Marvel's October previews reviewed

If you thought my post on DC's October solicits was late then you ain't seen nothing yet! Here's the even later post on Marvel's October solicits, which you can find in full here.

Let's get right to it, as it's Thursday night, about a week since these were originally released for public consumption, and everyone interested in comic books who isn't in San Diego right now is probably eyeballs deep in comics news anyway...

DAREDEVIL #32
MARK WAID (W) • CHRIS SAMNEE (A/C)
THOR BATTLE VARIANT COVER ALSO AVAILABLE
• The Man Without Fear--trapped in a nightmare situation!
• Something final is building in Daredevil’s life--and building fast!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

Thor Battle Variant Cover Also Available? Who would want a Thor battle variant cover when the regular cover has all of Marvel's Universal monster analogues on it?

Ooh, unless the Thor Battle variant cover has Thor battling Daredevil and all those monsters on this cover...?

Nice cover for Deadpool #18, Declan Shavley.

Well, that's two more issues than I expected it to last, anyway.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #8
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W) • FRANCESCO FRANCAVILLA (A/C)
...
INFINITY TIE-IN
• What will it take for Peter Quill to betray the entire Marvel Universe?
• And if you don’t know Eisner award winning artist Francesco Francavilla yet, you will after this comic!
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

Oh come on now, do any of you really not know who Francavilla is yet? Shame on you. Shame on you.

INFINITY #5 (of 6)
JONATHAN HICKMAN (W) • JEROME OPEñA & DUSTIN WEAVER (A)
Cover BY ADAM KUBERT
...
• The Avengers Universe.
• The Heroes of Earth rally to defeat Thanos.
• The war for Earth begins.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

"Begins"...? In the fifth issue of a six-issue series? Man, that's gonna be a pretty short war. What have they been doing the last four issues, if not fighting...? It has Hickman's name in front of the W, afterall, not Bendis'...


MARVEL FIRSTS: THE 1980S VOL. 1 TPB
Written by HOWARD CHAYKIN, DENNY O’NEIL, BILL MANTLO, TOM DEFALCO, BRUCE JONES, STEVEN GRANT, MARK GRUENWALD, BOB LAYTON, CHRIS CLAREMONT, JO DUFFY, JOHN BYRNE, JIM OWSLEY & LOUISE SIMONSON
Penciled by HOWARD CHAYKIN, STEVE DITKO, JOHN ROMITA JR., GIL KANE, BOB LAYTON, FRANK MILLER, RICK LEONARDI, BOB MCLEOD, BRET BLEVINS, JOHN BYRNE, MARK GRUENWALD, PAUL SMITH, JOHN BUSCEMA, GEORGE FREEMAN & JUNE BRIGMAN
Cover by VARIOUS
Roll up your jacket sleeves, and dust off your Rubik’s Cube as Marvel heads back to the eighties! From Alpha Flight to Zabu, heroes old and new grab the spotlight in their own titles in this first classic collection of the decade’s most dazzling debuts! All your favorites are here — including Dominic Fortune, Captain Universe and the New Mutants — plus Marvel’s first “event” miniseries! Collecting material from HULK (1978) #21, MARVEL SPOTLIGHT (1979) #9, DAZZLER #1, material from KA-ZAR THE SAVAGE #11, MARVEL SUPER HERO CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS #1, HERCULES (1982) #1, WOLVERINE (1982) #1, VISION AND THE SCARLET WITCH (1982) #1, MARVEL GRAPHIC NOVEL #4, SAGA OF CRYSTAR: CRYSTAL WARRIOR #1, ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) #1, HAWKEYE (1983) #1, CLOAK AND DAGGER (1983) #1, FALCON #1, MAGIK (1983) #1, JACK OF HEARTS #1 and POWER PACK (1984) #1.
472 PGS./Rated T+ …$34.99

Collecting all the first issues of a bunch of comics from a certain time period strikes me as a pretty cool idea (Although, hey, some of those numbers aren't 1s!), even though I'm not really interested in this particular book.

SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #20
DAN SLOTT (W) • GIUSEPPE CAMUNCOLI (A/C)
VARIANT COVER BY Milo Manara
• From the fallout of NECESSARY EVIL, comes new beginnings and new twists that will be felt in the pages of Spider-Man for years to come! SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #20 is where it all starts! Do NOT miss this one!
• It’s the first ever adventure for the Superior Spider-Man and the Black Cat. Felicia Hardy always cared for the Spider more than the man. But what happens when that man is Otto Octavius?
• Plus: A day Otto has been waiting for is finally here. Is the world ready for “Dr. Peter Parker”... and what he plans to do next?
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99

I didn't think of it until seeing that cover image, but it really makes sense that if Doc Ock was in Spidey's body these days, he would augment it with four-more mechanical limbs. Nice to see he built four of 'em too, instead of three, as Tony Stark built for Spider-Man during the pre-Civil War (antebellum?) period in which Spidey was wearing the maroon and gold "Iron Spidey" suit, with its three spider-legs, giving him seven limbs total.

I know there was a whole story arc during Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man run about whether Doctor Otto "Doctor Octopus" Octavius was smarter than Tony "Iron Man" Stark or not, but based on their ability to count the number of limbs on a spider, I'd say Doc Ock's got the bigger brain.

Clever cover for Superior Spider-Man Team-Up, Paolo Rivera.


THOR: THE CROWN OF FOOLS
THOR & THE MIGHTY AVENGERS
MARVEL UNIVERSE THOR DIGEST
MARVEL UNIVERSE THOR COMIC READER #2
THOR VS. THANOS TPB
THOR: THE WARRIORS THREE — THE COMPLETE COLLECTION TPB
THOR: SUNLIGHT & SHADOWS TPB
JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY FEATURING SIF VOL. 2: SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION TPB

That's an awful lot of Thor collections being released in October. What, is there some sort of movie or something coming out...?


THUNDERBOLTS #16 & 17
CHARLES SOULE (W)
JEFTE PALO (A)
Cover by JULIAN TOTINO
TEDESCO
INFINITY TIE-INS!
• The ’Bolts’ “Perfect Plan” is going off the rails in Thanos’ wake!
• One of the Black Order sets her sights on the Red Leader!
32 PGS. (EACH)/Parental Advisory …$2.99 (EACH)

To be honest, I'm a little surprised they haven't retitled this book The Avengerbolts yet (Similarly, that Fearless Defenders isn't Fearless Avenders yet).


ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #28
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W)
DAVID MARQUEZ (A/C)
“SPIDER-MAN NO MORE” CONCLUDES
• The end of the first chapter of the MILES MORALES saga
• Miles discovers one of the big secrets of his origin.
• Guest starring CLOAK AND DAGGER and SPIDER-WOMAN
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Woah, woah, woah—the twenty-eighth issue of this series is the end of the first chapter?! Not content with being the king of decompression, Bendis is apparently making a bid to become the god of decompression.

Man of Steel thoughts

—I arrived pretty late to a 6:55 showing. I live only a few minutes walk from a movie theater, so I didn't even leave my house until 6:56, figuring the excessive amount of previews would give me the time cushion I needed not to miss anything. When I walked in, I saw some some big elephant-esque animal in the foreground and a spaceship in the background on the screen, and wondered what movie this was a preview to. Turns out it was Man of Steel, already underway, and I'm not sure how much I missed. I hope what I missed was Jor-El and Lara and their baby hanging around the house with their dog Krypto. Otherwise, this movie was Krypto-less. And if Jor-El can have a four-winged Avatar dragon pet to fly around on, he can have a Kryptonian space-dog.

