One of the secrets of becoming a success in the comics industry

A couple of nights ago I talked briefly about the Korean comic Comic, which is a teen romantic comedy set in the comics industry. That fact makes it a little more appealing to me as someone who's really into comics (although I tend to like this sort of thing anyway), because as cool as it is to see two characters who act like they hate one another's guts but are secretly crushing on one another get close enough that their hearts beat a bit faster for the first time, it's even cooler when the reason is that he leans over to appreciate the inking she's just done on a comic book page they were collaborating on.

Anyway, in addition to being a pretty fun comic, I think Comic may also prove educational about the comics industry (or at least the comics industry as it exists in Korea). I learned a secret about making it in the field that I had never heard before, anyway.

So in one scene, our heroine Alice Song, who has just won an amateur manga contest sponsored by Cake magazine, accompanies her editor to the apartment of Saturn Kang, a hot, young artist. Saturn is falling behind deadline, and, when his editor comes to demand pages, he and his assistant hide. When they're found, Saturn stalls for time by telling his editor that he needs more help, so the editor calls his bluff and offers Alice as an assistant to help him finish the pages.

As an amateur aspiring to go pro, she takes the deadline much more seriously than the successful professional Saturn.

"No big deal," he says. "There are more important things in life." So I guess Comic is representative of the Western comics industry too, because that very attitude surely must be prevalent among successful comics pros in the U.S., or we wouldn't have so many late comics all the time.

"B-but it's two days to pring and if something goes wrong...readers will be disappointed!" Alice protests.

"What are you, some kind of bleeding heart?" Saturn responds, rubbing his chin and saying, "What a newbie..." before heading off to play video games.

He does give Alice something to do though. First he has her ink some pages, by they don't turn out so hot. Then he asks her clean his apartment up a bit, but that only results in things being broken off-panel.

Then he tells her he has an important job for her, puts a CD in the stereo, and orders her to dance.

Did you see what he said in the first panel there? "If you can dance in front of a pro, you'll be set for life!"

So aspiring comics creators should be extremely confident, completely shameless or just really good dancers. That way, they can dance in front of comics pros. And they'll be set for life!

That, or Saturn was just screwing with Alice for laughs. But I ask the aspiring comics creators in the audience, is that a chance you're willing to take?



(Above scans taken from Yen Press' Comic Vol. 1 by Ha Si-Hiyun)

Two quick questions about Marvel's living planets (Or: An excuse to post this crazy image of a Wolverine/Ego mash-up)

Above is "Sideburn, The Regenerating Planet," a brief fantasy that Galacta, the daughter of Galactus has about using the power cosmic to infuse Ego, The Living Planet with Wolverine's healing factor, resulting in a planet that she and her dad could eat over and over again without having to destroy worlds, as depicted by artist Hector Sevilla Lujan in Galacta: Daughter of Galactus #1.

I wonder, would Marvel's various space opera story lines like the Annihilation and War of Kings books sell even better if there was a planet version of Wolverine involved in them? (Or would they need a Deadpool, The Annoying Planet for the popular character sales boost that Wolverine used to bring to every book he appeared in?)

I was also wondering, upon seeing this panel, if Ego, The Living Planet had appeared in any of the various Marvel Zombies books, as a zombified living planet...like, Ego, The Undead Planet or The Unliving Planet or whatever? I assume he must have at some point, but I don't recall seeing it in any of the Marvel Zombies books I've read (I'm sure I've missed a couple of 'em though).

The first volumes of a couple of manga series, both of which star characters named Alice

Alice 19th Vol. 1 (Viz) This is another fantasy shojo series from Yu Watase, the woman responsible for the epic, 18-volume Fushigi Yûgi, a popular fantasy series in which two Japanese school girls get sucked into the Chinese Universe of the Four Gods book.

The star of Alice 19th is Alice Seto, a young, shy school girl who resembles Fushigi Yûgi’s Miaka in character design if not in personality. She’s supposedly a plain and less attractive girl, at least compared to her older sister Mayura, but the only notable difference is that Alice has short dark hair, while Mayura has long blonde hair.

Mayura is on the school’s archery team with Kyo Wakamiya, a kind and dreamy boy that Alice is secretly in love with—a secret she keeps from Kyo due to shyness and embrassment, and from Mayura because Mayura likes him too.

The first volume shares a little more with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland than the name of the protagonist; Watase’s Alice also meets a little white rabbit, which she chases and ends up having an adventure in another world, but there the similarities end.

This rabbit is actually a magical little girl with bunny ears who can change shape to disguise herself—so long as the shape is some form of rabbit. She informs Alice that the young girl is actually a chosen one sort, a master of the powerful Lotis Words.

Alice reacts by running away from the rabbit girl, and spends the bulk of this book ignoring the business of magic words and destiny, focusing instead on the love triangle that develops between the three main characters—at least until she realizes the power of her words, and she wishes her older sister off to a cornfield of sorts, and she must journey into the hearts of others to find her lost sister.

I know how girly that sounds and, well, it is shojo. There’s so little of the fantasy aspect of the storyline introduced at this point that I can’t really assess where it’s going, but the Alice’s conflicts at home and school are engaging, and Watase does her usually excellent job of diffusing overblown melodrama with humorous touches. I particularly enjoyed her reaction to being chose for some mysterious magical girl role in favor of dealing with her more pressing boy problem.

