TOMORROW WOMAN

has never even had ice cream. But then she only existed for about two weeks before being destroyed.

Weekly Haul: July 23rd

Ambush Bug: Year None #1 (DC Comics) So, can you go home again? I was dreading this title as much as I’ve been looking forward to it, but by panel two I was won over. That’s the panel in which the Source Wall says, via the writing that mysteriously appears on it, “Which crappy comic book am I in today?”

The old school Ambush Bug team of Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming and Al Milgrom answer the question of why DC continuity is so completely fucked up these days—Continuity cop Jonni DC has been murdered, the latest in a string of murders of female characters in the DCU, which is, quite literally, littered with female corpses.

Ambush Bug is kinda sorta on the case, pacing and teleporting through pages of six- and nine-panel grids interrogating Egg Fu, Ace the Bathound, The Glop and the original Bat-Girl, who is now the daughter of Sue Dibny and The Phantom Stranger. Also appearing are Yankee Poodle (in a bikini), Space Cabbie, the Kirby Sandman, pink Swamp Thing (are you guys that scared of Vertigo? Man up editors Jann Jones and Stephanie Buscema!) and grim, gritty new takes on Sugar, Spike and ‘Mazing Man.

Not every joke works, and, to be honest, I can’t imagine anyone who’s not a huge DC fan even finding any of these jokes at all amusing, but a great deal of them do, and this was easily the most fun book of the week.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen Giffen doing full pencils, but I was pleasantly surprised that his work looks better than ever here, keeping the somewhat cartoony fell of his 52 lay-outs (most of which I usually preferred to the finished pencils on those issues), and having fewer of the sketchy lines that defined his style from back in the day of earlier Ambush Bug projects.



Avengers: The Initiative #15 (Marvel Comics) I’ve always liked the way Dan Slott and, more recently, Christos Gage have used this title and the overarching post-Civil War story of the Marvel line as a sort of playground where they can trot out whatever half-forgotten detritus of Marvel Comics history to play with. And I’ve always admired the way they’re able to do so in service to a story that is compelling in its own right and relevant to the goings-on in other Marvel book.

In other words, this is basically a book in which fans-turned-writers indulge their own fannish inclinations, and yet it avoids the stink of pro-written fan-fiction that books in similar positions tend to give off.

For example, this issue is of course a Secret Invasion tie-in, as everything Marvel is currently publishing seems to be, but it’s also a surprisingly melodramatic story about a single, minor member of the book’s regular cast, who is himself a throwaway supporting character from a throwaway story arc in Robert Kirkman’s long-since cancelled run on Marvel Team-Up.

That would be The Crusader, the Skrull spy who went native a long time ago and is now pretending to be a human superhero and now finds himself in a rather awkward position when the Skrulls invade earth.

The issue is told from his perspective, and includes a rather long recounting of his history before he and the rest of the Initiative head to Manhattan to engage in that fight scene from Secret Invasion #2. Slott and Gage must have done something right because I usually find the flashbacks to the Skrull homeworld that Bendis has been packing into his books boring as all hell (probably because I’m a humanist, and all these Skrulls look alike to me and all their silly apostrophe-d names sound alike to me).

But the symmetry between the scene of Crusader and his old friend fighting as cadets in the Skrull army and then meeting again in this war between the planets? It hit me like a scene from Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary.

This issue’s art comes from guest-artist Harvey Tolibao, and it seemed like a rather ideal compromise between the styles of Stefano Caselli and Secret Invasion artist Leinil Yu.



Batman: Gotham After Midnight #3 (DC) Did you know that today is Kelley Jones’ birthday? Well, it is. I wish I knew earlier. I would have baked you a cake. A big, huge, weird cake.

Well Jones gave us a nice reverse-birthday present with another issue of his collaboration with Steve Niles on Batman, which is basically just an excuse to have Jones draw a bunch of cool Batman shit for a whole year. At least, that’s the way I look at it, as it doesn’t do one much good to pay too much attention to the script, which is kinda of, oh what’s the word…bad. Yes, that’s the word. Bad.

The special guest-villain is Clayface, whom new villain Midnight convinces to grow to gigantic size by absorbing people. I don’t quite get the science of this, how jamming a person inside him instantly makes him double in size like Mario touching a mushroom, but it allows him to shout on the cover “Prepare to be buried in the living cemetery of CLAYFACE!” and rant about returning to the earth throughout.

Niles’ familiarity with Batman seems incomplete, which wouldn’t really be a very big deal in this sort of off on the sidelines, outside the main Bat-books kind of project if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of the stuff he seems unfamiliar with happens to have happened during Jones’ run on the book.

For example, let’s let it slide that Batman doesn’t think of Cornelius Stirk when he starts finding bodies with their hearts missing, even though Stirk’s M.O. is to eat his victims’ hearts.

He also rules out the Joker because “None of our usual suspects work in the black arts. The Joker might be crazy, but even he doesn’t deal in voodoo.” Of course, Jones drew a three-part story in Batman #544-#546 in which The Joker did just that. Even the giant Clayface schtick has been done, again in a comic Jones drew.

None of this bugged me as much as hearing bookish psychiatrist, college professor and chemist Jonathan “The Scarecrow” Crane say “I woke up and I have these holes and they itch, man…”

“Man?” Really? The Scarecrow?

These are just quibbles of course. Niles’ script does have its moments but, as I said, I mainly think of him as the guy who suggests things to Jones to draw.