—I liked how much they set on Krypton at the beginning, and think it was a smart to choice to go so hard in the direction of science-fiction for the trappings of this film (and by science-fiction, I just mean spaceships and lasers and robots and aliens and shit, not like, whatever the actual, literary definition of science-fiction is, according to people who give a shit about such things). It certainly helped differentiate this Superman film from all the previous ones (as did all the action, violence and destruction) and from so many of the other superhero films that have been made between the original cycle, Superman Returns and this one. So many of the superhero movies have been superhero-genre movies, that making Man of Steel a superhero/sci-fi film seemed like a good choice (Similarly, I think Captain America benefited from being a superhero period piece).

—That said, I was a little disappointed by how unimaginative and generic Krypton looked. It basically looked like every non-Star Wars American live-action science fiction movie made since, I don't know, when did Alien come out...? Or maybe Dune? No color, generic metal junk everywhere, the same damn sound effects on everything. It was drab, with the possible exception of the funny hats the council people wore, and looked just like the locations in, I don't know, Chronicles of Riddick or something.

I don't know that a straight Silver Age Krypton woulda worked, or a John Byrne version either, but it seemed lacking in imagination and didn't really pop as a distinct place.

—Russell Crowe was really good, I thought. Maybe it was just the beard and the accent, but I thought he did a real Sir Alec Guinness job of classing up a big, stupid summer movie.

—I liked when Jor-El put on his armor to Jason Bourne-fight General Zod, who had his suit of armor on, and neither of them wore helmets of any kind. Had this advanced society neglected the invention of a way to protect one's head when one gets in a fist-fight wearing metal from the neck down...?

—Krypton must have the most expensive, most inefficient criminal justice system in the universe, if it literally involves shooting their criminals into space, artificially creating a black hole and shunting them into it.

—Henry Cavill was very handsome, whether bearded, shaven or wearing a light frosting of scruff. A lady I worked with said she found the movie long, boring and remarkably humorless, and it would have been a complete waste were Superman not so easy on the eyes. I think he did a fine job playing this version of Clark Kent, who apparently spent 33 years brooding, and a few weeks fighting aliens.

—I liked the flashbacks to his childhood, rather than having to sit through all that again in another movie, especially since everyone on Earth knows Superman's basic deal at this point, thanks to some 40 years worth of movies and his almost continuous presence on television since, I don't know, my dad was a little boy, maybe...?

—High-five to the casting directors who found all those kids to play Clark at various ages. I thought they did a good job of finding kids who basically all looked like the same person at the same age, and weren't annoying.

—Fat, ginger Pete Ross was a bit of a surprise. A bigger surprise, really, than Smallville's black Pete Ross.

—I wasn't terribly impressed with Amy Adams' Lois Lane. But then, I didn't like her Lois any less than Kate Bosworth's. I'm not terribly familiar with any of the TV Lois Lanes, and while Margot Kidder was the best of the movie Lanes, in my estimation, she's still not the Lois Lane that exists in my head, or that the comics suggest to me—that Lois Lane is essentially Rosalind Russell from His Girl Friday. Of all the non-comics Lois Lane's I've seen, I think the Bruce Timm-designed, Dana Delany-voiced version from the 1996 cartoon version, Superman: The Animated Series, is probably the best.

—Hey, Detective Stabler!

—I am totally okay with Perry White being played by a black guy, but I am not okay with Perry White having a diamond earring.

—Laurence Fishburne did fine, but like every other character in the movie, he lacked much personality, and didn't seem like himself: He didn't say any of his catch phrases, he didn't yell at Jimmy Olsen, he didn't even seem gruff.

—And speaking of Jimmy Olsen, WTF Man of Steel...? I suspect that he was in an earlier draft and became Rebecca Buller's Jenny at some point, perhaps to get another female character in the cast instead of another dude...? That would be cool if DC then publishes a comic entitled Superman's Gal Pal Jenny Olsen or Superman's Totally Platonic Friend Jenny Olsen.

—Kevin Costner's Pa Kent's "maybe" line doesn't sound any better in context.