In addition to drawing really cute cute boys,

it turns out Watase does pretty cute bunny rabbits.

You’d chase that white rabbit, right?


Comic Vol. 1 (Yen Press) This is actually a Korean work, and is thus manhwa not manga, but what the hell, I’m calling it manga for the sake of this post. This site isn’t that specific after all, and the characters do have big eyes!

I love the title of this comic, which is what originally attracted to me in the first place. It’s a comic called comic, and not in a sarcastic, jokey sort of way, like Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s (awesome) Comic Book Comics, it’s just what it’s called, as it reflects the subject matter.

The Alice in this comic is Alice Song, a school girl who has just placed third in Cake Magazine’s amateur/student manga contest, and as a result suddenly finds herself thrust into the world of comics.

In a series of unlikely but necessary coincidences, the guy her third-place winning romance comic is about—a former teacher—is now an editor at the magazine, who she reunites and will be working with. Her first assignment is to help Saturn Kang, an artist she admires, finish his pages to hit a deadline.

But it turns out Saturn is a) super-cute b) her age c) a real jerk who refuses her help and offer and friendship and d) a boy who attends the neighboring all boy’s school under his real name, Patrick.

But is there something behind Saturn and Alice’s traded barbs and punches? Is it mutual attraction? A seed that could eventually grow into love?

Of course there is! The first volume includes three chapters, in which Alice, Saturn and the other players are introduced. Near the end, at an awards ceremony, Alice and the readers are introduced into a handful of other very colorful young comics creators, who will presumably play larger roles as the series goes on.

The character designs are fairly typical of romantic comedy manhwa I’ve read before. Heads are small, necks and limbs long, hand giant, fingers freakishly long, with everyone ranging from pretty good looking to gorgeous. I can see it being kinda off-putting to someone completely new to the genre, but then, Comic probably isn’t the best comic to start with when you’re trying your first teenage romantic comedy serial from Asia, anyway.

The drama and humor are all quite competently handled, the characters are all interesting looking and most of them have interesting traits to endear them and, the series is certainly made more interesting by intersecting with the comics industry. If you like comics, certainly you’ll like this comic about comics, right? It’s like a movie set in the film industry, or a TV show about characters who make TV shows (there’s one of those on NBC that’s awfully popular right now, isn’t there?).

I’d certainly look forward to reading the next volume of this series.

Especially to find out why the cover of the fifth volume has Saturn/Patrick wearing a Nazi uniform on it.

(Above: This is a picture of Alice's former teacher, who is now her editor. That is how the average comics editor looks and dresses, right?)

Comic shop comics: May 19th

Atlas #1 (Marvel Comics) Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman and the Agents of Atlas are back in another attempt at an ongoing featuring Marvel’s Atlas-era super-characters posing as a criminal empire.

This time, Parker gives us an outsider’s point-of-view, with the lead story starring Delroy Garrett, the former Triathalon and current 3-D Man, whose trying to track down the Agents on account of weird dreams he’s been having about them. The Agents only appear on the very last page, save for some glimpses during dream sequences.

It’s a pretty effective technique, introducing the characters—and reintroducing them to those of us who read the last volume—from a different angle.

As before, Hardman’s realistic art accentuates the alien nature of the outré characters, making him a perfect artist for the series. They’re strange and silly enough without the art underscoring it. Under Hardman’s pencils and pens, any comedy comes delivered in deadpan style, and become incidental to the appropriately serious plot.

Sure there’s a mute killer robot, a man trapped in a gorilla’s body and a space alien with a fishbowl helmet over his head, but this is the Marvel Universe, so they are more or less (exceptionally interesting, sure) facts of life, not excuses to demolish the fourth wall over.

So: Jeff Parker’s scripting is still good, Gabriel Hardman’s art is still top-notch, there’s a fresh approach, this is a perfect jumping on point/introduction to the characters, and there’s even a totally sweet new logo.

Oh, and Marvel still doesn’t know how to sell me comics. This is priced at $4, and although the solicitation claimed it would be 40 pages long, it’s actually only 23 story pages long (an introductory story focusing on 3-D Man, and a back-up set in the ‘50s telling the story that lead to 3-D Man’s dreams).

A bunch of non-comics stuff that amounts to little more than house ads make up the rest of the non-ad page count: A wasted recap page that has a single, 25-word sentence in giant font, an advertorial interview with Kelly Sue DeConnick, 3-D Man’s Official Handbook entry, a letters page and a two-page transcript of a Marvel Universe version of Coast to Coast that’s referenced in the story.

If the solicits for June and July are to be believed, Atlas will become a 22-page, $3 comic again with #2; I still don’t understand why Marvel occasionally launches new series with these tricky, price-gouging, $4 books. A #1 issue, particularly for a new series based on this still-hasn’t-quite-caught-on franchise, should be as welcoming as possible to new readers…why does the publisher dare such readers to not feel ripped off?


Batman: The Brave and The Bold #17 (DC Comics) Writer Sholly Fisch and artists Robert W. Pope and Scott McRae have produced what just might be the very best issue of this series so far. This issue breaks with the usual format, which reflects the short team-up followed by feature-length team-up of the televsion show, to bookend a slew of team-ups with a fun little joke about why it is a loner like Batman has been participating in so many team-ups.