His Clayface is a knockout, with a strange hunched, ape-like anatomy and mane of frozen drips around his shoulders. Once he starts growing, there are plenty of incredible scenes of him with human hands straining out of his back like spines and a killer two-page spread that I hope to God Batman artist Tony Daniel is look at and feeling thoroughly ashamed about. That is what a two-page splash should do— use all that space to hit the reader with a visual they just couldn’t get in a one-page splash or a single panel.


The Brave and the Bold #15 (DC) Unable to find Batman, Deadman settles for Nightwing to help him retake Nanda Parbat, but that involves first tricking every hero in the DCU off of earth (allowing Scott Kolins to work in as many heroes as he cares too in a first-page splash—look, there’s Ambush Bug again!), and then recruiting Hawkman to give drop some archaeology science on them (and some killer mace on the evil ghost things). I’m sure you can guess whether the heroes win the day or not.

Mark Waid writes all of the characters just fine, and this ends up being a team-up of team-ups (with Deadman leading Nightwing and Hawkman to resuce Green Arrow), and it was certainly fun seeing how Kolins tackled the various DC heroes. I liked that he drew eyeballs in Nightwing’s mask, which gave it a kind of unique look, and appreciate that he gave Hawkman big, cool googly hawk-eyes. Props also for including Plastic Man in the splash, and for having Black Lightning emitting black-colored lightning, something I’ve discussed the importance of here before (as has Jefferson Pierce).



Joker’s Asylum: The Scarecrow #1 (DC) It seems natural enough that DC would want a series with the word “Joker” in the title during the month in which The Dark Knight comes out, although this particular series (each issue of which is numbered #1) is kind of weird. Each issue focuses on a different one of Batman’s rogues, with the Joker serving the horror host role of, say, Cain in House of Mystery. So it’s essentially a Joker series with a panel or three of the Joker in each issue, I guess…?

It is pretty new reader friendly, I suppose, and, while this is the first issue I’ve read (it was preceded by issue’s focusing on The Joker, The Penguin and Poison Ivy, and will finish next week with a Two-Face issue), if it’s representative to the series, than it serves as a pretty readable Batvillains 101.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that if you’re not new to the characters, than a lot of this will seem like old hat, and Joe Harris script for Scarecrow is chockfull of bits I’ve read in dozens of other Scarecrow stories, at least in the Scarecrow’s narration.

If Scarecrow enumerating the standard issue list of phobias is tired, Harris does at least come up with an otherwise rather engaging premise. The story is set-up a bit like a slasher movie, as the popular kids invite hot nerdy girl Lindsay to a sleepover, the Queen Bee of the mean girls having concocted a plan to catch Linday’s round of Seven Minutes In Heaven on camera.

Lindsay’s psychiatrist is one Jonathan Crane, however, and he puts on his costume and crashes the party, picking the bad kids off one by one until Batman shows up for a couple of pages.

He art is by Juan Doe and, truth be told, that’s the reason I picked this issue up, having been so thoroughly impressed with Doe’s work on the FF-go-to-Puerto Rico story with Tom Beland.

Here Doe seems to be relying heavily on computers, particularly to provide patterns on clothing and walls (dig The Joker’s pj’s) and make his lines all but invisible. His design style, however, is very flat and cartoony, giving the issue the effect of a highly stylized version of Batman: The Animated Series (His Batman and Batmobile especially seem to have been imported straight from the cartoon). Actually, don’t just take my word on what it looks like; you can see some pages here.

I don’t think his Scarecrow has quite cracked my top six favorite Scarecrow designs or anything, it is definitely a good one, and I really like the way Doe and Harris keep the villain off-panel for the most part. We never see Crane’s face when he’s not in costume, and even in costume more often than not he’s simply a shadow, a silhouette, glowing eyes, or hands reaching from off-panel.



Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #1 (Marvel) You can’t tell from the extremely generic cover, which simply features Marvel movie stars Hulk, Spider-Man and Iron Man all posing on a very sunny day, but the plot of this comic is a great one: Hercules dumps multi-headed mythological monster dogs Cerberus and Orthus on Spidey and friends to dog sit for him, and the eventually enter them in a dog show.

This work of genius is written by Paul Tobin, and illustrated by Alvin Lee and Terry Pallot and I can’t really point to anything any of them did wrong, but the whole thing just seems a little…off.

Now, normal Marvel Adventures caveats apply: This is a comic for kids, and I’m 31, so the fact that I wouldn’t exactly nominate it for an Eisner doesn’t mean all that much. Still, I think the best kids’ comics are ones that can also be enjoyed by adults, and I certainly like a lot of Marvel Adventures comics, including ones written by Paul Tobin.

I think one of the problems is simply it felt so weird to see Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Hulk just kinda hanging out at one of Iron Man’s mansions (which looks like an average suburban house, actually) all eating pizza together. The first two in their costumes, masks and all, the latter all Hulk-ed out. In MA Adventures it’s clear these guys are all on a super-team together, and their adventures stem from their being Avengers. Here they just seem like pals palling around, waiting for wacky hijinks to come their way, you know? (Also, I don’t really like the way Lee draws the Hulk’s face. He just looks like a green dude, rather than some kinda monster).

Now those hijinks are plenty wacky, and there’s certainly some great scenes and great lines in here, but the whole thing never quite comes together the way the better Marvel Adventures stories usually do. I dug the story okay, but less than I expected to, and probably not enough to add one more MA book to my pull-list.