—And his death by tornado was just silly. I get what they were going for—Superman feeling guilty for not acting, even though he was obeying his father's dying wish—but jeez it made Clark seem like a horrible, horrible person. Man, I woulda ran out there for my dad, and I'm not even indestructible. Maybe if they staged it so that he had to choose between his mom and dad and his dad told him to choose his mom? Or...I don't know. I think this panel from a part-comics/part-prose illustrated review Ryan Alexander-Tanner did for Bitch sums up the silliness of that scene pretty well, though:

—Superman's new costume looked much better on film, in the film, than it does in stills and promotional images and print ads. The darker colors, the weird wristbands, the lack of shorts and yellow belt all made it look more like the costume of an evil alternate Superman from an Elseworlds or possible future (ditto the New 52 suit, with it's high collar and and armor-like appearance) but it looked a lot better here than I expected, given what I'd previously seen. The only really distracting part was the weird belt-like part that hugged his ribs—it made it look like he was wearing some sort of girdle.

—I think using the Kryptonian villains as the first villains in a new Superman cycle of films (if this one makes enough money, I guess) was a bold choice, but probably a good one. It's kinda what they did with the last Batman cycle (building up to his archenemy in the sequel) and it seems to be the approach they're taking with the just-rebooted Spider-Man cycle, with minor villains like The Lizard and, next, Electro in the mix, while Norman Osborn is mentioned and lurking in the background.

—That said, I think it was a mistake to go completely Luthor-less (other than a "Lexcorp" logo on a truck in the background of one scene). I'm not sure where they could have fit him in, exactly, maybe alongside Dr. Emil Hamilton as a more hot-headed, arrogant, fuck-this-alien-guy assistant or co-worker of some kind, and it might have slightly warped the plot a bit, but I guess they could have cut out like 15 minutes of office buildings exploding and collapsing, or some of the crasser 9/11 allusions, to make room for Luthor.

If they make a second one, and they put Lex in it, he's certainly gonna have a pretty good, pretty compelling motivation in hating Superman, as there's a pretty compelling argument to be made that Superman is an alien menace who almost brought about the complete destruction of Earth (even if by accident) and killed, I don't know, thousands and leveled a large portion of Fake New York (Seriously, right before the climactic battle with Zod, Metropolis looked like a wasteland, with only four Daily Planet staffers surviving). (Also, he coulda lost his hair when he got doused in chemicals or set on fire during one of the many fights, thus keeping his comic book origin intact!)

—A lot of the hand-to-hand fighting was clumsily staged, particularly the Jor-El/Zod fight at the beginning, and, oddly enough, the Superman/Zod fight at the end. Matrix Revolutions probably had better Superman fights in it than this Superman film did. The best action scenes by far were probably Faora's super-speed kung fu.

—I was amused to see Clark Kent take a swig of a Budweiser while visiting his mom at the farmhouse, given the fact that DC changed that one cover from that one storyline that heavily-inspired this movie (Along with Superman: Birthright and, I think, some of Kurt Busiek's post-"One Year Later," pre-New 52 run) so that rather than sharing a beer with his father, Clark was sharing a "Soda Pop" brand soda pop:

—I didn't really understand how the yellow sun (Well, they say "young sun" and atmosphere/gravity of earth here) works on the Kryptonians; I thought Superman was so powerful (more powerful than Jor-El calculated) because he was there sucking up solar energy for 33 years, whereas the bad Kryptonians just arrived and were as powerful as Superman lickety-split. I didn't get a lot of the "science" in this though, to be honest.

—Tonight was the first time in my entire life I thought the phrase "Eye-beam him, you idiot!" It was when Zod was down for the count, his senses being overwhelmed by his sudden acquisition of super-hearing and super-vision powers, and his men came to drag him to safety on their spaceship, while Superman just kinda stood there looking at them, not blasting them with heat-vision. Than the U.S. military came and blew up half of Smallville with missiles.

—The collateral damage in this film was just ridiculous. Perhaps because it was a Superman film, and I'm so used to him getting into super-fights with zero civilian casualties from the comics. The last Superman comic I read was Superman Unchained #2, in which he figured out a way to stop a skyscraper full of civilians from crumbling without any of them getting killed during less than twenty seconds, while fighting a giant robot.

