will get me to pick it up again.

I’m not normally a big fan of alternate future stories like this, but that is a really nice cover, and I like the cheesiness of the title.

I don’t like that they’re calling it an “annual” though. I mean, it says right there in the solicitation that this is “a special double-sized issue,” and there’s no other issue of Black Pantehr solicited for February. So if this is replacing an issue of a monthly, doesn’t that just make it a “monthly” (i.e. a comic that is published once a month) instead of an “annual” (i.e. a comic that is published once a yer)?

Well, whatever they call it, I hope the Black Avenbers are in this issue, because that theoretical team kicks ass…





FANTASTIC FOUR #554 Written by MARK MILLAR. Pencils & Cover by BRYAN HITCH. MARK MILLAR! BRYAN HITCH! Need we say more? All right, we will! Who is Mrs. Fantastic? And how will her return into Reed's life rock comicdom's First Family? Also, get ready to meet the Invisible Woman's brand NEW super-team! This issue kicks off a year-long storyline that will make FANTASTIC FOUR "The World's ULTIMATEST Comic Magazine!" Promise!

After two volumes of The Ultimates, which saw delays between issues lengthening to ridiculous amounts of time the longer the series went on, does anyone really believe Marvel’s one-time flagship is going to remain a monthly under this creative team? This one has wait-for-the-trade written alllll over it.

Also, shouldn’t Ultimate Fantastic Four be “The World’s Ultimatest Comic Magazine”?

Hitch’s cover is kind of stiff, his Thing kinda small, and I find the image of a super-genius like Reed Richards holding up four fingers like a toddler telling us how many people are on his team hilarious for some reason. But after months of suffering through Michael Turner covers to get at the fantastic Fantastic Four stories by Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier, I’m glad to see anyone who’s not Turner on FF covers.




GIANT-SIZE ASTONISHING X-MEN #1 Written by JOSS WHEDON. Pencils & Wraparound Cover by JOHN CASSADAY. Too big to be contained in a normal issue, the grand finale of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly) and John Cassaday's (CAPTAIN AMERICA, Planetary) landmark run is right here! The powerlords of Breakworld bring the fight to Earth. Can the X-Men stop them from destroying the whole planet? Will the Avengers join their fight? What we do know is this: one of the X-Men won't walk away from this fight. Plus spotlight interviews with Whedon and Cassaday!

I will look forward to reading this in a trade paperback at some point in the rather distant future.

Also, is that Cannonball? In a costume that doesn’t look incredibly lame? Awesome! Who gets credit for designing that, Cassaday or whoever’s drawing whatever X-book that Cannonball might currently be appearing in? I’m totally lost on the X-Men right now. Astonishing was the only monthly I was reading, and I dropped that when it became a quarterly.




No, no, no...it's only funny if it's "The Incredible Herc," because that looks and sounds a lot like "The Incredible Hulk." Adding the "-ules" at the end just totally ruins it.




KICK–ASS #1 Written by MARK MILLAR. Pencils & Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR. Variant Cover by TBA. Sketch Variant by JOHN ROMITA JR. The greatest super hero comic of all-time is finally here. WOLVERINE: ENEMY OF THE STATE's team of MARK MILLAR (CIVIL WAR) and JOHN ROMITA JR. (WORLD WAR HULK) reunite for the best new book of the 21st century. Have you ever wanted to be a super hero? Dreamed of donning a mask and just heading outside to some kick-ass? Well, this is the book for you--the comic that starts where other super hero books draw the line. KICK-ASS is realistic super heroes taken to the next level. Miss out and you're an idiot.

At first I thought this was an issue of Iron Man and that was Tony Stark getting his head punched through a door on the cover there, because usually there’s at least one Marvel cover featuring someone clobbering Stark in each month’s solicits.

I’m not sure what to make of the pluck/arrogance of the solicitation copy–on the one hand, I find the cheeky bragging kind of charming (especially when coupled with the title, which makes one think it’s all just facetious), but then this is Mark Millar, and that guy’s usually not terribly facetious when bragging about how awesome he is.

Still, it’s drawn by JRJR, and I don’t think I’ve ever regretted buying a comic that he’s drawn, so this would have to likely be Unfunnies bad to pass over.