By “slew” I mean seven or eight, and these include plenty of heroes and villains from the show, plus plenty that have yet to appear there, like Merry, Girl of 1,000 Gimmicks and the Hiro version of Toyman and The Inferior Five and a couple of real surprises. Hell, Chief O’Hara even puts in an appearance. Judging by either a superhero-per-page ratio or plain old quality scale, this book is probably the best value I ran across in the comics shop this week.

Check it out, here’s Batman’s growing frustration over the fact that Metamorpho and Mr. Element are too evenly matched:


Brightest Day #2 (DC) In this issue, a housewife slits her husband’s throat with an electric meat carver, impales her son with a pair of drumsticks, and then beats her daughter to death with a Rock Band video game guitar before peeling off her skin to reveal that she’s an alien or monster of some kind.

After the violence and gore of the previous issues in this series, I’m beginning to think they should have just went ahead and put the title in scare quotes on the cover, as they apparently named it Brightest Day sarcastically.

Did any of you guys read this? If so, is it just me, or did Firestorm look black in this issue, whereas in the last two he seemed to most definitely be white? The coloring here seems a simple solution to the What Color Skin Should Firestorm Have question—color him lighter than Jason and darker than Ronnie and leave it up to readers to see him as whatever race they want to interpret that as indicating.


Galacta: Daughter of Galactus #1 (Marvel) Most of, if not all of, this 31-page comic has appeared elsewhere before—in an anthology comic I did not read, and in Marvel Digital Exclusives, which I never read (They seem to publish them all in print eventually anyway).

It’s written—and covered—by Adam Warren, and it is typical Adam Warren. It’s extremely clever, and clever in the various shades of clever that exist in the Adam Warren Cleverness Rainbow. There’s big, awesome, Jack Kirby or Grant Morrison ideas, there are funny little jokes, big funny jokes, irritating too-cute jokes, fun wordplay, grating wordplay, a twist ending and on and on.

The premise is that Galactus, the godlike, planet-eating giant purple space giant who was introduced by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in one of the greatest superhero comic stories of the Silver Age, has a daughter. Rather than trying to eat earth, she protects it—by eating various alien life forms that attack it. Of course, she can eat planets, and is thus constantly tempted to eat earth and the living things upon it herself.

A comic about a young woman with food issues and daddy issues, as the cover and Galacta herself tell us written by a man could quite easily teeter into uncomfortably territory, but Warren is a master of tiptoeing dangerous lines, and he handles Galacta and her conflicts with the same wit and grace that he brings to Empowered.

The book is quite densely plotted, and features a few cameos from other Marvels—Wolverine, The FF and Thor—but it’s much more densely narrated. Galacta narrates, either in the form of communications to her father or via Twitter, and she’s a chatterbox, with some pages looking downright intimidating with the walls of purple text boxes on ‘em.

That text is usually worth wading through, however, and the concepts Warren bounces around pinball machine style in this work make up for any wasted words or too-cute turns of phrase. (That said, there are seven full pages of nothing but Tweets from Galacta at the end of the book, and I haven’t been able to force myself to read these yet).

Warren only draws the cover, with the interior art being provided by the quite capable Hector Sevilla Lujan. He shares some influences with Warren, so the interiors have the same manga/anime style one would expect a Warren project to have, but Lujan’s figures are general less round and pneumatic; they’re more stretched out and thin. There’s an awful lot of computer business going on in the art, but because Lujan’s work is so stylized, it’s not as irritating here as it is in other Marvel books. That is, nothing looks computer modeled, cut-and-pasted from Google Images or overly-photoreferenced; it’s all just super-slick, brilliantly colored and border-to-border special effects. Every panel looks like it could have been a cover, and I mean that in a good way.

I really like the way Sevilla uses manga techniques in the story too. For example, here’s the FF reacting to Galacta suddenly disappearing midway through Reed conjecturing about sciencey stuff: I may just be an easy mark for things familiar from manga being grafted onto old school Marvel characters, but seeing the FF all say "..." simultaneously, or Ben Grimm's jaw drop like that brings such a smile to my face...


Justice League of America #45 (DC) How on earth is Mark Bagley able to pencil an entire 30-page monthly comic all by himself and without the benefit of fill-in artists? Well, the splashes probably help. This issue has one double-page splash panel, and five single-page splashes.

In this issue, What The Hell’s Been Going On starts to become clearer—Basically, the Starheart is starting to possess superheroes and basically fucking up the world, and its up to one of the most random assemblages of DC heroes imaginable to save the day (This is nominally a JLA/JSA crossover, but the JLA currently consists only of Donna Troy, Congorilla, the Starman from one comic in the seventies and Dick Grayson in a Batman costume, and Supergirl, Jade and Faust, son of Felix Faust, are also hanging around.

This comic seems needlessly complex to me, with a ton of back story only half-communicated, but if any DC Comic should include a bunch of random shit from throughout the history of the publisher’s output, a Justice League comic is the one that’s best-suited to get away with it.

I really like the way Bagley draws the floppy ears and cat-jowls on Wildcat’s cowl—in certain panels he looks like an unshaven man with a black octopus laying on his head.

