A few poorly organized thoughts on Adventure Time Vol. 1

The Adventure Time comic is kind of a strange duck.

It's based on the Cartoon Network series of the same name, but unlike most comics based on cartoons that air on Cartoon Network, it's not being published by DC Comics, the comics-publishing arm of CN owners Time Warner, but by Boom Studio's kids line.

Some of Boom's kids books have been of remarkably high quality (Particularly Roger Langridge's Muppets books), but Adventure Time was even further removed from Boom's best books by a welcome if head-scratching choice in writer (Ryan North, who is responsible for the excellent online gag comic Dinosaur Comics), and the inclusion of back-up stories from Aaron Reneir, Lucy Knisley, Michael DeForge, Chris Eliopoulos, Paul Pope and Shannon Wheeler.

Given that line-up, I think only SpongeBob Comics and some of Bongo's Simpsons comics can boast of a similarly strong all-ages appeal, one split between kids and grown-up enthusiasts of great cartooning.

Like a lot (All? I only read Boom in review copy or trade...) of Boom's comics, Adventure Time was priced at $3.99 per issue, which seems more like a This Is A Comic For Grown-Ups price point than a This Is A Comic For Kids price point.

I know I complain about the cost of comics, like constantly, and $3.99 comics in particular so often that I'm sick of me talking about it too (so I can only imagine how you guys feel), but I think it's worth noting it here because kid-friendly books tend to be published at the $2.99 price point. Three dollars is a lot of money to a little kid, and, obviously, four dollars is a lot of money to a little kid...plus 1/3-of-a-lot on top of a lot.

Niece #1 has read copies of Tiny Titans and SpongeBob when she and I and they are all in the same place at the same time, and I can't imagine her ever parting with $4 of her own money for a comic book. That's more than half-way to a $7 LaLaLoopsy Mini, and, LaLaLoopsies provide hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of entertainment to her, as they can be played with endlessly. Or at least until she outgrows 'em. A comic takes like five minutes for her to read though; even SpongeBob, which often has a drawing activity in it, doesn't keep her occupied longer than 15 minutes, tops.

Comics are a terrible investment for little kid money.

Also, there were something like 12,000 variant covers for the first few issues of Adventure Time. Since the only kids comics I know of that feature variant covers with any regularity are Boom's, I'm thinking variants are more of a thing one sees on comics geared toward adults (who have the disposable income to want to spend money on comics cover collecting and speculating) than on comics geared towards little kids.

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I read and reviewed the first issue when it came out back in February. At the time, I had never seen the show, but still liked the comic a whole lot.

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I decided against reading the book serially, however, and not just because it was so goddam expensive. Additionally, it's millions and millions of variant covers included work from some pretty surprising artists and, given the choice between a trade paperback collecting whole story arcs and all the covers, or 1/4-to-1/6th of each story, and 1/20th of the covers available, the former seemed much more attractive.

Obviously variant covers encourage sales to someone somewhere (retailers, I imagine), but they almost always nudge me to skip the comics and wait for the trades.

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Since writing that post back in February, I have seen some Adventure Time. I borrowed a DVD from the library, and watched...I don't know, a dozen episodes...? It is a really, really good show; a surprisingly good show.

If you haven't seen it, it's about a boy with a dumb hat whose best friend is a talking dog with Plastic Man's powers and Bender from Futurama's voice. The live in a tree house, are friends with a princess, candy people and a cool vampire lady, and they get in fights with bad dudes and save the day a lot. Highly recommended.

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So when the trade became available, I bought it and read it. It too was pretty good.

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I was pretty surprised by the contents, though. It includes the North-written sections of the first four issues, illustrated by the art team of Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, who follow the show's design and aesthetic perfectly. None of the back-ups are included here. Wherever they do ultimately appear? That will be a book to check out. (But this one's still good too!)

While the back-ups aren't in this trade, the contents of Boom's Free Comic Book Day offering are, and they are rather awkwardly jammed into a the middle of the first issue's storyline...like, literally between panels. It's weird.

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Just as Paroline and Lamb capture the visuals of the cartoon so well, North gets the various characters' voices just right, and nails the unusual tone of the show. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of his own voice seems to come through, as well, thanks, in large part, to his inclusion of little messages at the bottoms of most of the pages, addressing the reader directly or the content of the page in the same way the alt text in his Dinosaur Comics does. Additionally, many pages feature tiny little bonus comics featuring one-off jokes or asides featuring the characters on the page above.

The strategy makes for a really fun comic to read. The content, as well as the way it was told, made reading Adventure Time Vol. 1 a really enjoyable experience for me.

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The plot is, nevertheless, extremely simple and straightforward. It's fight comics at their most basic. A powerful villain with a powerful weapon appears, defeats our heroes and traps them. They must figure out a way to escape, and then figure out a way to defeat the villain. They eventually do.

North is able to wring a rather remarkable amount of drama and tension out of the situation though. While I was always certain the heroes would win and save the world, the "how" of it was never certain, and North presents an awful lot of trial and error in the process; like, they fail a good half-dozen times before they finally succeed, and they do so with a clever, visually interesting plan.

Clever and visually interesting, are, by the way, words that could be applied to many aspects of the book.

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Did they manage to sneak the star of North's Dinosaur Comics into a panel here...?

Look, here's T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics:

And here's a T-Rex skeleton in a panel of Adventure Time:

Is the latter the skeletonized version of the former? I don't know. Only T-Rex himself could tell us, except he can't tell us anything, because now he's a dead skeleton, and dead dinosaur skeletons can't tell us anything at all (although paleontologists may hold a different opinion on the matter).

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Did I mention the fact that there were a lot of variant covers though? There are a lot of variant covers. The book is 128 pages long, and only 70 of those pages contain comics. There's a short feature showing how the comic was drawn, and lot of end-pages and what not, and...let's see...23 covers!

Now, these are all pretty great images, and we get to see the various characters as drawn by Stephanie Buscema, Jeffrey Brown, Sanford Greene, Chris Samnee, Scott C., Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward and his mom Betty Ward, but dang, almost half of the trade paperback collection of Adventure Time is not comics, and, when I was reading, I was pretty shocked to find the story ended when I still had another fifty pages or so worth of pages to flip through.