MARVEL ADVENTURES THE AVENGERS #21Written by MARC SUMERAK. Penciled by IG GUARA. Cover by LEONARD KIRK. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Get ready to cry "Wolverine!" at the top of your lungs, 'cause Avengers Tower is about to go all "Red Dawn" when the Crimson Dynamo invades! But who is the super-spy on the armored villain's trail...and can she be trusted?

I’m going to guess The Black Widow and that yes, yes she can be trusted.





Oh hey, The Defenders! They're the Marvel Adventures Defenders, but still, they're The Defenders, and I'll take The Defenders anywhere I can get 'em. And dig Dr. Strange's energy doily creating power there.

Has anyone been reading Marvel Adventures Hulk? I've heard some good thngs here or there, but haven't tried t out for myself yet.




I think this might be the best-looking of the Marvel Illustrated covers I've seen so far. Pretty much a perfect image for a Marvel version of Moby Dick.




OMEGA: THE UNKNOWN #5 (of 10) Written by JONATHAN LETHEM WITH KARL RUSNAK. Penciled by FAREL DALRYMPLE & PAUL HORNSCHEMEIER. Omega gets a job in a fast-food joint, the Unparalleled Mink loses a family member and a body part, and Alex discovers that when you run away from home it's probably better not to retrace your steps, in the fifth chapter of the future-award-winning reprisal of Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes "Omega The Unknown" by Jonathan Lethem, Karl Rusnak, Farel Dalrymple and Paul Hornschemeier.

I kinda like the “future-award-winning” part, again because of it’s pluck. The first issue of this series doesn’t seem to have been terribly well received by anyone online—at least not anyone I’ve read—so I wonder if it will receive any future awards? After the pace of the first issue, I’ve decided to drop the monthly and read it in the format it’s apparently being written for, the trade.

Part of me suspects that the way to really read it is in the monthly installments, which can’t coincidentally be numbered to coincide with the number of issues the original series lasted before getting cancelled, and yet Lethem and Rusnak are scripting the book for a more modern more-showing, less-telling type of storytelling, which unfortunately means that even if the issue numbers and page counts coincide, the amount of story in each issue likely won’t (or, at least, didn’t in #1).

I am looking forward to how it ends up, but after waiting this long, what’s another year’s wait for the trade?




Actually, forget what I said two books back. This might be an even better cover for the Marvel Illustrated: Moby Dick comic.




RUNAWAYS #30Written by JOSS WHEDON. Penciled by MICHAEL RYAN. Cover by JO CHEN. The jaw-dropping conclusion to Joss Whedon (ASTONISHING X-MEN, Buffy) and Michael Ryan’s (NEW X-MEN) time-traveling saga! A HUGE shakeup to the Runaways comes as the kids try and find a way out of 1907. But can they escape a super-powered war on the streets of New York?

I find it amusing that the conclusion of this story won’t come out until the second month of 2008. It started in 2007, and the kids time-traveled 100 years into the past, hence the 1907 setting. But it’s taken Whedon and company so long to get a six-issue arc out (which, on a monthly comic, only oughta take about, oh, six months) that by the time the kids return to the future, they’ll have missed a year, our time.




SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP: MODOK'S 11 TPB Written by FRED VAN LENTE. Penciled by FRANCIS PORTELA. Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC. While the heroes are away fighting World War Hulk, the villains can play...M.O.D.O.K., sick of being hunted and hounded by A.I.M., gathers together an eclectic team of Marvel's Most Wanted to pull off one last, big score. But news travels fast along the grapevine of villainy – and pretty soon, every bad guy in the Marvel Universe is gunning for the Big-Headed One's unspeakably powerful prize. Executing their heist may be the easy part, because getting away with their loot alive is going to be the real challenge for M.O.D.O.K.’s 11! Collecting SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP/M.O.D.O.K.'S 11 #1-5.120 PGS./Rated A …$13.99

Hey, wait a minute…I bough five issues of this book for $2.99 a piece, meaning it ran me $14.95. But if I would have just bought the trade, I coulda saved 96 cents!