I really hate the narration boxes, and the way they’re used to communicate characters’ interior monologues and spoken dialogue from a speaker when they’re off-panel.


Tiny Titans #28 (DC) This issue is completely devoted to gags involving the Super-Pets and other animal characters. There’s so much cute and funny stuff here that I don’t even know what to point out. There’s all those guys on the cover, there are crowd scene cameos of Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Geoff Johns, there’s Beppo The Super-Monkey’s secret identity (a monkey wearing a dress shirt, bow tie and glasses), there’s Brainiac 5 from the Legion of Super-Heroes (“In the future, Brainiacs are awesome!”), there’s the most darling incarnation of the Green Lantern Corps ever (Even Tomar Re is cute!) and then there’s this:This is a really great issue of a really great comic.

"My own problems just look silly now!"

Oh no! I spent way too long writing 1,500 words about the death of a legacy superhero character for Blog@ tomorrow, and now it's almost 1 a.m. and I haven't even started the reviews I was planning to post on EDILW tonight! What am I going to do, badly-scanned scene from Eiji Nonaka's Cromartie High School Vol. 2*? Wow, you're right! My inability to write a couple hundred words about some comics before falling asleep with my face on my keyboard does seem like a small matter compared to a gorilla attending high school. Thanks, badly-scanned scene from Eiji Nonaka's Cromartie High School Vol. 2!

(Reviews of a handful of May 19 super-comics tomorrow night, I swear).



*Remember to click to kaiju-size the pages, and to read left to right, gaijin dogs.

Marvel's August previews reviewed

You know the drill; full solicits here.


AGE OF HEROES #4 (of 4)
Written by JONATHAN MABERRY, ELLIOTT KALAN, JOE CASEY & DAN SLOTT
Penciled by GIANLUCA GUGLIOTTA, NATHAN FOX, TY TEMPLETON & MORE!
Cover by JAE LEE
The Heroic Age continues with more titantic tales from across the mighty Marvel U! Follow Shuri, the deadly Black Panther, as she sets the world on fire crossing paths, and claws, with the rest of MU! Find out the truth behind Captain America’s time on ice and the native peoples who stumbled across his frosty tomb! PLUS: Zodiac's back and ready for the Age of Villains to begin...and Steve Rogers: Super-Soldier has an all-new assignment for Initiative cadet Cloud 9!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

You know, I bet this will end up being a decent state-of-the-Marvel Universe-in-2010 collection, as it seems like the series has featured characters—many of them rather minor—from all over the Marvel Universe, starring in stories by a lot of interesting creators. This issue sounds like it will have a short follow-up to that weird-looking Joe Casey and Nathan Fox Dark Reign: Zodiac miniseries, for example, and look, there’s some Ty Templeton art, too! I love Ty Templeton art!


AVENGERS & THE INFINITY GAUNTLET #1 (of 4)
Written by BRIAN CLEVINGER
Penciled by BRIAN CHURILLA
Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS
The evil THANOS has acquired the Infinity Gems, granting him control over the entire universe. He’s destroyed half the population of all worlds. The only force standing in his way? THE AVENGERS! But how can a ragtag group of heroes and villains (!) overpower the unstoppable? Check out the non-stop, pulse-pounding, white-knuckling action brought to you by Brian Clevinger (Atomic Robo) and Brian Churilla (Rex Mundi, The Anchor)!
40 PGS./Rated A ...$2.99

Well here’s an interesting project. A presumably all-ages and new reader-friendly retelling of the Infinity Gauntlet story by the guy who writes Atomic Robo and the guy who draws The Anchor. And it’s oversized, with a $3 price tag? Weird.


DARKSTAR AND THE WINTER GUARD #3 (of 3)
Written by DAVID GALLAHER
Penciled by STEVE ELLIS
Cover by CLAYTON HENRY
Betrayed by one of their own, The Winter Guard now must confront a new threat that could mean the end of Russia as we know it! If you thought last issue's surprise was amazing, just wait until you see what the Presence has in store! The Harvey Award winning team behind “High Moon” brings you the conclusion to the miniseries that will leave you speechless. And, by the time this issue is over, you will believe a bear can fly!
40 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

I think I expressed some interest in this book when the earlier issues were solicited, but that was before I realized that writer David Gallaher is apparently an extremely unpleasant person. Here he is Twittering something mean toward a prominent comics blogger, and here he is doing it again. What was his beef with her? Well, Gallaher’s ever-volatile girlfriend had one of her semi-regular conflicts with someone else in the comics blogosphere. I’d post links for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about but a) I don’t really wanna talk about or hear anyone else talk about any more of that psychodrama and b) one of the participants in the conflict recently announced that she was closing her blog and has since made it invite-only, so I can't link to her reactions to the person Gallaher told to go fuck herself.

At any rate, the point here is that if you’re a comics writer, particularly one writing for the Big Two, and a large part of your job is trying to convince comics readers to buy your comics, it may not be a good idea to take to Twitter and tell comics critics, bloggers and fans to fuck off.

I know I’m not going to want to drop a couple dollars on anything that’s going in the direction of someone telling my peers to fuck off because that writer's girlfriend got mad at them for some never-explained reason.