New Avengers #43 (Marvel) Note to self: Don’t forget to drop New Avengers until after Secret Invasion wraps-up. You know the drill by now. Brian Michael Bendis’ SI storyline isn’t told in a straight line so much as told in a straight line with (at least) twice-monthly digressions that branch out perpendicularly from the plot, recap a bunch of past info you probably don’t really need to know and/or give a shit about, and then rejoins the SI plot, having advanced it to a hardly noticeable degree.

In this issue, for example, Spidey, Sheena, Ka-zar and his giant-ass saber tooth tiger fight Captain Skrullmerica, discovering that he is of course a Skrull (just in case you thought maybe Marvel was going to screw Ed Brubaker that hard and put the return over in Bendis’ book). The Skrull then flashes back to the Skrull homeworld, where we get to see that damn Skrulls-becoming-earth-people ritual for, like, the eighth time. The end.



Nocturnals: Carnival of Beasts (Image Comics) Wow, it has been a while since I’ve seen new Nocturnals material from Dan Brereton. So long, in fact, that I’m not even sure what the last Nocturnals comic I read actually was, nor were the intricacies of the plot terribly familiar to me. According to Brereton’s afterword, this story is a bridge between two previous series, cleaning up some unfinished business, which I had little memory of.

Of course, I regard Brereton as a better character designer than a storyteller, and I suppose that sounds like an insult or a backhanded compliment, I mean it as a, um, fronthanded compliment. His Nocturnals are fantastic creations—wonderfully conceived character designs with interesting looks, codenames and backstories—and I derive a great deal of pleasure just looking at and thinking about them. In previous readings, my reaction was more, “Wow, these characters are awesome,” than “Wow, this story is awesome.”

At any rate, Brereton and his cast of kooky horror heroes are back. Starfish and Komodo take off on a vacation, Polychrome keeps to herself, Firelion and Raccoon go off to have bad-ass off-panel adventures, and Evening “Halloween Girl” Horror is getting ready to go off to boarding school. But Doc Horror needs a special compound to fight his monster-turning-into, which leads him, Eve and her zombie gunslinger bodyguard Gunwitch into the woods to face a horde of body-modifying mad scientists, one of which is a goat lady who’s hooked up with a very idiosyncratic (and awesome-looking) Bigfoot. A fight breaks out.

Including in this prestige format book are two back-ups. One is a Starfish solo story illustrated by Viktor Kalvachev involving a ghost and a sea monster, and the other is drawn by Ruben Martinez and features Poly, Eve and Gunwitch versus an evil carnival, which amounts to a bunch of cool, cartoony horror character designs battling a bunch of other cool, cartoony horror character designs.

If you’ve never read a Nocturnals story before, I’m not sure this is the best place to start, story-wise (particularly at $7), but think the X-Men via Hellboy, fully painted.

Wait, why hasn’t this been made into a movie yet? You’d think an “X-Men via Hellboy” pitch would go over pretty well in Hollywood at the moment, particularly since they seem to be greenlighting projects based on comics that don’t even exist yet.



Robin #175 (DC) Hey, this isn’t the book that was solicited! Rather than the first chapter of Chuck Dixon’s “Batman R.I.P.” tie-in, which I seem to recall featured the Cluemaster on the cover, this is the first chapter of Fabian Nicieza’s run on the title, which is running in place of Dixon’s.

Now the best word I can use to describe Dixon’s Bat-comics is “serviceable,” and Nicieza’s first issue is likewise “serviceable.” He even deserves some points for making his “Batman R.I.P.” tie-in at least appear to have something to do with “Batman R.I.P.,” unlike Paul Dini’s Detective tie-in.

Batman’s missing and Robin thinks he might be coo-coo bananas, so he’s trying to find him and determine if he’s insane…er than usual and, if so, what he’ll do about it. Spoiler kinda follows him around and worries about his sanity. Meanwhile, Robin flashes back to the events of 52 while narrating lessons he learned during his time with Nightwing while Batman was going through a cleansing ritual in Nanda Parbat which might make sense if it didn’t, you know, openly contradict what happened in 52.

It’s a weird experience, reading first-person narration telling you a story that you know isn’t true; kinda like your buddy telling you a story about what happened last Friday night even though you were with him all night Friday and know nothing he’s saying actually occurred.

I know a popular complaint about comics fans—particularly those with an Internet connection and too much time on their hands—is that they too often take too seriously the minutiae of past stories and worry about continuity at the expense of all else (Kinda like I was doing a few reviews up, regarding Batman: Gotham After Midnight).

But I don’t think that complaint is valid when the story a fan is complaining about is referencing another story and getting it wrong. I mean, if what actually happened isn’t actually important, why devote your new story to recounting that old one at all? And 52 isn’t actually ancient history. We’re talking a two-year-old story. I find it kind of hard to believe that Nicieza or editors Mike Marts and Jeanine Schaefer couldn’t track down a trade of 52 if they couldn’t quite remember what happened during it to check.

Anyway, Robin tells us that when Bruce Wayne went into the cave in Nada Parbat for a few weeks, Dick Grayson waited with Tim for a while, then the pair of them decided to leave Nanda Parbat and do some crimefighting in exotic locales. But Dick had left Time and Bruce weeks before that, returning to Gotham where he got caught up in helping Batgirl fight the Crime Religion.