WWH AFTERSMASH: DAMAGE CONTROL #2 (of 3) Written by DWAYNE MCDUFFIE. Penciled by SALVA ESPIN. Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR.While an overworked Damage Control struggles to stay on the job, the Chrysler Building is on a rampage. That's right, the actual building. Meanwhile, the all-new Goliath joins Damage Control's Search and Rescue team, and Gene repairs a broken robot who may be the secret to survival in post-World War Hulk Manhattan.

I was planning on skipping this, as McDuffie’s work on JLoA has been so incredibly disappointing, but I don’t know, “the Chrysler Building on a rampage” really sounds like something I want to read a comic book about.

DC's February previews reviewed

Wow, it seems like they just released solicitations for a month's worth of DC Comics last month, and yet, here we have some more. Open up a second window, and follow along here as we examine what books to look forward to and which to start mocking now...




ACTION COMICS ANNUAL #11 Written by Geoff Johns & Richard Donner. Art and cover by Adam Kubert. Variant cover by Kubert. The extra-length conclusion to "Last Son" is here! Superman and the new Superman Revenge Squad — Lex Luthor, Bizarro, the Parasite and Metallo — take on General Zod, Ursa and Non in a battle for Metropolis, the future of Krypton and Christopher Kent!

Huh. Five dollars is an awful lot for a story that everybody already knows the ending to (well, Superman won, obviously, but we also know the most relevant bit of the aftermath, in terms of whether Chris Kent lives or dies or stays with Superman and Lois or not). I didn't dislike this story as much as I've lost any and all interest in it. I similarly lost any and all interst in “Who Is Wonder Woman?” and ended up skipping the annual featuring the end of that long delayed story, and didn't feel like I missed anything at all. Whether I bother or not with this will likely depend on how many other books are out that Wednesday.




ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER #9 Written by Frank Miller. Art and cover by Jim Lee & Scott Williams.
Variant cover by Neal Adams. The Dynamic Duo: yellow-bellied? Green Lantern tries to convince
Batman & Robin to fall in line, but the pair takes him to school…in color theory! Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every
10 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Jim Lee & Scott Williams), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Neal Adams). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

I love this cover, and can't imagine anyone wanting the Adams one instead. Will his version be cooler than Goddam Batman shunning the spotlight while Robin smiles and waves in it? What a perfect image.

I'm intrigued by the solicitation copy, too. I hope it involves Batman donning an all-yellow version of his costume and beating the holy hell out of Hal for 22 pages because a) it's fun to see Hal get hit, b) seeing Batman in an all-yellow costume would be awesome and c) seeing the Miller/Lee Goddam Batman in all-yellow would be the the most awesome thing ever.




Wow, those are two costumes that should never be rendered in Doug Braithwaite’s photorealistic style…





BOOSTER GOLD #0
Written by Geoff Johns & Jeff Katz. Art and cover by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund. An issue over ten years in the making! An official ZERO HOUR crossover kicks off the second time-traveling story arc of "the greatest hero the world will never know" with "Blue and Gold," Part 1! Witness the secret origin of Booster Gold as he journeys through the time line, lost, in an attempt to return home...with a good friend in tow. But there's an evil out there waiting for him; one of the greatest villains of the DC Universe: Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Parallax!

Man, I can't tell you how excited I am about this one. I enjoyed Zero Hour quite a bit when I originally read it, perhaps in large part because I was still a teen and hadn't developed any cranky prejudices about characterizations and continuity. I really liked the one-man show feel of it, with Jurgens writing and handling lay-outs/pencils, and it gave way to a lot of great tie-ins (first the timestream-being-fucked-with ones, like Superman meeting every Batman ever, or Batgirl or “Battling Butler” Alfred showing up at Wayne Manor; then the zero issue jumping-on points, which were a really great idea...DC oughta do a jumping on point event about once a year or two if you ask me*).

Additionally, I thought making Hal Jordan a villain was one of the greatest idea in all of DC history. Not a popular opinion, I know, and yeah, his costume and evil codename totally sucked, but man, when he cold-cocked Superman and was like, "Yeah, now I'm so powerful I’m totally going to destroy the entire universe and then re-create the universe," I had a big red exclamation point appear over my head. For real.