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Anyway, here's Pendelton Ward's mom's variant:

Some brief thoughts on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 2: Enemies Old, Enemies New

If I've one complaint about IDW's licensed comics, it's how quickly the publisher expands their lines of them, and how easy it is for me to get confused by the multiple titles and multiple versions of the characters, and the ways in which they are collected. I'd really like to read some of their repackaging of old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics, for example, but, as near as I can tell, there are at least three different series of it, plus their collections of their monthly TMNT book by Kevin Eastman, Tom Waltz and Dan Duncan.

This is the second collection of that series...sorta. Mid-way through, there's a reference to an event in the Raphael one-shot (which I happened to read already, but only because I was reviewing it for one of my writing gigs online). There's an ad in the back of this trade for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Micro-Series Vol. 1, which apparently contains stories that are meant to slot in-between TMNT Vol. 1 and TMNT Vol. 2...?

Reading comics is sometimes a lot harder than it needs to be.

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Anyway, this collects TMNT #5-#8, and picks up where the first volume left off, not counting the at least four, as many as seven one-shots. Co-creator Kevin Eastman's contributions seem to have been dialed back a bit, as he's no longer credited with providing breakdowns for artist Duncan, and just shares a "story by" credit with Waltz. He also provides some of the many, many covers on these books.

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There are a lot of covers. The cover gallery in the back has eleven images, and, again, there are only four in here. The best are, of course, the Eastman ones, as those are always going to look like the "real" Turtles.

This is my favorite of his included here—

—although there are a few more that seem like more typical Ninja Turtles images, including one of his Turtles and Splinter fighting Mousers and another of the Turtles crouched on a rooftop as Foot Clan ninjas pursue a new character.

I really love Eastman's extra-inky, ragged line and how drawn his images look (and jeez, look at that city skyline! I love how lived-in Eastman's New York always looks). I've noted before what an impact Eastman's early work had on me, and I can't stress enough what a pleasure it is to see it coming into comic shops again at a pretty regular clip, even if it's quite limited compared to what, say, Duncan is providing.

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You know who else does a great Turtles cover? Simon Gane. Check this out:

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I was surprised not to see Ross Campbell's image of the Turtles fighting a swarm of Mousers in here, as I've seen that image on the Internet (it's currently my desktop image, come to think of it!), and it seems like it would have been used on one of the issues collected in here, as that is the exact event being depicted.

This is the image, by the way:

I believe this is where Campbell first posted it, so go there for a bigger, better version.

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The biggest unanswered question I had about Splinter and the Turtles' origin as presented in the original volume—how they all learned martial arts, if Splinter didn't learn them from his human master Hamato Yoshi, and the turtles are only 18 months old—is answered here, and it's kind of a doozy.

(Oh, um, "spoiler warning," if you're planning on reading these in trade and are even more far behind than I am).

Apparently, like in the old cartoon series, Splinter actually is Yoshi, but rather than mutating from human to rat, he is the rat reincarnation of the human Yoshi, who was killed by his rival Oroku Saki way back during feudal Japan. He had four sons, all of whom were also killed by Saki, and they were reincarnated into the turtles. Then they all happened to get mutated.

It's...pretty different. And, I don't know, it might have been used in other Turtle narratives from other media before.

I don't really care for the development, as it adds a mystical layer to the characters and conceit that I'm not sure they bear all that well, and makes the story one quite heavily indebted to cosmic coincidence and melodramatic destiny, but as with the other changes in their origin story, this is more of a "That's not the way I would have done it" form of displeasure, and, again, I appreciate the radical nature of the rebooting going on. It's not like there aren't all these other versions of the Turtles characters out there already.

(The above image, featuring the Yoshi and his sons in their human lives from feudal Japan, is drawn by Mateus Santolouco, who drew the past sequences in TMNT #5.)

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As I mentioned in passing, there are Mousers in this comic. They are again the invention of Baxter Stockman, although these ones weren't designed to rid the New York City sewer system of rats; instead they are Minefield Ordnance Unarming System Enhanced Robots, which is kinda stupid (Isn't the word "Disarming," Stockman....?), and doesn't really explain why they have big, bear-trap like jaws (Are they for digging up the mines and thus setting 'em off, isntead of "unarming" them...?).

I like what Duncan did with them though. Rather than mass-producing a single, bipedal version, Stockman apparently made a bunch of different varieties, to the extent that no two of them look alike. They have different numbers of limbs and come in different sizes and with different proportions.

Some of 'em made me laugh just to look at.

I like this little fat one, for example.

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The Turtles get their differently-colored masks from the cartoons here—it's explained that they were all wearing red while they were searching for Raphael in the first volume because that was his favorite color—and there are several other unexpected nods to the original cartoon version of the Turtles story.

In addition to General Krang, who made a very brief appearance in the first volume, we meet two subordinates of his who appeared briefly in the original cartoon series and were particularly difficult mini-bosses in the arcade video game. And there's mention of "The planet Neutrino" and "The Neutrino Resistance Fighters."

While I'm sure that, should they eventually appear, The Neutrinos will be very different from the annoying, 1950s slang-dropping characters that appeared in "Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X", the prospect still doesn't exactly excite me.

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(The Neutrinos, if you never saw that show, are basically greaser space-elves with confounding hair-styles and high-pitched voices who drive hover-cars, which allowed the company that made the Turtle toys to make a flying convertible toy. The girl Neutrino was apparently voiced by whoever voiced Babs Bunny in Tiny Toons, and she has the exact same voice, which is almost as disconcerting as Donatello having the exact same voice as the Nesquik spokesbunny).

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As the series continues, it seems clear that Eastman and Waltz are rebuilding a new version of the franchise, using equal parts of inspiration from the original Mirage comics and the original cartoon series, which makes for an awkward mix, but is perhaps understandable, given their audience, which I imagine consists of mostly grown-up fans who grew up on one of those two versions or, like me, both.

Rather than an episodic narrative, they're clearly going for something big and epic...in fact, I had a hard time distinguishing the starts and stops of the distinct issues in this collection, as the story seemed to simply keep going from chapter to chapter.