—If they do make a sequel, I'm not sure what they'll do as far as giving Superman someone to fight, like he's got here. I mean, I know he's got a rogue's gallery of other super-powered folks to fight, and I suppose they could have Luthor build a Bizarro clone or Brainiac a super-robot body or have one or the other of those two manufacture Doomsday, but with the Phantom Zone villains kayoed, most of the biggest names in Superman's rogues gallery are thinkers and/or 5th dimensional imps, which won't allow for all the punching and and car-throwing we get in this first movie, and generally sequels get more and more action-packed, right...?

—I wasn't as upset by the fact that the climax turned on a sort of 9/11-from-space sequence as at least one of my favorite comics bloggers was (that is, I didn't walk out of the theater; but then, I was in Columbus, Ohio on September 11, 2001—hundreds of miles, seemingly worlds away from the ash-covered, terrified New Yorkers running for, jumping for and losing their lives), but I think Snyder went way too overboard with it. I've seen American cities similarly decimated by alien invaders in a couple of similarly huge summer movies since 9/ll—L.A. in Battleground: Los Angeles, Chicago in Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Manhattan in Avengers come most immediately to mind—but they weren't as obvious nor as ham-fisted in their appropriation of imagery from the 9/11 attacks. I'm not even entirely sure why those scenes are even in the movie, save to give more screen time to the Planet staffers, and to give them something active to do.

It's possible that Snyder and his screenwriters wanted to tie the origin of their new Superman into some sort of 9/11-inspired zeitgeist, but they just did a really poor, really clumsy job of it. Not unlike their efforts to make Superman seem like a Christ-like, savior figure, even right down to his age, his turning the other cheek, his fully human-but-fully god(-like) nature and even framing his face with a stained glass window image of Jesus in a few shots. I mean, yes, they made him pretty Christ-like in a lot of respects—right up until the point where rather than giving himself up to be sacrificed, he rebels, beats the shit out of all his foes and kills a dude. It woulda been like if, in Passion of the Christ, Jesus tore himself off the cross, beat up the Roman Empire, and then snapped Pontius Pilate's neck.

—And speaking of neck-snapping...

What the fuck was that all about? I agree with Chris Sims pretty much 100% here. Fans could argue over what Superman could have or should have done in that instance (I would suggest maybe cover Zod's eyes with his own invincible hand, or turn Zod around so his eye-beams weren't gonna hit those people...dude was able to fly straight up through the gravity beam that was terraforming earth and out-fly a collapsing black hole or whatever by trying really hard; he couldn't push Zod's face into the pavement by gritting his teeth and trying?), but, as Sims pointed out, why on earth would the writers and director put Superman in a position where he had to kill a dude anyway?! They're controlling all the circumstances, after all; have the Phatom Zone hole stay open slightly longer, and have Superman and Zod fight it out until it culminates in Supes tossing Z in right before it closes or something. Jeez.

It was just weird and unnecessary and out-of-place—as Sims pointed out, having Superman execute a guy (which is something Kryptonian society doesn't even do!) on the spot is probably one of the few things they could have done to make a creepier, more morally dubious Superman than the deadbeat dad one trying to break up Lois' engagement to Cyclops and super-stalking her family in Superman Returns.

—Another bold decision was that of keeping Clark Kent out of the equation until the very end. Well, I mean, young Clark Kent is in this, and everyone calls him Clark, but he doesn't become a reporter until the very end of the movie. That's the first time I felt let down by Cavill's performance, by the way (Well, that and the weird exertion faces he made when he was trying to Superman really, really hard). Christopher Reeve completely transformed himself in terms of mannerisms, voice, posture, everything when he went from Clark to Superman to Clark again; Cavill seriously just wears glasses.

—Say, did they actually go this entire film without making any reference to kneeling before Zod? Because that's some accomplishment. No one ever passes up an opportunity to quote or riff on that line...