I know a lot of folks thought it was way too out of character for Jordan to go that far, but I always thought the way Jurgens presented it—that Jordan was just temporarily destroying the universe to recreate it better—actually had a heroic hook to it. Essentially, the argument between his and his peers wasn't just whether or not you had to break a few eggs to make an omelette, but if it's not justifiable to make an omelette if you can put the eggs back together again just as they were before you broke them.

It didn't last very long—a couple of issues of Green Lantern and that was about it, actually—but I thought Jordan had the makings to be the ultimate DC bad guy for a while there.

Oh, and while I realize Zero Hour totally screwed some things up—Hawkman and The Legion, specifically—they were always getting screwed up anyway, so it didn't seem like much of a loss. Besides, it ended with that timeline, and lead right into a month of nothing but origin stories of every single character with their own title, so everyone—fan and creator alike—was on the same page regarding what got changed in the continuity reboot. Pretty much the exact opposite of the Infinite Crisis/52 reboot.

Anyway, no one's played with Zero Hour as much as Johns over the years. He's probably written hundreds of pages dealing with its fall-out at this point, making Hal the Spectre, returning Hal to life and explaining away Parallax, building Green Lantern mythology around Parallax, bringing Hank Hall/Extant back to menace the JSA and then killing him off, making some sort of sense out of Hawkman, messing around with the Legion, bringing Hourman I back to life, and so on.

So it will be neat to see him revisit it yet again, particularly with Jurgens in tow, and now drawing on his own retcons, which will be visually consistent with the original series. Normally DC's fooling around with continuity like this drives me crazy, because it's a well they go to way too often, but the thing about this series is that fooling around with continuity, or the "time line" as the characters would know it, is the subject of the series.

I'm also kind of sick of characters coming back to life, but this is one case in which I'm actively rooting for Ted "Blue Beetle" Kord to come back to life. The method, motives and venue are perfect for his resurrection in this case, so it won't seem as random and haphazard as it did when, say, Ice or Hippolyte came back to life.

But even if Kord's still dead when this is all over, we'll at least get to see him, and probably the other two Beetles as well...are maybe a dozen more, by the looks of that cover.




THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #10 Written by Mark Waid. Art by George Pérez & Bob Wiacek. Cover by Pérez. The Book of Destiny has cracked open wide...and wild team-ups spill out! Featuring Superman! The Shining Knight! Aquaman! And the Teen Titans!

Wow, they had me with Superman swinging a sword and bearing a S-sheild shaped sheilf. But then you got Aquaman, Waid and Pérez to sell it as well?! Wow. Did I say that already? This looks great.




COUNTDOWN SPECIAL: OMAC Written by Jack Kirby, Jim Starlin and Len Wein. Art by Kirby, Mike Royer, Starlin, Romeo Tanghal, George Pérez and Pablo Marcos. Cover by Ryan Sook. Witness the origins of OMAC in this spectacular 80-page giant collecting O.M.A.C. #1 (1974), WARLORD #37-39 (1980), and DC COMICS PRESENTS #61 (1983)!

I’ve passed on all of these Countdown specials in which they simply reprint great old comics and then re-brand them as Countdown retroactive tie-ins, in large part because the material being reprinted has previously been available in other, more appealing formats. But is this the first time Kirby’s OMAC has been reprinted? And is that all of it? Because this might be one to pick up.

And I would totally buy a 22-page comic book with nothing in it but Sook’s house ads and covers. As much as I’ve hated all the Countdown related stuff I’ve read (excepting Busiek’s “3-2-1 Action!” story, which wasn’t bad), Sook has created some really nice images to advertise it.




GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY #5
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Amanda Conner
Cover by Cliff Chiang
Variant cover by Conner
With a recent tragedy hanging over their heads, Green Arrow and Black Canary realize that they may not have actually gotten married. But will they try again or drift apart in the wake of all that’s happened to them? Featuring art by Amanda Conner (GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY WEDDING SPECIAL)!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Cliff Chiang), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Amanda Conner). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

What a knock-out cover. And more Amanda Conner art too. Too bad Chiang and Conner’s talents are being wasted in service of Winick-written snuff comics. This is the aftermath story of the one in January’s solicitations, in which either Mia or Connor appear to get killed off. I’m hoping for Mia, but am afraid Connor is more likely.