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I guess I'm still in for Vol. 3. I hope it includes a checklist of trades though, and a nice short, clear explanation of what, say, the Ultimate Collection and Classics and Adventures lines contain, exactly. (I can't find listings for any Turtles collections on IDW's online catalog, which is...frustrating). I just spent another 15 minutes or so trying to determine it by looking at IDW.com, Wikipedia, BN.com and Amazon and I'm still not 100% on what's what, and if or what I want to buy from IDW regarding their reprints.

Sigh...

Superman turns up in the strangest places.

I found this 13-page book at the library the other day. It's part of the "I Know Opposites" series of books, published by Weekly Reader Books. Obviously aimed at very young children, it's an educational book showing an image and short phrase on each page, noting whether the thing depicted is alive or not alive.

For example, a photograph of a grizzly bear on one page has the short, declarative sentence below it reading, "The bear in alive." On the facng page, there's a photo of a teddy bear, and the sentence "The toy bear is not alive."

Where does Superman come in...?

Perhaps...but I wouldn't tell Grant Morrison that.

That one time Roy Thomas almost inserted FDR/Churchill slash into All-Star Squadron

In 1982's All-Star Squadron #10, writer Roy Thomas and artists Adrian Gonzales and Jerry Ordway have President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt and All-Stars The Atom and Liberty Belle about to pay a surprise visit to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who is staying at the White House while the two Allied leaders hammer out their plans.

"It's, er, still awfully early, Mr. President," The Atom asks, "Are you sure the Prime Minister will even be awake yet?"

Judging by the direction of the dialogue balloon's tail, it's Liberty Belle who answers, singing Churchill's praises, saying he "has a constitution as hardy as the one we wrote in 1787."

Roosevelt notice that Churchill's door is ajar, and they enter. They don't see Churchill though, and Roosevelt says, "Wait! Isn't that running bathwater I hear?"

Then, in the next panel, Churchill enters his room, naked save for a cigar , a towel and a complete lack of embarrassment:

He fixes the president with a puckish smile...

...and continues (in dialogue balloons too close to the spine to be clearly scanned): "The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States! Now, what is on your mind, Mr. President?"

Nothing to conceal! Not even his own naked body! Yes, Mr. Roosevelt, what is on your mind*, now that you are confronted by your naked ally and his suggestive comments?

Jeez, talk about a "Special Relationship"...!



*The United Nations. The pair had been trying to think of a better name for their anti-Axis coaltion than "allies" or "The Associated Powers," and, after a sudden inspiration, FDR wanted to suggest "The United Nations" to Churchill.

Marvel's February previews reviewed

Dear Marvel Entertainment,

I know you guys aren't as disciplined and consistent as DC Comics when it comes to releasing your solicitation information, but you really shouldn't release it on a Thursday. See, on Thursdays, my day job is actually more of a night job, so I don't have time to post about your solicitations on Thursdays and, in fact, won't be able to get around to it until Friday.

And then, on Friday evening, none of my tens and tens of reader will actually be around to read the post I write about your solicitations, because it's Friday night, and most of my readers have better things to do then read my rambling about your solicitations.

So in the interest of getting the maximum number of EDILW readers to read my posts about your solicitations, you really should release your solicitations on Tuesdays, like you used to, back in the good old days, when you used to write whole paragraphs about the books, instead of just bullet points. Thanks for your time and attention.

Your pal,
Caleb


Dear Readers,

If you would like to see the full solicits for everything Marvel plans to release in February of next year, you can do so by clicking here or here. If you just want to see me talking back to a handful of them that struck me as interesting, keep reading.

Yours truly,
Caleb

Samnee! Why did you put the dumbest part of the Daredevil live-action movie on the cover of the Daredevil comic book! Bad memories are flooding my skull now! Why have you done this Samnee? I thought we were friends!

Not to judge a book by its cover or anything, but that's a pretty shitty cover. I hope the inside of the book isn't as bad as the cover suggests, but this would be a potentially promising crossover appeal sort of project...of the sort comics publishers tend to blow.

FEARLESS DEFENDERS #1
CULLEN BUNN (W) • Will Sliney (A)
Cover by Mark Brooks
...
NEW TEAM! NEW VILLAINS! NEW CREATORS! Valkyrie and Misty Knight are the Fearless Defenders and not since Power Man and Iron Fist has an unlikely duo kicked this much—well, you know. Writer Cullen Bunn (Venom, Sixth Gun, The Fearless) and new-to-Marvel artist Will Sliney (MacGyver, Star Wars) bring you the book everyone is going to be talking about on Thursday morning.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

This is...weird. I know Valkyrie was a long-serving, second-tier Defender (and the first-tier Defenders were all pretty much second-tier Marvel characters), but is that enough to justify using the "Defenders" team name in the title of a book featuring her? Does Marvel have to used the word "Defenders" in a title eight out of every twelve months or forfeit the trademark for Captain Marvel to DC Comics because of a drunken bet Stan Lee made with Carmine Infantino forty years ago or something...?

And if it is a Defenders-branded book, why specifically reference Heroes for Hire team Power Man and Iron Fist...? I don't really get this one.

But with an ill-starred word in the title, minor stars and minor creators, plus female leads (which usually doesn't work out real great for Marvel, not that that's a reason not to keep trying or anything), I can't imagine this will last much longer than, say, Matt Fraction's just-canceled Defenders book.

That's cool that Marvel hired someone from outside of Marvel for a new "NOW!" book, though.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #0.1
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • STEVE MCNIVEN (A/C)
...
Move over Avengers…the Guardians got this.
Star-Lord. Gamora. Drax. Rocket Raccoon. Groot. …and the Invincible Iron Man?!
The Marvel Universe just got bigger as the legendary cosmic epic returns in the hands of superstar creators Brian Michael Bendis (Avengers, All-New X-Men) and Steve McNiven (Civil War; Old Man Logan).