—I do hope they make a second one of these, if only so they can make a third or more, because I really wanna see some of Superman's other great enemies make it into a film someday, and so far all we've gotten are Luthor, Luthor and the Phantom Zone criminals, a fake Luthor, Luthor and Nuclear Man or whatever, Luthor, and The Phantom Zone criminals again. I'm ready for some Brainiac, Bizarro and (fingers crossed!) Mxyzsptlk some day.

—Ryan Reynolds didn't show up in a teaser mid-way through the credits to ask Superman if he ever thought about forming a League of some sorts, did he? Because I didn't stick around, as the Marvel movies have trained me to do.

—Speaking of the credits, if they're not going to use the Superman theme from the original cycle, or some new version of it, would it really kill them to, like, think of a new theme? This movie had a score of sorts, but unlike that of the originals—or Star Wars ( both trilogies) or Indiana Jones, movies whose themes have been in my head almost my entire life, or the original Batman films, which has been in my head my entire adult life—I can't remember a single bar of the music from this movie I just got done watching about a half hour or so ago.

Millar, Superior and "The R-Word"

How can a reader tell when something written in a work of fiction represents the author's viewpoint and when it is merely dialogue the author is using to represent the viewpoint of his characters?

That's a tricky question to wrestle with, and, personally, I don't see any reason to ever assume the latter over the former with any degree of confidence.

That said, when an author has three very different characters use the same increasingly rarely used, no longer socially acceptable, completely un-PC term three times in the same relatively short story? Well, that at least can make a readers suspicious of the author.

I bring this up because I just read a trade paperback collection of Superior, the 2011, 7-issue Leinil Yu-penciled series that Marvel Entertainment published on their creator-owned/keep-Bendis-and Millar-happy-at-all-costs Icon imprint. It was written by Mark Millar, no stranger to having folks arch their eyebrows at the words of his narrators and characters and getting uncomfortable about the degree to which the characters speak for the author.

If you haven't read it—and you needn't—Superior is either a rejected pitch for a Superman comic that DC didn't like as much as Millar's Red Son, or it's an idea for a Superman story that Millar had but realized if he just changed some characters and costumes (here, extremely slightly) as he did with Wanted, he could get away with using DC characters for another publisher, and reap the financial reward of the book and/or the movie adaptation. (This isn't a review of the book; I'll get to that in the near future, but this one aspect struck me as so strange and made me so uncomfortable, I thought it worth noting in its own post before proceeding to the formal aspects of the comic and assessments of the overall quality).

This is the narrator of the book, the Lois Lane character Madeline Knox, who starts narrating about halfway through the first issue, but isn't actually introduced until this scene in the third issue:

While there's no indication of how old she is, it would be safe to assume by her profession—a popular, New York City-based television journalist and newscaster—and her success in that field that she's no younger than her mid-twenties, and more likely somewhere in her thirties. In other words, awfully old to still be casually using the word "retard" (Particularly in front of strangers in public, I imagine).

In her defense, she does tell the reader, just two pages prior that, this scene takes place "Back when all I cared about was how much I weighed and what my ratings were...I don't think I was a very nice person back in those days."

No, she doesn't seem like it, and I suppose ranting and raving about "a retard convention" is a decent shorthand to prove just how not a very nice person she was "back in those days" (a strange turn of phrase, since the point in time she's narrating from is just a few weeks later).

Here's another character in the book from a big "twist" scene a few issues later. He's Ormon, and he is a (spoiler, if you do wanna read this book and experience as its writer intended it to be read) demon from hell:

As a demon from hell, I suppose it's not surprising that an evil character would use any hurtful word, although as a 500-year-old demon from hell*, it's a strange example of word usage. "Simpleton" or "fool" sure sounds more like something a demon from the late 16th century might say. Then again, he's talking to a 12-year-old boy, so maybe he's using their language (Do 12-year-old boys still say "gay" and "retarded" to mean "anything negative in any general way," like I, to my shame and regret ,used to when I was in grade-school? Or have those words and their usage in that way been pretty much stamped out?)