I bet Sonic the Hedgehog has nightmares like this all the time.




JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #18
Written by Dwayne McDuffie & Alan Burnett
Art by Ed Benes & JonBoy Meyers
Cover by Ethan Van Sciver
WITNESS THE JLA'S BATTLE WITH THE SUICIDE SQUAD!
The Justice League Vs. the Suicide Squad for the salvation of the
Earth's villains! Plus, more on Vixen's power flux.

Wow, that cover looks terrible. Bronze Tiger has an even bigger, crazier build than The General, whom, you'll recall, is the old Shaggy Man, who is a fucking giant.

The solicitation copy sounds pretty terrible, too. Is this team that can't capture the Trickster and Piper really going to trouble the League for a few panels? Are we following the arc where the League fights their evil counterparts with a story in which the League fights their anti-hero counterparts? And why are there two writers credited? I'll likely have re-dropped the title by February, unless McDufffie presents the greatest ending of all time in the next issue, one that justifies four or five issues worth of tired superhero fighting cliches.





Maybe I'm just a huge nerd for certain kinds of visual nostalgia, or maybe I'm just sick of Ross painting such similar covers for so many consecutive issues, but I really like the old floating heads reacting to the cover lay out of this cover. And I love Jay's face up there.

Hey, are there any brunette superheroes in the DCU? There are a ton of blondes, a couple of women with black hair, and a few redheads, but does anyone just have brown hair? Manhunter, maybe? That's all I can think of at the moment.




OUTSIDERS: FIVE OF A KIND TP Written by G. Willow Wilson, Marc Andreyko and others. Art by Freddie Williams II, Koi Turnbull, Joshua Middleton and others. Cover by Matthew Clark & Karl Story. In this volume collecting OUTSIDERS: FIVE OF A KIND #1-5 and OUTSIDERS #50, Batman has once again assumed the leadership role of the Outsiders. And to take control of his former team, the Dark Knight is using five adventures to pick his new lineup! Find out who makes the cut!

Really? They’re collecting this into a trade? Even though the team that was formed here, in the back-ups by Tony Bedard, has been discarded for a different team line-up by a different writer?





Must…resist…urge to make…joke about…symbolism…




SHAZAM: THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD TP Written by Bill Parker, Dennis O’Neil, Elliot S! Maggin and others_Art by C.C. Beck, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Barry Kitson and others_Cover by Alex Ross_An earth-shattering volume collecting stories from Whiz Comics #2,Captain Marvel Adventures #1,137,148, Marvel Family #21, 85, Shazam! #1, 14, DC Comics Presents Annual #3, Superman #276, L.E.G.I.O.N. '91 #31, Power of SHAZAM! #33 and Adventures in the DC Universe #5.

I’ve read most of these already—I think I’d remember a Kirby Captain Marvel story though, and I’m sure I didn’t see the L.E.G.I.O.N. one—but I may buy this anyway, seeing as I own relatively few of them (DC has extremely few affordable reprints of Captain Marvel stories).

Odd, I don’t see the name Judd Winick in there…aren’t they includinghis new version of the franchise?




SHOWCASE PRESENTS: BOOSTER GOLD VOL. 1 TP Written by Dan Jurgens and John Byrne. Art by Jurgens, Byrne, Al Vey, Ty Templeton and others. Cover by Jurgens & Templeton. Witness the 1980s adventures of the time-traveling Booster Gold in this action-packed Showcase edition collecting BOOSTER GOLD #1-25, and ACTION COMICS #594! Over 600 pages of comics for less than $17 bucks!

I was about to post something snarky about how weird it is that Booster Gold is going to be collected in trade before Suicide Squad or the bulk of the Justice League comics form the same era, and then I noticed this is a Showcase, which means no matter how bad these stories are (and, honestly, of the few I’ve read, they’re really bad), it’s totally going to be worth it for $17.

Now if only they'd start pumping out some Giffen/DeMatteis League Showcases. After all, it's their work on the character that has made him such a (relatively) beloved one.




Ant-headed Superman! Oh Busiek, you spoil us!