In this special prelude issue meet the man behind the Guardians: Star-Lord… and discover how this child of Earth became the leader of the rag-taggiest of teams in all the Galaxy. All setting the stage for next month’s historic Guardians of the Galaxy #1. This is the start of something big, Marvel fans.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Wow, I feel kind of bad for the writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. They literally spent years working on Marvel's cosmic comics, making that name and that group of characters into something a small but vocal and loyal number of Marvel fans cared about, and now that their hard work (and that of their many collaborators) has paid off, to the point that Disney's following their Avengers movie with a Guardians of the Galaxy movie (of all things), Marvel's most popular and prolific writer Brian Michael Bendis swoops in and takes over, getting his name attached and written on what are likely to be some very lucrative royalty checks a few years down the road...?

That doesn't seem cool.


HAWKEYE VOL. 1: MY LIFE AS A WEAPON TPB
Written by MATT FRACTION
Penciled by DAVID AJA, JAVIER PULIDO & ALAN DAVIS
Cover by DAVID AJA
Fraction. Aja. Hawkeye. Kate Bishop. Cars. Guns. And videotape. The breakout star of this summer’s blockbuster Avengers film, Clint Barton — a.k.a. the self-made hero Hawkeye — fights for justice…and good rooftop BBQs! And with ex-Young Avenger Kate Bishop by his side, he’s out to get some downtime from being one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! Matt Fraction and David Aja (IMMORTAL IRON FIST) reunite to tell the ongoing tales of the Arrow-Avenger. Barton and Bishop mean double the Hawkeye and double the trouble! Plus: Relive Kate’s first meeting with Clint, as she learns wanting something can be miles away from actually earning it. Collecting HAWKEYE (2012) #1-5 and YOUNG AVENGERS PRESENTS #6.
136 PGS./Rated T+ …$16.99

I endorse this product.

Seriously, even if you d--Ha ha! I was gonna say "Even if you don't like Hawkeye, you'll like this comic," but then I remembered no one actually likes Hawkeye.

NEW AVENGERS #3
JONATHAN HICKMAN (W) • STEVE EPTING (A)
Cover by JOCK
Variant Cover by DALE KEOWN
“INFINITY”
• The Illuminati experience their first incursion since reforming.
• Can the loose brotherhood of end times trust each other enough to use the Infinity Gems in unison?
• And a new member joins the Illuminati!
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

Okay, that's three issues that mention the Illuminati, but don't specifically mention an Avengers team. Why isn't this book just called The Illuminati then...? And, more importantly, why is Dr. Strange just twiddling his fingers while everyone else is struggling so hard to keep Earth-1 and Earth-2 from colliding? Where is The Spectre when you need him...?!

NOVA #1
JEPH LOEB (W)
ED MCGUINNESS (A/C)
...
The Human Rocket returns!
You’ve followed him through the history making (and changing!) AvX and now the mystery of the all-new Nova are revealed in this breathtaking new ongoing by the best-selling, award winning team of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness (RED HULK, Avengers X-Sanction).

Sam Alexander is a kid bound by the gravity of a small town and a father whose ridiculous, drunken fairy tales about a “Nova Corps” were just another heavy burden in a life full of them. But luckily for Sam Alexander…soon gravity won’t even matter. And those troubles? It’s like they’re a billion miles away.
32 PGS. /Rated T+ …$3.99

Weird. Just before I sat down to read through these solicits, I was reading Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story , and read a paragraph about Nova:

Marv Wolfman greatly respected [Steve] Gerber's work, and he'd been an early champion of Howard the Duck. But he found the darker stories...to be "gruesome" and "revolting." Increasingly , the tone of the comics was a point of contention for Wolfman, who'd even dusted off Nova, a character he'd created as a teenager, in hopes of getting back to the kid-friendly spirit of the early 1960s Marvels.

I didn't know Wolfman created Nova...and if he created him as a teenager, then does that mean he created him before he started working for Marvel? Does Wolfman own Nova? Could he make a legal case that he does? Will be be getting mad movie money if Nova's in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie...?

And if Wolfman though 1970s Marvel was gruesome and revolting, does he even read comics anymore...?

Anyway, Jeph Loeb is writing a new comic for Marvel. It will be terrible.

That's Milo Manara's variant cover for Savage Wolverine #2. I don't see Wolverine in that image. Maybe he's hiding...? I suppose I'll just have to keep staring at it until I find him...

...

Oh! There he is! He's wearing a dinosaur costume! Wolverine is a master of disguise.


UNCANNY AVENGERS #5
RICK REMENDER (W) • OLIVIER Coipel (A)
Cover by John Cassaday
Variant Cover by OLIVIER COIPEL
• Wonder Man, Wasp and Sunfire join the team just in time for Grim Reaper’s revenge!
• Tension between the team builds as Havok’s leadership is questioned!
• The death of a major character at the hands of an Avenger in broad daylight!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Ha ha, I like how they used "death of a major character" as a selling point in the same solicitation that boasts the recently-deceased-but-apparently-resurrected major character the Wasp is joining the team this issue.

UNCANNY X-MEN #1
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W)
CHRIS BACHALO (A/C)
...
The true flagship book of the X-Men returns. In the wake of the Phoenix, the world has changed and is torn on exactly what Cyclops and his team of X-Men are – visionary revolutionaries or dangerous terrorists? Whatever the truth, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Magneto, and Magik are out in the world gathering up new mutants and redefining the name UNCANNY X-MEN.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

So Bendis is writing two X-Men titles, then...? Or wait

Bachalo and Bendis seem like a terrible team, as the former is really great at drawing all kinds of shit, and the latter is really terrible at giving artists anything interesting to draw. I wonder how their collaboration will work out.

I like how angry Bachalo managed to make Magneto's helmet look on the cover.

Oh, hey, wait! I thought the Avengers were using "Uncanny" now, in Uncanny Avengers. Can the X-Men use it for their book too...? Shouldn't this book have a traditionally Avengers adjective in front of it, like, I don't know, The Mighty X-Men or The West Coast X-Men....?

Meanwhile, at Robot 6...

I wrote a few million more words about Fantastic Four #1, in the context of the book as part of Marvel's "Marvel NOW!" initiative. You can go read those millions of words here, if that's the sort of thing you're into.