DEADPOOL #1000
Written by DAVE LAPHAM, PETER BAGGE, ADAM GLASS, HOWARD CHAYKIN, FRED VAN LENTE, ROB WILLIAMS & MORE!
Penciled by JEROME OPENA, PACO MEDINA & PHILP BOND, DAVE LAPHAM, PETER BAGGE, HOWARD CHAYKIN & MORE!
Cover by DAVE JOHNSON
Has it really been 100 issues since Deadpool #900? Who cares! Some of comics’ top creators take aim at the Merc with a Mouth in this massive 104-page special that pits the Deadpool against a cavalcade of baddies – including urban cannibals...underage hit men...mimes from outer space...and Lady Luck herself.
104 PGS./Parental Advisory ...$4.99

There’s a whole lot of talent involved with this book, but I think the solicit can be boiled down thusly to highlight the most fascinating aspect: “DEADPOOL…Written by…PETER BAGGE…Penciled by…PETER BAGGE.”


The cover of Essential Captain America Vol. 1 makes it look like Steve Rogers got caught in a Gamma Bomb explosion and has transformed into a giant, monstrous Captain America, doesn’t it?


I recently started reading Cromartie High School, and I’m afraid that after meeting the original gorilla that is maybe a high school student of some kind there, Ken “Gorilla-Man” Hale is no longer my favorite gorilla in comics.

However I’ll still be reading the three-issue Gorilla-Man miniseries, of which this is the cover of the second issue.


Wow, nice cover Salva Espin!


HULK #24
Written by JEPH LOEB
Pencils & Wraparound Cover by ED MCGUINNESS
Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
THIS IS IT. THE END OF WORLD WAR HULKS! WHO WILL LIVE?
WHO WILL DIE? CAN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE SURVIVE WITH A GREEN HULK AND A RED HULK? BE HERE FOR THE FINAL CHAPTER IN THE RED HULK SAGA AS THE SUPERSTAR TEAM OF JEPH LOEB AND ED MCGUINNESS REVEAL THE FINAL FATE OF THE RED HULK!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

Huh? They’re going to reveal the Red Hulk’s final fate before they reveal his (or her) identity?


INVADERS: THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION TPB
Written by ROGER STERN
Penciled by STEVE EPTING, MIKE MANLEY, BRETT BLEVINS & JASON ARMSTRONG
Cover by CARLOS PACHECO
It's 1945, and World War II is almost over – but Hydra founder Baron Wolfgang von Strucker is already planning the next one with insider information from the future! It's up to the Invaders to re-write Strucker's history books and drive down his Dragon of Death! Then, more than ten years later, Doctor Druid forms the Monster Hunters to face another pivotal enemy, one whose schemes date back centuries! Collecting MARVEL UNIVERSE #1-7.
184 PGS./Rated A ...$19.99

Hey, can anyone recommend or warn against these comics? I would like to read some old Invaders comics at some point…is t his a good place to start?



MARVEL UNIVERSE VS. THE PUNISHER #1 & 2 (of 4)
Written by JONATHAN MABERRY
Pencils & Cover by GORAN PARLOV
The creative team of Jonathan Maberry and Goran Parlov take you on a journey into the darkest territory in this Marvel Knights limited series.
A terrible plague has swept the Earth, turning everyone – human, hero, villain, god and monster — into sadistic cannibal predators. As Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Thing and other infected start a feeding frenzy, the world falls in a wave of insatiable violence. Now, five years later, one man hunts the wasteland that was New York City. One man stands against the hordes of monsters who hunt the night. He is the Punisher, the Last Gun on Earth. And he has an endless supply of ammunition.
32 PGS.(each)/Parental Advisory ...$3.99 (each)

This may be a stupid question, but is there a difference between “sadistic cannibal predators” in a post-apocalyptic Marvel Universe and Marvel “zombies” in a post-apocaplyptic Marvel Universe…?


NAMOR: THE FIRST MUTANT #1
Written by STUART MOORE
Penciled by ARIEL OLIVETTI
Cover by JAE LEE
Spinning out of the pages of X-MEN #1, comes an all-new series starring the world’s first mutant, NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER. When the X-Men are confronted with a deadly vampire threat, Namor takes matters into his own hands on a mission that might bring down the entire might of the vampires on their heads...and in the process, destroy Atlantis! What lurks down below the ocean where the sun can’t reach? What he thought was a fable to scare the children of Atlantis comes to terrifying life in the form of a newly-discovered race of Atlantean Vampires. Namor’s choice, to stand with Atlantis or the X-Men, will define a new chapter in his life...or death.
40 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

Oh no! I’ve been trying not to start any new series and stick with trade collections moving forward, but I wasn’t counting on a new Namor series about Namor fighting vampires…! What will I do?!

Hmm, well Olivetti’s drawing it, and I kinda hated his work on that Hercules two-parter, so maybe I’ll be able to resist the siren call of Namor beating up vampires after all. I guess I still have a few months to steel myself.


Hmmm…you know, I think I kinda like Daredevil’s new costume. Not crazy about the font on the DD, but the DD was always my least favorite part of his costume

I think this “Shadowland” event/crossover story is sort of interesting simply because usually when Marvel or DC do event/crossovers, they are always somewhat cosmic in scale, due to the fact that they have to involve conflicts and threats that would necessitate the attention of a whole bunch of superheroes. But with Shadowland, it looks like they’re just going to use all of their street-level heroes, plus some Spider-Man and Wolverine types for sales.