If this series turns out to be one-twelfth as awesome as the art for it looks, it should end up being by far the best Titans comics in recent memory.





So….cute...!!!








*No one ever asks me. They need not be #0 issues though; DC similarly did the every-issue-in-the-line-is-a-jumping-on-point theme month thing with "Big Head Month" and Eisner-like logo month. I think I eventually tried just about every single one of these, and ended up sticking with quite a few new ongoings because I liked what I saw there so much.

I finally found something about Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4 to complain about

The fourth volume of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim is, like the first three, totally awesome. In fact, it might be a little more awesome than the previous ones, as O'Malley's art is getting better and better.

It's pretty much the perfect comic book, having a little bit of everything I read comics for—action, humor, romance, strong characters, nice art, cool designs—all in one story, and it was probably the most fun I've had reading a comic all year. Were there better comics published in 2007? Sure, yeah, of course. But was there a more fun one? I don't know; the closest thing I can think of off the top of my head right now is Black Metal.

In fact, after reading Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together Wednesday night, I couldn't think of a single bad thing to say about it.

At least, not until now!

Check it out:


It might not jump right out at you because I took the picture with my laptop, and there's some weird mirror action that goes in the camera in it, but note that for this fourth volume, publisher Oni Press has changed up the design of the book, so that when you file it away next to the three previous volumes on your book shelf, it's now totally incongruent.

The first three had a uniform design, with "Scott Pilgrim" in a cowboy looking font, O'Malley's name in a arcade font, little slim numbers, and a headshot of a character. But for the fourth volume, the fonts are reversed, they ditched the character headshots, the number is bigger and the "Oni Press" logo is different too.

Man, I hate when that happens. I don't know if it's just because I'm so incredibly anal about books, or if it's because a lot of what I like about graphic novels is the way the best designed of them serve as art objects in addition to readable stories, but it always drives me nuts when publishers change the design of serial graphic novels, particularly the first time through.

Like, when I started collecting Ranma 1/2, Viz was still publishing it in the older, bigger format, at $15.95 to $16.95 a pop. Each volume was a different color, and as I amassed them, a rainbow of Ranma 1/2 slowly began to assert itself on my bookshelf. But after 21 volumes in that format, the now-standard, smaller, slimmer $9.99 manga digest arrived, and Viz changed the design of their Ranma trades, so now volumes 22-36 are all uniform and are all navy blue, with a different spine design than that of the first 21. They don't look as nice as the old ones, but, more frustratingly, they're totally different, so a little more than half of the run looks one way on my shelf, while the rest looks the other way.

This has happened with a couple manga series I was reading, as well as some Vertigo series, although in the case of the latter, it was more subtle (Like, Y: The Last Man and Fables spine design has incorporated the newer Vertigo logo, changing the spine in later volumes slightly from those of earlier volumes).

And now it's happened with Scott Pilgrim. Do newer printings of the first three volumes have a spine design similar to that on the fourth volume, so future readers will be able to have a shelf full of Scott Pilgrim that look like they were designed to be set next to one another on the shelf? Am I being punished for having read it right from the start? I don't know, I haven't looked into it.

But anyway, that's the only thing I can think of to complain about Scott Pilgrim Vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together.

I know Batman and Robin aren't gay, but...

Okay, so I know Batman and Robin aren't really gay, but man, Batman really doesn't seem to be into that kiss as much as Batwoman is, does he?

Likewise, Robin doesn't seem to be enjoying his kiss with Bat-Girl as much as she is:



These panels are all from my current favorite Batman story, by the way, "Prisoners of Three Worlds," from 1963's Batman #153.

It's by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris, and it tells the tale of our quartet of caped crusaders taking on what look like rather deformed Skrulls (check it out: green skin, pointy ears, wrinkly chins; they're totally Skrulls!) from a different dimension who are after Gotham City's silver supply.

What's so great about this comic, other than the looks on the dynamic duos' faces when their female counterparts shove their tongues down their throats?

Well, in addition to fighting these guys...



they also tangle with these guys...




and this thing...



...which you'll notice is some kind of flying winged monster fish that has palm trees growing out of its forehead. Moldoff was on fire when he was penciling this baby!