I suppose it’s possible Nightwing would occasionally jet across the ocean to hang out with Tim while Intergang was muscling in on Gotham, trying to turn it into the Vatican of a worldwide religion of crime that worshipped Darkseid while monster-men built Apokalyptian fire-pits in the city, but it’s kind of hard to swallow. And at any rate, the fact that Robin never left the entrance of the cave while Bruce was in it was pretty well-established in 52.

So, long story short, this is a comic story which is about how this comic (Robin) reacts to another comic (Batman) and is based on still another comic (52), only the people making it didn’t actually read the comic it’s based on.

I dig the homoerotic cover though. His eyes are to your right, chum.


Superman #678 (DC) I guess I’m still getting used to James Robinson’s take on the Man of Steel, because a lot of Superman’s dialogue seemed really weird, particularly during his kitchen table conversation with Lois Lane (What was up with that Zatanna comment? And last issue he said something vaguely creepy about the late Jade. Why is Superman such a hound all of a sudden?). This issue manages a bit of an origin dump for Atlas, framed by his fight with Superman. I don’t think I quite caught all of it, or maybe it won’t make sense until the story arc’s over, but I did dig the superior art team of Renago Guedes and Wilson Magalhaes’ distinguishing the present-day action and the flashback by switching form their normal style to a more comic book-y, Jack Kirby style (complete with dot coloring effects from Hi-fi).


Trinity #8 (DC) What the hell people? Is this true? Is Trinity already selling 20K less copies than the abysmal Countdown was selling by the end of it’s year of increasingly terrible comics? This is very sad news indeed.

I’ve repeatedly said Trinity is pretty much a “good enough” comic rather than a great or really good one, so I guess I have a hard time berating strangers into buying it every month—the space allows Busiek to let his characters perhaps talk too much, a problem I noticed during his abbreviated JLA run (not the heroes so much as the alien villains who no one has much reason to care about the way they would Batman and Wonder Woman), Scott McDaniel’s occasional pencils can sometimes lean toward the incomprehensible (as they do this issue) and the covers are all dull as dirt, but this is still a better Justice League comic than Justice League of America.

In this issue, Busiek and Bagley show us a party at Wayne Manor, Superman and Lois spending quality time, and Diana and so-thin-I-can’t-believe-it Etta Candy shopping for clothes. In the back-up, the bad Trinity talk, there’s a gorilla from Gorilla City involved and Enigma drops enigmatic clues that he may have something to do with The Riddler.


Wolverine First Class #5 (Marvel) Does Fred Van Lente love Snowbird or what? First he puts her on “The God Squad” in Incredible Hercules, which he co-writes with Greg Pak, and when he teams Wolvie with Alpha Flight in this issue of The Only Good Wolverine Title, she’s one of the three Canadian mutant heroes involved (along with Shaman and Aurora)*. This is probably the darkest and most adult issues of the series before, a series which exists in the same half-Marvel Universe, half-Marvel Adventures middleground as X-Men First Class, as it deals with Wolverine’s sorry life and is completely devoid of ninja waitresses. In fact, the only really funny bits involve Kitty’s questions about why Canada still has a queen.



*See comments for a correction regarding their actual genetic make-up. I assumed all of Alpha Flight was made up of mutants. Because pretty much all I know about them is that they totally got killed off-panel in the most boring issue of a comic book I've ever read.

KYLE RAYNER

has to psyche himself up before opening the freezer to get ice cream.

Two funny bits from Too Cool To Be Forgotten

I reviewed two new graphic novels for this week's Best Shots column that I didn't cover here: Alex Robinson's Too Cool To Be Forgotten and Elizabeth Genco and Sami Makkonen's Blue. So if you care what I had to say about either of those and haven't already, head on over to Newsarama and read away.

As I said there, Robinson's book didn't quite earn a literal "I laughed, I cried" review, but it was in the ball park, as it did make me laugh (quietly) aloud while reading it alone in a coffee shop, and I did feel a bit melancholy during certain bits. Of the parts that made me laugh, here are two of my favorite scenes, to give you a better sense of how awesome the book is. A better sense than my words could probably convey, anyway.

So the premise is that middle-aged Andy Wicks finds himself flung backwards through time and somehow reliving high school. In this scene, he's just arrived and doesn't yet realize what's going on, or that his middle-aged mind is now in his teenage body (Robinson draws him middle-aged, because that's how he still thinks of himself).




Ah, the casual cruelty, naieve homophobia and juvenile humor of high school! Robinson captures both the stupid but funny-stupid humor of the teens and the frustrated reaction of the victim so perfectly, particularly due to the fact that Andy is still outsider, and has apparently forgotten the way high schoolers talk to each other.

Once he realizes what's going on and adjusts, though, he has a much easier time dishing it out. Here he is, now drawn as a teenager, wearing spikes in his hair because, hell, he's temporarily a teenager again, so why not?


While responding with some variation of "your mother" was something I considered absolutely hilarious back in high school (and continue to find quite amusing), it's the parenthetical addendum Andy makes above that just kills me, what with the "of course."

Marvel's October previews reviewed

THE AGE OF THE SENTRY #2 (of 6)
Written by JEFF PARKER & PAUL TOBIN
Penciled by NICK DRAGOTTA & MICHAEL CHO
Cover by DAVE BULLOCK
The Man Vs. Nature conflict reaches epic levels when The Sentry must face the towering Mauling Menace known as URSUS the ULTRABEAR! Also: Why are all the other heroes suddenly avoiding the Sentry? For all his powers, the Sentry now finds himself helpless, faced off against a wall of silence and lurking menace, standing alone until he can uncover the deadly clues leading to The Secret of Area B! Plus, the atomic menace of the Super-Collider! All this in one full-color issue! Be there!
32 PGS./Rated A ...$2.99

"Ursus the Ultrabear?" I think I have a new favorite three-word combination.