So I guess in scale, scope and tone, this is going to end up being more like one of the Bat-crossovers of the ‘90s than the typical Marvel crossover event/story (Even the franchise specific ones, like Fall of the Hulks and Annihilation usually involve a ton of superpowers and a world or worlds in danger, where this looks more city-focused).

It’s kind of surprising that Brian Michael Bendis never wrote an “all the street-level heroes fight” event like this, but I guess he was sort of finishing saying everything he had to say about Daredevil before he got into the business of cranking out a big Marvel crossover every year or two…


SPIDER-GIRL: THE END! #1
Written by TOM DEFALCO
Pencils & Cover by RON FRENZ
THIS IS IT! In a story spanning the history of the MC2 Universe, witness the battle you've been waiting for as Mayday Parker takes on her own clone, April! The fate of the Parker family hangs in the balance -- and so does an entire universe! The last stand of the Amazing Spider-Girl is here!
40 PGS./One-Shot/Rated A ...$3.99

Yeah, but doesn’t Spider-Girl reach the end like every three or four months?


ULTIMATE COMICS MYSTERY #2 (of 4)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Penciled by RAFA SANDOVAL
Cover by J. SCOTT CAMPBELL
Spider-Man and Spider-Woman infiltrate Roxxon, while Captain Marvel and Nova protect the magical artifacts of Project Pegasus. Meanwhile the Fantastic Three take on their first assignment as agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. All this and the countdown to the reveal of the mystery villain of the Ultimate Universe begins! BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (Siege) and RAFA SANDOVAL (Avengers: The Initiative) continue to thrill in this thriller that’s sure to shock!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

I didn’t realize they introduced an Ultimate Nova already. I’m way out of the Ultimate Universe loop, I guess. Is that him on the cover there?

DC's August previews reviewed

DC's full solicits for books shipping in August can be found here. A transcription of me talking to myself about them can be found here:


AZRAEL #11
Written by DAVID HINE
Art and cover by GUILLEM MARCH
“The Killer of Saints” part 2 of 4! Is the Turin Shroud genuine or a hoax? Azrael learns the shocking truth behind the rumors and lies. Meanwhile, the mysterious killer continues to perform his deadly miracles, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

You know, the fact that the Shroud of Turin is a plot point actually makes me mildly interested in checking out the new volume of Azrael for the first time. Well, that and March doing art. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this 25 times before or not, but I really like this Guillem March character’s work.


I’ll be curious to see if this cover actually makes it on the comics rack as is, or if someone somewhere decides they’d rather not have an upside down cross on the cover of a Batman comic. After all, they altered that one Superman/Batman cover where Batman’s hand was within an inch of a woman’s breast, or that Superman comic where Clark was drinking a beer.


I really loved the before-the-credits team-up between Batman and Mister Miracle on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I know, I know…I love most things about Batman: The Brave and the Bold…


BIRDS OF PREY #4
Written by GAIL SIMONE
Art by ED BENES, ADRIANA MELO and MARIA BENES
Cover by ALINA URUSOV
The explosive first arc of BIRDS OF PREY concludes here! The Birds race against the clock to protect the Super Hero community, but can they make it in time and find their blackmailer? And the final showdown between Black Canary and White Canary is a can’t-miss fight between two martial arts masters!

Should I recognize this White Canary person? Black Canary didn’t recognize her at the end of the first issue of BOP, only suggesting Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain, but in a dismissive way that made me think it wasn’t actually Shiva, who would be the main suspect otherwise (having once gone by “Jade Canary” in a BOP story by writer Gail Simone).


BOOSTER GOLD #35
Written by KEITH GIFFEN & J.M. DEMATTEIS
Art by CHRIS BATISTA & RICH PEROTTA
Cover by KEVIN MAGUIRE
Back in the past, Booster Gold is mistaken for himself and embarks on an untold journey in space with Blue Beetle to obtain a rare and secret artifact. Needless to say, their mission goes horribly, horribly wrong...

I decided to trade wait the new Giffen and DeMatteis Booster Gold run, since it was being sold as a Generation Lost tie-in and I was (and still am) pretty iffy on that, but now I think I’m going to regret waiting, based on the three characters sharing Booster’s cover this week.

I’m afraid I have no idea what the status of the various New Gods characters are in the DC Universe anymore. I got the impression from Final Crisis that they were erased from the fabric of the universe, past present and future. Apparently not the past…? But then, where are Mister Miracle and Barda at right now?


DETECTIVE COMICS #868
Written by DAVID HINE
Art by SCOTT MCDANIEL & ANDY OWENS Cover by PETER NGUYEN
A warped variation of the Joker drug has caused those who use it to suffer mental breakdowns and embrace anarchy and chaos. With riots cropping up throughout Gotham City, the citizens find themselves divided into two gangs: one led by a Batman impostor whose mission is to bring law and order back to the streets, and the other led by a Joker impostor whose purpose is to punish the innocent and set Gotham ablaze. And in the middle of it all is The Dark Knight – but can Batman stop an entire city?