Here's another character from the book, an actual 12-year-old boy, although through the infernal powers of Ormon he's been transformed into Superior's arch-villain Abraxas (While the word "Abraxas" has origins that pre-date comics by centuries, it's worth noting that both Marvel and DC have villains named Abraxas; the DC version spelled his name "Abraxis" and appeared in 1992's Armageddon: Inferno, while the Marvel one appeared in a Fantastic Four annual from 2001):

So that's three characters in seven issues saying some derivation of a word I haven't heard spoken since...Tropic Thunder, maybe...? And that I don't think I've ever read in a superhero comic published by Marvel or starring Superman, but I could be wrong. (Actually, I'd bet some money it was used in Millar's Kick-Ass more than once, although I only made it about half-way through that miniseries).

Anyway, three seems a lot for a comic book published in 2011.

*Now that I think about it, maybe he's not 500-years-old, but merely hasn't been able to convince anyone to sell a soul to him in 500 years, and he's actually the same age as all demons; the comic doesn't get too deep into demonic biology or the cosmic origin of angels and demons or anything.

Meanwhile, at ComicsAlliance...

Hey, are you guys reading the big Justice Leagues crossover story, "Trinity War" this summer...?

I am.

DC's October previewes reveiwed

So for the first time in memory, DC Comics released their solicitations for comics they plan to publish three months hence, and I didn't even notice until Thursday night, when I saw Tom Bondurant's column on Robot 6 (This despite visiting ComicsAlliance and Comic Book Resources daily). So, naturally, my monthly review of the previews is a few days later than usual this month. Sorry.

Why didn't I notice? I don't know. I hope it's not because of a growing, perhaps ever terminal apathy toward super-comics. I mean, if I quit super-comics, there are certainly enough reprints of old comics and manga out there that I'd never be in want of comics to read, but I really, really love superhero comics, and it seems like DC and Marvel (and Dynamite and Dark Horse and IDW) are just publishing fewer and fewer superhero comics for a price I can justify spending them on. That is, $2.99-$3.50.

Like, $3 is just a cup of coffee and a doughnut, but $4? That's a cafe mocha—a special treat for when I'm flush and wanna spurge on a sweet, caffeinated beverage, you know? That's not just most of a gallon of gas, it's more than a gallon of gas.

I thought this piece on The Beat about DC's quietly moving away from their "drawing the line at $2.99" pledge was interesting (and really, who can blame them for doing so quietly? It'd be weird to make a big deal about going back on a pledge, or even just saying you've changed your mind, or the pledge has expired).

In the comments, Kurt Busiek chimes in by noting that market research shows that the difference between a $3.50 book and a $3.99 book doesn't discourage anyone from buying the more expensive one, so of course the company is going to take the extra 49-cents if their audience wants to give it to them (Someone at Marvel once said something similar in response to a question from Newsarama or CBR, to the effect that they charge $3.99 for comics because their readers are willing to pay $3.99 for their books).

Now, I draw my personal line at $2.99 (but will make exceptions if the content warrants it; like I really, really, really wanna see a Ross Campbell Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic even if it costs 33% more than I think it should, or if the $4 book has 30 pages worth of story or something), but I must be in the minority.

Anything over $3 I want to read, I can trade-wait, which means in some cases buying the trades, and, in others, borrowing them from the library.

DC's price hikes, and the fewer and fewer high quality series I feel I need to read serially rather than trade-waiting, has dwindles precipitously and, this round of solicitations indicates I'll be cutting the number of DC books I read serially in half, from two books to one (The print version of Batman '66, happily, will replace it, keeping the number of DC books I read serially at two).

Here's what my linen closet currently looks like:

I have a lot more comics than I do linen, so I keep the new books I'm reading serially in little stacks on the shelves of my linen closet (the top shelf, not pictured, contains towels and sheets).