As to why all the other heroes are suddenly avoiding the Sentry, it’s probably because he’s lame and boring and they all hate him. That’s the reason comics readers tend to avoid him anyway. Of course, when you put Parker, Tobin, Dragotta and Bullock on a book featuring him, and throw around terms like “Ursus the Ultrabear,” you’ve got a pretty good chance of winning over a lot of those not-at-all-interested-in-The-Sentry readers.


AVENGERS: THE INITIATIVE #18
Written by DAN SLOTT & CHRISTOS N. GAGE
Penciled by STEFANO CASELLI
Cover by MARK BROOKS
Zombie Variant by TBA
SECRET INVASION TIE-IN!
THE EXPLOSIVE FINALE STARTS HERE!
Now that the KILL KREW knows Skrullowjacket's master plan, can they stop the TRUE purpose of the Fifty State Initiative? Plus: It's THOR GIRL vs. ULTRA GIRL! One is more than she appears to be... and the other's a Skrull. And, after fourteen issues, are we REALLY going to unmask MUTANT ZERO?!

I keep forgetting that there is a Mutant Zero, and that her identity is supposed to be a big secret.

Also, note the "zombie variant" mention. You'll see it a lot in this month's solicitations. I guess it's, like, a new October tradition at Marvel...?



DAREDEVIL #112
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by MICHAEL LARK
Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
Zombie Variant by TRAVEL FOREMAN
The shadows of the city grow thick with ninja blades. The Hand is back in New York, on the hunt for something as yet unknown...but the enigmatic new Lady Bullseye is in league with them, and whatever they're after can't be good news for Daredevil and his friends. The first chapter of "Broken Hand" begins here —featuring Iron Fist, the Black Tarantula, and more!

"The shadows of the city grow thick with ninja blades..." Man, that is some fine solicitation copy. I do plan on reading Brubaker's Daredevil run in trade. One of these days.



Devil Dinosaur! By David Hahn! I didn’t even know I wanted that until I saw this.


MARVEL ADVENTURES HULK #16
Written by PETER DAVID
Penciled by JUAN SANTACRUZ
Cover by TOM GRUMMETT
The protesters outside of a nuclear power plant are terrified of what might happen if the reactors are ever turned back on...but what they should be scared of is the fight between the Hulk and the Abomination happening inside! Russian spy Emil Blonsky infiltrated the facility, and thanks to a burst of gamma radiation, might just cause a nuclear disaster! Can the Hulk stop him?

Hulk fans from back in "the day" please note: This comic features the Hulk written by Peter David.



MARVEL ADVENTURES SUPER HEROES #4
Written by PAUL TOBIN
Penciled by ALVIN LEE
Cover by ROGER CRUZ
KLAW'S GOOD OL' COUNTRY REVIVAL: When Klaw, the master of sound, forms a country and western band, Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Hulk decide to investigate. Unfortunately, the Hulk gets hooked on Klaw's mournful music and, wanting to solve those cliché-ridden problems Klaw so beauuutifully sings about, starts returning every lost (and not so lost) dog to its owner, insists on driving a pickup truck, and goes in for some very extreme "Hulk-style" relationship counseling. While this draws a lot of media attention to Klaw's band, it's the Hulk (dang it!) getting all the press, making an irritated Klaw VERY jealous. The fight is ON!

I stopped reading at "forms a country and western band" to stand up, pump my fist and say Yesss! before sitting down and reading the rest of this solicit. If it's one-tenth as awesome as Cobra Commander’s plot to take over the world with a heavy metal band, this should be pretty damn awesome.



MARVEL APES #3 & 4 (of 4)
Written by KARL KESEL
Penciled by RAMON BACHS
Covers by JOHN WATSON
Variant Cover for Marvel Apes #3 by STEPHANIE BUSCEMA
Variant Cover for Marvel Apes #4 by ART ADAMS
THE FURRY, FURIOUS FINALE OF MARVEL'S MONKEYFIED MASTERPIECE!
It's Gorilla Warfare as the Simian Superheroes plot their primate plan against the human's homeworld-- and the only one who can stop them is... The Gibbon!?! Good thing he has help from... Speedball??!!?! We're doomed...
Don't miss the all-out ape action and primate (plus prosimian!) pandemonium in this-- the must-read mini-series of the month! Be the envy of your friends as people ask: "Is that a copy of MARVEL APES in your pocket... or are you just happy to see me?"

As someone whose pet peeves include people referring to gorillas and chimpanzees as monkeys, I appreciate the specificity of this solicit, which mentions apes, primates and prosimians (Hopefully this means we’ll get to see Batroc The Lemur).

Those are some pretty nice covers too. The Death of Cap homage is wonderful, and there’s something endearingly horrifying about the thought of Namor as a chmpanzee.