Reading through the comments that were posted so far, I see that someone noticed a pretty dramatic error in the script: When diagnosing a mysterious injury, Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards says that it looks like the unstable molecules that gifted the Fantastic Four with their powers are starting to break down, and may ultimately kill them. In actuality, the FF's "unstable molecules" refers to the material that their costumes are made out of, and was long ago given as an explanation as to how their costumes can stretch, and turn invisible and appear and disappear when one flames on and off, I guess. The Fantastic Four themselves are not made out of unstable molecules.

Makes me feel extra silly for worrying about when dinosaurs became extinct in the Marvel Universe but missing that. But I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about it; I'm just some guy critiquing the book, it's not like I was paid a large amount of money to write the story or edit the book or anything...

Comic shop comics: November 7-14

Ame-Comi Girls #2 (DC Comics) This is the second issue of DC's paper comics version of digital material based on the series of manga/anime-style fan service statuettes the publisher's merchandising arm is responsible for, and thus the questions of how manga/anime the comic will be and how fan service-y it will be were already answered last month: "Not at all" and "not at all."

What the series is, then, is a fairly generic, old-school American superhero narrative which, by the second issue, seems to be this: All of the villains have teamed-up, in the service of a mysterious off-panel mastermind (if you notice the statuettes in the solicitations, however, you'll already know who that is), and now all of the heroines must band together to defeat them.

And there's not much more to it than that. The main innovation seems to be that all the heroes and heroines are female. Last issue focused on Wonder Woman. This issue's cover belongs to Batgirl Barbara Gordon, daughter of wheelchair-bound Commissioner james Gordon, and her Robin, who is her real-life cousin named Carrie. They fight Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn and Catwoman. Duela Dent and The Cheetah both reappear. We meet the Ame-Comi version of Steel, Natasha, who is apparently older than Barbara and Carrie.

Green's art is great, and is, in fact, one of the reasons I decided to pre-order this weird little series in the first place. He's inking his own work here, and it looks less smooth and polished than the last time I saw it, but it also has a rougher, slightly more ragged line that gives the art a fair amount of texture. His isn't a style I would think appropriate for this particular book, but as I mentioned at the top of the review, the book isn't at all the book one might expect from the source material.

Classic Popeye #4 (IDW) Another month, another pair of old-school Bud Sagendorf Popeye comics stories in a hefty, full-color, 48-page, ad-free, $3.95 package. The lead story is the superior one here, as an eccentric professor hires Popeye and company to take him to generic Western locale Dead Valley, where the Sailor Man gets to fight cowboys and move among desert settings.

I really like Wimpy's presence in these comics, particularly this story, as he is a sort of built-in antagonist who causes Popeye the most amount of trouble, but he's also his best friend. In this story, for example, Wimpy attempts to shoot Popeye to death (in order to save himself, of course), and Popeye later forgives him with, "Knowin' what a weak chracter ya is, Wimpy— I does not blame ya fer the things ya does."

My favorite part, however, is when the giant brute of a cowboy Big Pete Little Skull taunts Popeye into a fight with the words, "I hate boats and salt water is full of fish!!" Them's, apparently, fighting words.ue

The second half of the book belongs to a domestic story involving Swee'Pea and a crazy creature; as with the similar Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics, I find the stories where they are traveling tend to be more engaging than the ones where they are home.

Fantastic Four #1 (Marvel Entertainment) I think I'd like to talk about this at greater length somewhere else on the Internet tomorrow, so real quick-like: This is my first sampling of a "Marvel NOW!" book (and first off-the-rack issue of FF I've read since the late, great Dwayne McDuffie was writing it), a decision influenced by the creative team of Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley.

It doesn't feel at all like a brand-new series, or even much of a brand-new direction, so the #1 on the cover of such a particularly long-lived title seems particularly cynical, and the number of ads and big, fat "AR" symbols in the corners of panels made it a fairly unpleasant reading experience. I kind of want to give it a few more issues to win me over—I'm more interested in it's sister title, FF, which will feature art by Mike Allred—but if #2 and maybe #3 are as insubstantial and distractingly-packed with non-comics info as this one was, I can't imagine reading this serially for very long.

It may simply be that I read this (and Green Lantern) in the same hour or two that I read the ad-free Classic Popeye, Saga and SpongeBob Comics, but given how much visual noise there are in Big Two super-comics (almost all of if produced for house ads, by the way), it's a miracle anyone reads them serially instead of waiting for the trades.

Oh, and there are only 20 story pages in Marvel's $2.99 books...? I guess I haven't been reading enough of 'em to notice. But this has only 20 pages, three of which are full-page splashes. Feh.

Green Lantern #14 (DC) Like Marvel's Fantastic Four, this comic suffers from too-few story pages and too many ads, and thus takes about five minutes to read...about half of that time of which one is simultaneously being exposed to ads. I guess it would be like trying to watch the first five minutes of a television show, if the commercials were playing on half the screen while you were watching.

There are 20 pages here, including one full-page splash page and one two-page splash. A few pages have six whole panels, a few have just two panels, most have about three or four.

This picks up right where the previous issue left off, with Superman and the New 52 Justice League ambushing the new Green Lantern, literally punching first and asking questions later. To his credit, Geoff Johns does present a more traditional take on Superman and the League here, with the characters trying to talk it out, before the new GL tries to rabbit. There are updates on what perfidy the Guardians and Black Hand are up to, as well as what's up with the not really dead Hal Jordan and Sinestro as well.

Still no complaints about Doug Mahnke's excellent artwork (although whichever of his four inkers did the last few pages didn't do as tight a job as whichever of 'em did the early JLA sequences), and I was pleasantly surprised to find that while he doesn't quite rescue the costumes or anything, he draws the characters so well that they all look like "themselves," despite their Elseworlds costuming (It helps, I'm sure, that Mahnke had a nice, decent-sized run on pre-New 52 JLA).

Legends of The Dark Knight #2 (DC) This second issue is rather different than the first, consisting of a single 30-page story by writer B. Clay Moore and artist Ben Templesmith, rather than a trio of short stories by different creators.

In the final panels of the comic, Bruce Wayne asks The Joker, "What was the point of all this, anyway?" And The Joker, unaware of Wayne's other identity, responds condescendingly, "You're wasting your time looking for rules in this game."