Oh man, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read the Variation of a Batman Villain’s Chemical Weapon Has Become A Street Drug story in Batman comics. I do remember thinking it seemed like something I’d seen a few dozen times before when I encountered it in Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan’s Batman: Cacophony, which was released in early 2009.
I love the top half of Nguyen’s cover though. Nothing wrong with the bottom half either; I just really love the top half.



I know we’re not supposed to judge books by their covers so, um, I guess I won’t say anything at all about this then.


GREEN ARROW #3
Written by J.T. KRUL
Art by DIOGENES NEVES & VICENTE CIFUENTES
Cover by MAURO CASCIOLI
Witness the power of the BRIGHTEST DAY as death comes to Green Arrow’s forest. Is the Emerald Archer worthy of living in the sacred grove? Who else is in there? Will he be Green Arrow’s assassin or savior? The mysteries continue!

Is it Bigfoot? Or Swamp Thing? Are one of those guys in “the sacred grove” with GA? Because that would be cool.
Or wait, maybe it’s Doc Savage? And that explains why GA is sporting a ripped-up shirt look on this cover? Because his new neighbor convinced him that it was the style nowadays?


GREEN LANTERN #57
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by DOUG MAHNKE & CHRISTIAN ALAMY
BRIGHTEST DAY continues as what readers have been asking for finally arrives: a male Star Sapphire in the form of the Predator. But how is this entity unlike the others? And what does it want with Carol Ferris? Meanwhile, the White Lantern is defended by an unlikely hero…

Well, Lisa “Ragnell” Forturner already said pretty much anything I could say, only with greater detail and GL nerd-knowledge than I could possibly muster (I never heard of this Predator thing until it was appearing in Geoff Johns comics, for example).
It does seem like DC is just fucking with fans like Ragnell alone with this book though. Like someone saw a post about how silly it is that the Star Sapphires are all ladies and wear costumes consisting mostly of paint and accessories, and then decided to give such fans a male Star Sapphire (it says as much in the solicit), but they covered up his body out of spite. And threw Carol Ferris on her knees and put her in chains just to tease Ragnell.


GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD WARRIORS #1
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art by FERNANDO PASARIN
Cover by RODOLFO MIGLIARI
BRIGHTEST DAY! A whole new chapter in the epic GREEN LANTERN saga gets under way as Guy Gardner begins his secret mission for Atrocitus, bringing him into conflict with Hal Jordan with massive repercussions for the Green Lantern Corps!
Guy takes fellow Emerald Warriors Kilowog and Arisia along as he explores the Unknown Sectors — but what happens when they discover his mission and what’s waiting for them in the unpatrolled darkness?
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.
On sale AUGUST 11 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US

The first time I read through the solicits this month, I just sort of scanned this, thinking I’d just check it out in trade some day. But then I noticed something disturbing: It’s 32 pages, and it’s $3.99. That’s the way Marvel (and IDW and Dynamite and Boom and some others) price their 22-page books. DC counts the ten pages of ads as pages for the purposes of these solicits, so this is likely a 22-page comic book. With a 33% increase.

Marvel’s been doing this for a while now, of course, but DC has avoided it for the most part (I think a JSA tie-in of 23-pages sold at $3.99, Cry For Jutice tried to justify the extra dollar with prose back-matter, and the page counts on the $4-an-issue Blackest Night fluctuated). They have been selling $4 comics, but they contained back-ups, giving customers added value for added price.

This appears to simply be a Marvel-style 33% price increase.

That is really shitty.

Well, at least it’s just the one comic and not the start of a trend or any-


TIME MASTERS: VANISHING POINT #2
Written by DAN JURGENS
Art and cover by DAN JURGENS & NORM RAPMUND
“The Search for The Batman!” part 2 of 6! Already lost in the time stream while searching for the missing Caped Crusader, Rip Hunter and his ad hoc Time Masters (Booster Gold, Superman and Green Lantern) may not live long enough to make it out of the barbaric age they find themselves sidelined into. Will Claw the Conqueror be able to help them or will he be their doom?
You won’t want to miss this companion series to the highly anticipated BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE!
On sale AUGUST 25 • 2 of 6 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Oh, now come on!


IDES OF BLOOD #1
Written by STUART C. PAUL
Art by CHRISTIAN DUCE
Cover by MICHAEL GEIGER
The year is 44 B.C. Julius Caesar has conquered Transylvania, and vampyres are Rome’s new slave class. But when rich mortals start turning up dead with fang marks on their necks, Valens, a vampyre slave-turned-Roman soldier, plunges into the blood-soaked underworld of Rome to capture the Pluto’s Kiss Killer. If he can prove himself, he’ll earn rank and riches beyond what anyone this side of the Tiber has ever seen! But if he fails, he just might find himself on top of the pile of bodies!
Don’t miss this crimson-red, 6-issue thriller that mixes the undead intrigue of True Blood with the brutal Roman action and political drama of Spartacus from newcomers Stuart C. Paul and Christian Duce!
On sale AUGUST 18 • 1 of 6 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US

Okay, just one more round of complaining against the ridiculous price increase of certain comics, and then I’ll move on.

I liked the first half of the first sentence of this solicit, and read all the way through to make sure it wasn’t just based on a video game or a TV show I’ve never heard of, like most WildStorm books. Then I saw the price tag on the bottom. Several Wildstorm series are apparently also going to be $4 for 22 story pages.
Come on DC, hold the line!