MARVEL ZOMBIES 3 #1 (of 4)
Written by FRED VAN LENTE
Penciled by KEV WALKER
Cover by GREG LAND
Board up Avengers Tower! Lock down the Baxter Building! The ravenous hordes of Marvel Zombies are invading ... the Marvel Universe! That's right, the next chapter of the MZ saga is a non-stop in-continuity gorefest with major implications for at least one Marvel hero! When the super-undead stumble into the MU from the Man-Thing's Nexus of All Realities, all of Florida is quarantined against the zombie plague. Time is quickly running out for a cure, so the Initiative sends a most unlikely group of heroes into the Zombieverse on a desperate mission to find the one item they need before the whole MU is consumed! The scream team of Fred Van Lente (INCREDIBLE HERCULES) and Kev Walker (ANNIHILATION: NOVA) unite for a Marvel Zombies story like you've never seen before!
32 PGS./Parental Advisory ...$3.99

Two of the factors most likely to stop me from reading a Marvel comic I'm interested in—the extra dollar tacked onto the price of a 22-page comic and the involvement of Greg Land—are in play here, so I guess I'll have to wait until October to see if this is still something I'll want to read (Fred Van Lente writing and the word “Man-Thing” make me think yes).

I will say that this is an instance where Land's art isn't as annoying as usual. His particular...process works better when he's doing an homage on purpose instead of swiping something and hoping nobody notices.


MONSTER-SIZE HULK #1
Written by JEFF PARKER
Pencils by TBA
Cover by GUISSEPPE CAMMUNCOLI
It's a knock-down, drag-out fight between the Gamma-powered Hulk, and the original science project gone wrong, the lightning-born Frankenstein's Monster! The science-spawned beast of the Victorian Age meets the modern menace of the Nuclear Age, and when these monsters mash, forget the torches and pitchforks... just run! Guest starring a hoary host of Marvel's scariest creatures and bogeymen smashing and terrorizing their way through this Monster-Sized issue!
56 PGS./Rated A...$3.99

Jeff Parker, the artist responsible for the best Hulk charity cover (and the writer responsible for most of the most fun Marvel comics of the last few years) pits the Hulk against Frankenstein. That sounds pretty cool. Not quite as cool as Hulk rafting down the Mississippi with his friend Jim, but pretty cool.


MIGHTY AVENGERS #19
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Penciled by STEVE KURTH
Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
SECRET INVASION TIE-IN!
Before the Skrulls invaded the human race, they battled the noble Kree in a bloodwar that has lasted centuries. And in this special Secret Invasion tie-in, the lives of two of the most famous Kree, Captain Mar-Vell and Marvel Boy, will alter the events of the Invasion forever. This special issue will have very serious consequences for the future of Mighty Avengers.

Hmm, no mention of any Avengers, Mighty or otherwise, in the solicit, but then there haven’t really been any Avengers in this title for a while now.


ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #3 Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS. Penciled by DAVID LAFUENTE. Cover by MARK BROOKS & RICHARD ISANOVE. The relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane is one of the most iconic and popular romances in all of comics -- and in this very special issue by series writer Brian Michael Bendis (SECRET INVASION), and red-hot artist David Lafuente [HELLCAT], that relationship delves into an area never before seen in any Spider-Man comic! Destined to be one of the most controversial issues of the year!

This is totally going to be about whether or not they should start doing it, and why they decide to wait, isn’t it? Man, this going to be great! I can’t wait to read it.

David Lafutente’s a pretty great artist too; if you’re not reading his Patsy Walker: Hellcat, I’d definitely recommend it.



There seems to be a lot of superhero vs. bear action in this month's solicitations. I predict a very happy Chris Sims come October.

AZTEK and MYSTEK

both have codenames ending with the "-tek" and, coincidentally, both like vanilla ice cream over all other flavors.

DC's October Previews Reviewed

BATMAN: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT TP Written by Andy Diggle. Art and cover by Whilce Portacio & Richard Friend. Now in trade paperback! Writer Andy Diggle (THE LOSERS) joins forces with artists Whilce Portacio and Richard Friend (WETWORKS) in this volume collecting the first six issues of BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL, looking at how Batman developed his arsenal in the war on crime.

Emboldened by their $1 batillion opening weekend, DC now believes they can feel free to go ahead and publish anything with the word “Batman” in the title. Even some of the worst Batman comics ever.



I’ve steered clear of this title so far—I think the only issue I’ve read is the all-girl one—but I’m curious about how Etrigan will look and act in the Batman Strikes!-iverse.

Has he appeared on the cartoon series on which this comic is based (and which I’ve also managed to not see very much of)?


CHECKMATE #31 Written by Bruce Jones. Art and cover by Manuel Garcia. All the pieces on the Checkmate board have converged on China. Is it the end of the world as we know it in this series finale issue? Or will Chimera save the day? On sale October 29. 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US FINAL ISSUE

Well that didn’t take long at all.

I was actually kind of surprised they went ahead and kept publishing the book after Greg Rucka’s final departure. It seemed to be hovering around cancellation levels when he was involved, so I’m not sure what they hoped would happen when they put a much less popular writer on the book.



DC UNIVERSE: DECISIONS #3-4 Written by Judd Winick & Bill Willingham. Art on issue #3 by Rick Leonardi; art on issue #4 by Howard Porter. Covers by Stephane Roux. The DCU's biggest heroes hunt the villain planning to assassinate the presidential candidates, but they have plenty to distract them from their mission! Some heroes have begun openly endorsing candidates, and the ensuing media frenzy forces everyone to consider what, exactly, it means for a Super Hero to take sides politically. The killer must be caught, the cameras must be faced, and everyone – even Superman – must decide where they stand.

Superman can’t vote, jackasses. He lives in a crystal fortress in the Arctic circle, well outside the continental United States (and the civilized world).