That, unfortunately, seems to apply to the comic book story itself. It all seems rather random and pointless, the sort of move-the-action-figures-around storytelling that has come to dominate far too many Batman comics these days. It's not a bad comic, of course, there's just nothing to it, really.

The Joker's latest nefarious plot is this: He's kidnapped The Mad Hatter, tied him to a chair, and is then kidnapping prominent Gothamites, forcing The Mad Hatter to hypnotize them into thinking they're Batman, dressing 'em in homemade Bat-costumes, and then sending them off to play Batman and thus meet their deaths...in the jaws of Killer Croc. Things go awry when he kidnaps Bruce Wayne and tries to give him the treatment.

Templesmith's art is as good as you would expect, and it's fun to see his particular, almost peculiar style applied to the Batman cast of characters. There's a dirty, luminescent look to the art, as if it was being lit through a used coffee filter, and there's a bold streak of cartooniness that runs through the designs, creating a tensions with the gritty brick backgrounds of sewers and back alleys in which the story is set.

Templesmith's Joker is a particularly strong design, featuring a stretched-out, pinned-back looking mouth with normal-sized, rather human set of teeth within his maw (The Joker dresses up as Commissioner Gordon during the brain-washing process, and the mustache and smile combo is kind of cool).

His Batman looks particularly Sam Kieth-inspired and his Madhatter has the facial structure of John Tenniel's, but his Killer Croc is probably the best of his versions of various Gothamites. I think Templesmith might be the first artist I've seen who is able to perfectly marry the post "Hush" killer, cannibal crocodile version of the character with the just-a-dude-with-a-terrible-skin-disease version to come up with a sort of synthesis of the two that could work for either interpretation.

Anyway: High-quality, continuity-free, owl-less Batman comic with pretty great artwork. Even if it ultimately lacks a point-of-view or reason for being (beyond filling up pages of comics, of course).

Saga #7 (Image Comics) Hazel meets her paternal grandparents, the reader meets Marko as a child and Fiona Staples draws a giant scrotum I wish I could un-see. Mark Bagley (and Matt Fraction) and Doug Mahnke(and Geoff Johns) should be ashamed of yourselves; if you look at the wasted space splashes in FF and GL, and then look at the splash page in Saga where Staples (and Brian K. Vaughan reveal a freakish-looking antagonist), the super-comics seem especially lazy and cynical. Why go big if you're not going to show the reader something that they haven't seen before/you actually need all that space to highlight...?

Saucer Country #9 (DC) Paul Cornell explains "Men In Black" sightings using the simplest, most obvious explanation, and providing another one of those instances where I can't tell if he's invented something that feels like an authentic part of UFOlklore, or if he's simply appropriated it and blended it so smoothly into his political drama narrative that it seems like it his, whether or not it existed before he started writing the comic.

Another great cover on this issue, too.


SpongeBob Comics #4 (United Plankton Pictures) SpongeBob cedes his starring role to the villainous Plankton in this issue, as our porous protagonist, Squidward, Patrick and Mr. Krabs are relegated to supporting roles in various Plankton comics by the likes of Chuck Dixon (!!!), Hilary Barta, James Kochalka, Joey Weiser, Vanessa Davis and others. Perhaps the most impressive of them all is the Robert Leighton-written, Jacob Chabot-drawn 64-panel, two-page story in which a giant SpongeBob image is divided into a comics grid, and Plankton runs in and out of his pores and pockets for the length of the "story," which is surprisingly sophisticated.

Review: High School of The Dead Vol. 1

I can’t help but appreciate how seemingly easy it is to come up with the premise of a zombie story these days. Just think of a noun, preferably one that can double as a setting, add the words “of the Dead” and BAM! you’re half way there.
Comic Shop of the Dead. Library of the Dead. Barbershop of the Dead. Doughnut Shop of the Dead. Precinct of the Dead. Sorority House of the Dead. Girls Locker Room of the Dead. Zoo of the Dead. Museum of the Dead. Circus of the Dead. Amusement Park of the Dead. United States House of Representatives of the Dead. You get the idea; hell, at least half of those are probably comics or direct-to-DVD movies and, if they’re not, then surely some artist is working on self-publishing comics with those titles, or some wannabe screenwriter is polishing up their scripts with the same titles.

Writer Daisuke Sato and artist Shouji Sato went with High School, and thus we get the manga series High School of the Dead, in which a zombie plague breaks out at the gates of a Japanese high school.

Our hero is Takashi Komuo, a somewhat delinquent student who first notices the arrival of the undead because he was skipping class, and he manages to save his one-time childhood girlfriend Rei, whose membership in the school’s spear club comes in handy.

Focus shifts to a few other survivors in the school—an arrogant honors student and her chubby, male helper, a strong and silent member of the kendo club, a ridiculously busty school nurse—fighting their way through the school and to a bus, upon which they escape the school grounds and find things no better on the outside world.

The artwork is sharp and energetic, the kids’ faces cartoony in the expected manga way, while the zombies are rendered a more realistically, giving the gore and violence an appropriate flinchy repulsiveness. I genuinely winced looking at some of the panels, like the one where kendo clubber Saeko Busujima dents the head of a zombie with her wooden blade, or any of the many in which the living dead take big, bloody mouthfuls out of victims’ limbs.

The exploitive nature of the book doesn’t end at the violence; the short school uniforms give Sato plenty of opportunities for panty shots and other fan service-framed page layouts, opportunities that are rarely passed up.

By its end, the characters are on a highway, headed into town—some on foot, some by bus—so I expect future volumes may move the narrative into even more standardized zombie story territory, but for the first volume at least, there was a unique-ish setting and costuming to the inventive writer and talented writers run through the paces.

A few things I saw here that seemed unique to the book.

One, Takashi and Rei fighting off a zombie horde with a high-power fire hose. I haven’t seen that in a zombie movie or comic before.