MAGOG #12
Written by SCOTT KOLINS
Art and cover by SCOTT KOLINS
The nightmare visions are coming true as Magog’s fate becomes more and more entwined with the Psy-Cho Twins. It’s all coming to a head, too, as their hand is forced to ensure that “Kingdom Come” doesn’t become a reality!
FINAL ISSUE • On sale AUGUST 4 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US

Ah, there’s the “FINAL ISSUE” I’ve been expecting to see every month since this title was first solicited. I’m honestly shocked they wrung 12 issues out of the character.


OUTSIDERS #32
Written by DAN DIDIO
Art by PHILIP TAN & JONATHAN GLAPION
Cover by PHILIP TAN
With the team split in two and wanted for acts of war, The Outsiders find themselves fighting with one another in order to survive. While Geo-Force, Katana and the Eradicator build a new team in Markovia, Black Lightning, Owlman and Metamorpho find themselves at the home of an old friend who just happens to want Metamorpho dead! Plus, The Creeper faces off against a creature of the night!

So in this issue of The Outsiders, they fight a Tyrannosaurus Rex that has been cursed be a werewolf? And then it gets set on fire? That sounds sorta cool. That is what this issue is about, right? No? Oh. Well never mind then.


SUPERMAN #702
Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Art by EDDY BARROWS & J.P. MAYER
Cover by JOHN CASSADAY
"Grounded" continues as Superman enters a small town in Ohio where, like many towns, a number of its residents are from other places. But when The Man of Steel discovers that there are also a number of residents secretly from other worlds, he unravels a mystery that may have grave consequences for Earth.

Hey, I’m in a small town in Ohio right this very moment! Will Superman visit me? Will I be in the comics? Are my neighbors secretly from other worlds?!.

I wasn’t planning on reading JMS’ Superman run on account of not liking Barrows’ art at all really, but I guess I should check out this issue, just so I can stay on top of the superhero-comics-set in-Ohio scene.


SUPERMAN/BATMAN #75
Written by PAUL LEVITZ, JOE KELLY, DAVID FINCH, J.T. KRUL, STEVEN T. SEAGLE and others
Art by JERRY ORDWAY, DAVID FINCH, ADAM HUGHES, FRANCIS MANAPUL, DUNCAN ROULLEAU and others
Cover by FRANK QUITELY
You're invited to a spectacular anniversary celebration as Paul Levitz unites the World's Finest with the super-team he's best known for - the Legion of Super-Heroes! Lex Luthor has finally unleashed a threat powerful enough to gain the Legion's attention in the far future, but to take Luthor down, they'll have to journey into the past and ask for help from both Batman and Superboy!
Plus, Joe Kelly and various writers and artists chronicle the history of The Man of Steel and The Dark Knight in adventures that span from yesterday into the far beyond! Adam Hughes writes and draws a tale starring Supergirl and Batgirl, J.T. Krul and Francis Manipul deliver a tale of Superboy and Red Robin seeking advice from their mentors, Ace and Krypto get leashed by Duncan Rouleau, David Finch writes and illustrates a story for the first time, and Joe Kelly, Steven T. Seagle, Billy Tucci and many more surprises help commemorate this anniversary extravaganza!

Is it weird that the Ace and Krypto story is the one that sounds the most exciting to me…?


SUPERMAN: THE LAST FAMILY OF KRYPTON #1
Written by CARY BATES
Art by RENATO ARLEM
Cover by FELIPE MASSAFERA
Returning to a character he's long been associated with, legendary writer Cary Bates explores a different side to Superman's legend in an Elseworlds tale that hinges on the fact that while baby Kal-el has rocketed to the distant planet Earth from his doomed homeworld of Krypton, he was not alone. How does a world handle the emergence of the Last Family of Krypton as Jor-El, Lara and Kal-El make Earth their adopted home?

I just wanted to note the presence of the word “Elseworlds” in the solicit up there. That’s the first time I’ve seen it in a good long while, and I was pretty sure DC abandoned the imprint/branding when Dan DiDio rose to power (I can recall him saying in at least one interview that they would be shying away from such projects in the future in favor of focusing on the DC Universe stuff).


TITANS #26
Written by ERIC WALLACE
Art and cover by FABRIZIO FIORENTINO
Straight out of the JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE RISE OF ARSENAL miniseries, Arsenal signs up with Deathstroke and Cheshire when the Titans target a child slavery ring for takedown. What they unearth will shock you to the core!

All right, child slavery ring! That sounds like a lot of fun! I can’t wait to read this!
Note the gravestone, always a cheery thing to see on the cover of a comic book, specifies Lian Harper’s exact age when she died—five. So DC—or at least cover artist Fabrizo Fiorentino—is being very specific about the precise age of the dead child that they had killed off in one of their dumb stories. I’ve heard people speculating about how old she was at the time of her death, given how weird aging can be in the DC Universe, but it appears she wasn’t much older than she was here:
Delightful.

Also, I didn’t read the latest snuffy DC special, Titans: Villains For Hire #1, but if anyone in the reading audience did, do they explain why Deathstroke’s team is going by the name “Titans” …?

Green Arrow goes to the movies again.

Green Arrow goes to the movies.