Now, I guess Clark Kent could vote if he wanted, but why would the news media think Superman might secretly walk among them as a U.S. citizen? Unless it’s his fellow superheroes who are pressuring him to “take a stand,” contrary to what the solicitation copy and image seems to imply.



Uh-oh, they’re so far behind on Final Crisis that this is all they got for the cover preview? A color sketch? Yikes!

Also, the existence of covers like this showing off Wonder Woman’s butt is precisely why this cover

was so funny.



Hey, they let Jefferson Pierce has his hair back!


Or did they…?

Final Crisis: Submit says yes, Flash says no.



Yes, more blood-spattered boobs! Truly there is no better visual metaphor for the state of the DC Universe in the first decade of the 21st century than blood-spattered boobs.



And speaking of visual metaphors, not only does this cover feature a hot, masked, fetish suit-wearing, buxom lipstick lesbian, but she appears to have a flaming crotch.



JLA/AVENGERS TP Written by Kurt Busiek. Art and cover by George Perez. The once-in-a-lifetime crossover that brought two super-teams together and rocked the comics world is at last available in trade paperback! Own the entire 4-issue co-publishing event between DC and Marvel and written by Kurt Busiek (TRINITY, Marvels) with stunning art by George Perez (final crisis: legion of three worlds, Avengers). This collection also features introductions by original Avengers writer/editor Stan Lee and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA editor Julius Schwartz._Advance-solicited; on sale November 12; 208 pg, FC, $19.99 US

This is one of the best inter-company crossovers ever, and certainly the best involving the JLA (Although do keep in mind that most inter-company crossovers tend to be terrible, certainly those involving the JLA). If you didn’t read this but like superheroes like, at all, you’ve really gotta get this.

I hope that’s not the final cover though, as it’s one of the duller ones Perez did. I kinda like the one where he draws everyone who’s ever been a Justice Leaguer and everyone who’s ever been an Avenger rushing right at the reader:




LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #19 Written by J. Torres. Art and cover by Alexander Serra & John Stanisci. Heroes sometimes face the dilemma of choosing when to break rules in order to serve the greater good. That predicament is truly encountered when the Legion meet Booster Gold. But is he crossing the line or simply fulfilling his destiny

I’d be more interested in the upcoming Geoff Johns/George Perez Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds series if it was called Final Crisis: Legion of Four Worlds.



SUPER FRIENDS #8 Written by Sholly Fisch. Art by Stewart McKenny and Phil Moy. Cover by J. Bone. It's Halloween, and the Scarecrow is on the prowl! But nothing can scare the Super Friends

The Scarecrow? Okay, fine—I’ll break down and try an issue of this not-very-good looking series, but only because I totally love that guy.



SUPERMAN AND BATMAN VS. VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES #1-2
Written by Kevin VanHook
Art and cover by Tom Mandrake
A man is killed by a mysterious creature – his body drained of blood. A woman is savagely attacked by a ferocious beast – her jugular ripped out. Bat wings flutter across the moon and the howl of a wolf echoes through the streets, for the creatures of the night have risen from the grave, and humanity’s only salvation is the combined might of The Last Son of Krypton and The Dark Knight Detective. Blood will run red when Superman and Batman face off against vampires and werewolves for the fate of the entire DCU!

This is probably one of the stupidest titles for a comic book I can remember coming across.

It evokes the Superman/Batman vs. Aliens and Predator series , although “Vampires and Werewolves” are pretty generic compared to the name-brand monsters Aliens and Predator. And SBvAnP was incredibly, surprisingly bad. I wouldn’t think that Mark Schulz had such a bad comic in him, but he sure proved me wrong with that story.

Still, Tom Mandrake art. That guy is a hell of a superhero artist and a hell of a horror/monster artist, so this subject matter should be right up his aesthetic alley.



SUPERMAN/BATMAN #53 Written by Michael Green & Mike Johnson. Art by Rags Morales & John Dell. Cover by Kevin Nowlan. Superman's powers leap into the body of The Dark Knight! Now Batman contains the incredible abilities of a Kryptonian while the Man of Steel stands powerless. How will they adjust physically and psychologically to these bizarre changes? Part 1 of the 4-part "Super/Bat," featuring art by Rags Morales (IDENTITY CRISIS).

This has been done to death already—1993 Elseworlds one-shot Superman: Speeding Bullets and 1999 special JLA: Foreign Bodies leap most immediately to mind—but Morales art is always hard to resist. Especially when you’ve got Kevin Nowlan covers sweetening the deal.



Jesus, just when I thought this title couldn’t possible get any cuter...



VIXEN: RETURN OF THE LION #1 Written by G. Willow Wilson. Art by Cafu. Cover by Josh Middleton. On a mission against the mega-mobsters of Intergang, the Justice League makes a stunning discovery revealing the truth behind the death of Vixen’s mother. Long ago, poachers were fingered in her murder, but stunning proof arrives exposing the identity of her real killer! And the man responsible is still alive, making a vicious play for power in the homeland Vixen left years ago.This groundbreaking 5-issue miniseries by rising stars G. Willow Wilson (OUTSIDERS: AQUAMAN/METAMORPHO, CAIRO, AIR) and Cafu (Black Panther) plunges the League’s animal-powered warrior into a deeply spiritual, but instantly deadly, quest for vengeance – and draws the League itself into the newest chapter of Intergang’s ever-expanding race for domination.