Two, a character theorizes that the zombie invasion will only last as long as it takes for the dead’s flesh to rot off, as without muscle tissue they won’t be able to move their skeletons. Another counters that would be true only if these dead do rot as per normal, and the fact that they’re walking around gives one reason to think they may not. I never thought about natural forces like entropy and biodegradation putting a time limit on zombie apocalypses. It got me thinking about birds and zombies; would vultures, crows and other scavengers eventually eat all the zombies…? In the event of a zombie apocalypse, would carrion eaters evolve to be the dominant life forms…?

And, finally, there’s a neat bit where the smart girl figures out the zombies can’t really see any more, and thus track their prey by sound.

That’s hardly enough to reinvent the genre or anything, nor do I imagine this turning on anyone already turned off by the deluge of zombie material out there, but it’s different enough that those already into zombies should find something to like in it.

DC's February previews reviewed

February of next year looks like a pretty exciting month for DC Comics, as these things go.

Probably the biggest news of the month is that it will see the very last issue of Hellblazer, which began its life in 1988 as a Swamp Thing spin-off and has been in constant publication ever since. It is the last remaining title of those that launched DC's mature readers Vertigo imprint, and was written by a who's who of writers, including Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Brian Azzrello, Mike Carey and Peter Milligan. It will end with February 2013's 300th issue, which means it will have published as many issues as Dave Sim's Cerebus did, just to put its longevity into perspective.

DC is apparently going to move protagonist John Constantine into his own DCU title entitled simply Constantine (the character has been appearing in DCU books since just around the time of the "New 52" relaunch).

What does that mean for Veritgo...? Essentially the imprint consists of little more than The Unwritten, Fables and Fables spin-offs, plus reprinted collections of books from their 1990s heyday. In other words, the writing seems to be on the wall that Vertigo may be about to go the way of all the other DC imprints it has so far managed to outlive.

Also worth noting this month is DC's insanely ambitious, soul-crushing, maybe-even-DM-damaging plan to release fifty-motherfucking-two variant covers for Justice League of America #1 (more on that below), and that seemingly never-ending family-specific crossover stories will continue to not have ended, including the Batman line's "Death of the Family," the Superman line's "H'el on Earth," the Green Lantern line's Third Army/First Lantern business, Justice League/Aquaman's "Throne of Atlantis" and Animal Man/Swamp Thing's "Rotworld."

To see DC's complete solicitation info, I'd recommend doing so at Comic Book Resources or ComicsAlliance, as those are the folks who occasionally pay me to write about comics for 'em.

Now allow me to read over your shoulder...

Wait a minute, does the Ame-Comi version of Supergirl, depicted here on Emanuela Lupacchino's cover for Ame-Comi Girls #5 have a less skimpy costume then the one the DCU Supergirl introduced in 2006 by Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner used wore...?

That can't be right.

Ethan Van Sciver's cover for Batman: The Dark Knight #17 looks appropriately completely insane.

THE DC UNIVERSE BY ALAN MOORE TP
Written by ALAN MOORE
Art by JIM APARO, PARIS CULLINS, GEORGE FREEMAN, DAVE GIBBONS, KLAUS JANSON, KEVIN O’NEILL, JOE ORLANDO, GEORGE PEREZ, KURT SCHAFFENBERGER, CURT SWAN, RICK VEITCH, AL WILLIAMSON, BILL WILLINGHAM, JIM BAIKIE, MICHAEL LOPEZ, AL RIO, TREVOR SCOTT and more
Cover by FRAZER IRVING
On sale MARCH 27 • 464 pg, FC, $24.99 US
• Alan Moore’s work on some of DC’s greatest characters is a benchmark for great stories with fresh approaches to iconic characters.
• Now available in trade paperback, this volume includes ACTION COMICS #583, BATMAN ANNUAL #11, DC COMICS PRESENTS #85, DETECTIVE COMICS #549-550, GREEN LANTERN #188, THE OMEGA MEN #26-27, SECRET ORIGINS #10, SUPERMAN #423, TALES OF THE GREEN LANTERN CORPS ANNUAL #2 & 3, SUPERMAN ANNUAL #11, VIGILANTE #17-18, VOODOO #1-4 and DEATHBLOW: BY BLOWS #1-3!

It seems to me DC publishes this book about once a year, with slightly different contents and a new cover each time. THis particular verison of it seems to be chock-full of Moore's WildStorm work, from the period before DC absorbed WildStorm.

Irving's a fine artist and all, but his cover doesn't hold a candle to Brian Bolland's cover for an earlier version of an Alan Moore does DC collection:

GREEN ARROW #17
Written by JEFF LEMIRE
Art and cover by ANDREA SORRENTINO
…
On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Welcome the new team of writer JEFF LEMIRE and artist ANDREA SORRENTINO!
• As Ollie struggles to come to terms with the loss of his fortune, his company and his heritage, he discovers a shocking truth about his father that ties to his time stranded on an island before he became Green Arrow.
• Plus: Green Arrow battles the deadly archer known as Komodo!

Wow, Ann Nocenti’s done writing Green Arrow already…? Well if Jeff Lemire is set to become the new “regulare” writer on the series, that will make him its in just 17 issues, following J.T. Krul (3 issues), Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens (3 issues) and the aforementioned Nocenti (11 issues, if she's doing the ones between now and #17 too).

THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS VOL. 2 HC
Written by JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, MICHAEL FLEISCHER, JOEY CAVALIERI and others
Art by JACK KIRBY, JOE SIMON, MIKE ROYER, WALLACE WOOD and others
Cover by JACK KIRBY
On sale APRIL 17 • 624 pg, FC, $39.99 US
• Collecting more of Jack Kirby’s epic tales from the 1970s and 1980s starring The Sandman, The Justice League, Atlas and many more.
• Collects BLACK MAGIC #1-9, 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL #1, 5 and 6, KUNG FU FIGHTER #3, THE SANDMAN #1-6, DC COMICS PRESENTS #84, SUPER POWERS VOL.1 #1-5 and SUPER POWERS VOL. 2 #1-6, and KOBRA #1.

Hey, I once wrote a post in which I discussed my desire to see all of the Kirby Super Powers comics collected!