That Outsiders special Wilson wrote was really, really good considering that it was a Metamorpho/Aquaman II team-up setting up Tony Bedard's run on a series that he never actually got to take over for some reason. Also, her Cairo was a pretty solid super-story. So I’m actually kinda looking forward to this, although what exactly makes the solicitation writer think it will be "groundbreaking?"

L-Ron(-in-Despero's-Body)

can never get the ice cream truck to stop for him.

Just like a blog post, only on paper! And you have to pay for it!

Do you enjoy the occasional comic strips you see here on Every Day Is Like Wednesday, despite the leaden "jokes," amateurish "art" and barely legible hand-written "lettering" that define them? Do you like them so much that you'd be willing to pay for one of them, despite the fact that you can usually get them here for free? Well good news! Now you can!

Comics creator, fellow "Best Shots" at Newsarama.com critic and EDILW reader Brian Andersen asked me to do a back-up strip for his next issue of So Super Duper, which will be So Super Duper #5.

If you're unfamiliar with Andersen's series, it centers on a superhero with empathic abilities who goes by the codename Psyche. He's a not-terribly-valued member of the super-team The Amazin'naughts, where he uses his empathic abilities to let the heavy-hitters know things like, say, that the giant monster that's destroying the city is evil.

Psyche's also a little on the, ummm...happy side, if you get my meaning. He's...well, how should I put this in a way that doesn't offend anyone...Oh, okay, how about this: When it comes to flaming, The Human Torch has nothing on Psyche.

At least, that's the impression Psyche gives. But is he really gay? The rest of his teammates seem to assume so, but he always seems surprised when someone implies that he is. And so superhero hilarity ensues.

You can check out previews of each of the previous issues at Sosuperduper.com, as well as find out how to order copies. My story will look and feel pretty familiar to regular EDILW readers, as it was done in the exact same way as the ones I post here—drawn with pencil and pen on index cards, colored with colored pencils, hand-lettered in my own terrible handwriting, and then handed off to Brian to try and figure out how to make it fit on paper. It's sort of a "crossover" between So Super Duper and Every Day Is Like Wednesday, in which comics blogger Caleb interviews for the Snapper Carr-like mascot position on the Amazin'naughts.

Here's the first panel:


So go order a bunch of copies of all of Brian's comics, huh?

In other Brian Andersen news, he'll be at San Diego Comics Con this week, the lucky bastard. He'll be participating in the "Emerging LGBT Voices" panel from 10 to 11 a.m. in Room 10 on Saturday, July 26th, and then he'll be signing at the Prism Comics booth (#2146 and #2148) from 1 to 2 p.m.

THE RAY

likes dark chocolate sorbet, the darker chocolate the better. It reminds him of his childhood.

GYPSY

never has to buy her own ice cream.

Review: The Rabid Vol. 1

A perhaps inevitable side-effect of the number screenwriters being welcomed into the world of comics and the number of comic books getting picked up to be turned into movies is the number of comics that seem read like movies.

I don’t necessarily mean that as a value judgment, since there are good movies as well as bad movies, but the last few years have seen a sharp increase in comics that read like rejected screenplays illustrated by comics artists, or auditions for film adaptations.

The Rabid is an example of the former—it’s very easy to imagine that prolific writer Jason M. Burns began this project as an on spec screenplay, as it’s structured as a C-movie horror project, something that might get released in January or February, covering every single cliché of the zombiepocalypse genre and even ending with an “Oh no the menace isn’t over after all!” shock scene. I half expected the credits to roll when I finished the comic.

As unimaginative as this particular comic might be, Burns is actually something of a minor master of the high-concept pitch. His other comics include a ventriloquist/ventriloquist’s dummy buddy cop team, an underground railroad that ushers dead folks into the next world before the devil can get them, and others I’d need too long to explain. The comics aren’t always that hot (I loved Dummy Guide’s To Danger, but had to struggle through Underground Railroad, and couldn’t even make it through The Expendable One), but the ideas tend to be big ones.

The concept here isn’t quite so high. There’s this 28 Days Later-like virus that turns people into cannibals who, for all intents and purposes, are zombies, even if they’re not technically undead (You wouldn’t believe how many arguments I’ve had over whether or not 28 Days Later is a zombie movie or not, based on that distinction). Dogs get the zombie disease in The Rabid through the air, but transmit it to humans through their saliva, and humans pass it on by biting other humans.

So when it breaks out in a small town, pet dogs start going bonkers and biting their masters, and then they start turning on each other. The town’s sheriff, his family, his two fellow officers and a couple of other characters from central casting make their way to the police station, try to hold off a siege of the infected, and then try to make a break for it.

The expected action, gore, violence, interpersonal conflict, quip-heavy Hollywood banter and occasional bursts of horror humor (like a little fluffy dog getting batted down with a frying pan) ensues.

The thing is, Burns nails all these clichés so, as rote an exercise as it is, it’s hardly a failure. The bar is so low it’s laying on the ground, but he hops over it gracefully enough.

The art is provided by Guy Lemay, and here The Rabid really separates itself from the pack of wannabe/wanted-to-be movie comics. Lemay eschews the typical style for such projects, boasting a Paul Grist-like flat, semi-abstracted, square-filled style that subverts the script’s Hollywood pastiche nicely, essentially comic book-ing the thing up as much as humanly possible.

YAZZ

Oh man, I can't believe Yazz exists, let alone was in the Justice League. I mean, The Yazz makes Snapper Carr look like Wolverine...




Well, technically you guys are only honorary members...