This isn't the way I would have wanted to see them published—in my perfect world, DC would publish everything as Showcase Presents collections—but it's better than nothing.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by DAVID FINCH
On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
…
• The march toward TRINITY WAR begins with part one of “WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS”!
• Green Lantern! Green Arrow! Catwoman! Katana! Vibe! Hawkman! Stargirl! They aren’t the world’s greatest super heroes—they’re the most dangerous! But why does a team like the JLA need to exist? What is their ultimate mission? And who is pulling the strings?
• Plus: Find out why Martian Manhunter is the most dangerous of them all. Period.

In an effort to boost sales on the Jim Lee-free, Justice League B-title to the point it sells in the neighborhood of last year’s Justice League #1, DC will quite insanely be offering 52 different variant covers, each including the flag of one of the 50 states, plus one for Puerto Rico and Washington D.C., just to hit that magic number the publisher is so enamored with.

Here’s the scheme, as DC lays it out:

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 is available with cover art by DAVID FINCH.
The standard edition cover features the flag of the United States.
This issue is available in 52 U.S. flag variant editions, one for each state plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico
In addition, you may order a shrinkwrapped pack of the standard edition of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 plus all 52 variant covers, with a suggested retail price of $149.99 US. There is no minimum purchase needed to order this item.

If they were truly variant covers, varying by content and art, that might be something, but it appears as if they will simply digitally swap out the American flag in the image above for the various state flags...and that they will look kind of shitty.

Maybe I’d be interested if there was an Ohio artist drawing the Ohio one…? (And if David Finch wasn’t drawing the interiors. And if it was set in pre-New 52 continuity, as the characters I like on the line-up will now be brand-new, Ultimate versions of the ones I know, care anything at all about).

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA’S VIBE #1
Written by ANDREW KREISBERG and GEOFF JOHNS
Art by PETE WOODS
Cover by DAVID FINCH
…
On sale FEBRUARY 20 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• No, that’s not a typo. Vibe stars in his own ongoing monthly title, starting with this debut issue cowritten by GEOFF JOHNS!
• One of the most unlikely members of the Justice League of America ever (okay, THE most unlikely) will soon discover he’s one of the most powerful individuals on Earth. But how did Vibe get his abilities? What is the cost to them? And why does the JLA want him on the team so desperately?
• Plus: We’ve seen the Red Room and the Black Room, but what is...the Circus?

They’re not taking any chances with the Vibe ongoing are they, putting the words “Justice League” right there in the title, instead of just a “From the Pages of JLA!” tag on the cover (as they did with Martian Manhunter's late-'90s ongoing).

I imagine this will do okay as long as Johns sticks around, but the fact that the person writing the solicits is already making fun of Vibe isn’t encouraging me to read it. After having seen how Johns handled Aquaman, by spending a year insisting the character is a joke character while simultaneously having the character angrily insist he is not a joke, I’m kind of afraid to see what Johns would do with Vibe.

KATANA #1
Written by ANN NOCENTI
Art by ALEX SANCHEZ
Cover by DAVID FINCH
…
On sale FEBRUARY 13 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• From the pages of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and BIRDS OF PREY!
• KATANA is a former assassin on a noble quest to restore the OUTSIDERS to their former glory!
• Will she succeed, or will she be overcome by the power of her sword, the SoulTaker?

Huh. Not only will Katana be getting her first solo title, but she’ll also be on two different superhero teams simultaneously…? That seems like a lot of Katana, doesn’t it? Perhaps her inclusion in the next Batman cartoon and the higher profile it might bring will justify all the Katana content in the DCU next year.

I was surprised to see a mention of the Outsiders in the solicit…do the Outsiders exist in the New 52, then…? I know they just recently introduced Black Lightning; I haven’t heard or seen anything of Metamorpho or Geo-Force existing yet.

Oh, by the way, I think I kinda like Katana's new costume. It may be the only New 52boot redesign I prefer to what a character was wearing pre-New 52.


THE PHANTOM STRANGER #5
Written by DAN DIDIO
Art by BRENT ANDERSON and PHILIP TAN
Cover by JAE LEE
On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• The Phantom Stranger’s family has gone missing!
• He’ll stop at nothing to find them, even if it means going up against Pandora and the vengeful wrath of The Spectre!

So how come The Spectre is still in the New 52’s main DC Universe, while the rest of his JSA teammates are now on New 52 Earth 2…?

The Guardian's saliva vomit looks pretty pathetic next to Atrocitus' blood vomit.

That's not really supposed to be Jaime Reyes on the cover of Threshold #2, is it...?

YOUNG ROMANCE: A NEW 52 VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL #1
Written by ANDY DIGGLE, ANN NOCENTI, CECIL CASTELLUCCI, PETER MILLIGAN and others
Art by GENE HA, EMANUELLA LUPPICHINNO, BECKY CLOONAN, PHIL JIMENEZ, SANFORD GREEN and others
Cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT
On sale FEBRUARY 6 • 64 pg, FC, $7.99 US • RATED T
• Romance is in the air in this very special Special!
• Wonder Woman consults Eros himself about her feelings for The Man of Steel.
• Barbara Gordon has always been too busy for romance, but could her role as Batgirl bring her back to the first guy she ever kissed?
• Following the events of “Death in the Family,” how can Catwoman ease Batman’s troubled soul?
• Aquaman makes waves as he treats his wife like a queen for a day.
• From the pages of STORMWATCH, Apollo and Midnighter celebrate Valentine’s Day separately but with each other in mind. Who—or what—stands between them?
• Dick Grayson and the daughter of Lucious Fox meet-cute!
• Plus: Perforated Valentine’s Day cards featuring the stars of these stories!

The cover, featuring Wonder Woman dry-humping Superman, is kind of a disappointment, especially given the title's suggestion of an older book with a very distinct style of cover imagery.

The solicit does offer some very specific details, including a fairly full roster of involved creators and even breakdowns of several of the stories, which is good news; generally DC's solicitations of such anthology books are very vague, suggesting the contents are still being hashed out.

The involvement of EDILW favorites Cloonan, Jimenez and Green is also good news; I may check this one out, although I think we are now at the point that books of 60 or more pages should probably just be published as original trade paperbacks; when one's breaking a ten for a single issue, one might as well get a spine on their comic, even if it costs a couple more bucks.

I do hope this means DC will be doing more holiday specials in the near future.