You probably can't make out all the covers, but those stacks are for Adventures of Superman, Legends of the Dark Knight, Daredevil, Hawkeye, FF, Young Avengers, The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, Saga, Classic Popeye, SpongeBob Comics and then a little stack of random comics (Right now I think the last Empowered special and the last Multiple Warheads mini is in that pile). At this precise moment in time, those are the only comics I'm not trade-waiting (with the intent to either buy, like Batman, Batman Inc, Batwoman, Morrison's Action Comics, Red She-Hulk, maybe Hickman's Avengers stuff, etc) or intent to borrow (Wonder Woman, Geoff Johns' Aquaman and Justice League stuff, Indestructible Hulk, maybe Bendis' X-Men stuff, Brian Woods' boring Star Wars book and all-girl X-Men, all that Dynamite pulp stuff if I can ever find it in an Ohio library, etc).

The only reason I picked up Superior Foes was because it was a $2.99 book, and thus not something I felt was too expensive to gamble on; in fact, that same week I also tried out Avengers A.I. #1, which I didn't like enough to want to read another issue of, but $3 comics are the kinds of comics I feel I can sample, while $4 books just seem like too big an investment to impulse buy (So, super-specific anecdote, I know, but last week Marvel sold me two books I wouldn't have bought that week if they were at the other price point, and hooked me on one of them enough that I plan to keep buying it as long as they're publishing it). Like, I almost bought this book about army guys and dinosaurs this week—Chronos Commandos, maybe?—but it was $4, and I figured it would take me longer to drink and enjoy a cafe mocha some day then it would take me to read that comic.

My point—I think I had one, or thought I might have one when I started typing—was that perhaps my failure to notice a new round of solicitations had something to do with my increasing apathy for the the serially-published comic book-comics, as I reluctantly become more and more of a trade reader, due in equal parts to the unreasonably high price of so many comic books and my difficulty in finding ones so great I can't wait six-12 months to read 'em.

Anyway, what's DC got going on in October...?

AME-COMI GIRLS #8
Written by JUSTIN GRAY and JIMMY PALMIOTTI
Art by ADAM ARCHER and STEVEN CUMMINGS
Cover by EDUARDO FRANCISCO
On sale OCTOBER 16 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
FINAL ISSUE
Three new Ame-Comi Girls go on three separate solo missions to wrap up the series. Big Barda provokes a head-to-head confrontation with Darkseid, White Canary evens the odds in Vegas, and Mera defends Seattle from an attack by her evil half-sister, Black Manta.

ARROW #12
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM
Art by VICTOR DRUJINIU, JUAN CASTRO, ALLAN JEFFERSON and JONAS TRINDADE
Photo cover
On sale OCTOBER 23 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST
FINAL ISSUE
After the shocking events of the season one finale, Oliver reflects on the regrets of his past...and his course of action for the future. Plus, when a pilot gets in deep with the wrong kind of people, the Starling City vigilante becomes an unlikely ally in the fight to save his family.

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #13
Written by PETER MILLIGAN and TIM SEELEY
Art by RICCARDO BURCHIELLI and FREDDIE WILLIAMS II
Cover by DAVID WILLIAMS
On sale OCTOBER 16 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T • DIGITAL FIRST • FINAL ISSUE
Batman returns to his low-tech roots after years of counting on WayneTech gadgetry in “Return of Batman.” Then, when The Dark Knight takes one of Gotham City’s unluckiest criminals into protective custody, Thirteen forces him to reconsider in “Unlucky 13.”

So here are three of DC's digital first comic books that are being canceled; these were ones that you could apparently buy digital chapters of online and then, shortly afterward, DC would publish good old-fasioned paper-and-staples versions of 'em and then, later again, trade collections. Essentially, they were selling the material to three different audiences at three different times in three different ways, and the economics sure seemed to be working, based on how many of the series they have now.

These three are getting axed though, and I suppose in a few months Marc-Oliver Frisch  or someone will theorize as to what this means regarding the bottom line (like, exactly how few of these comic book versions they needed to sell to make the comic book versions worthwhile).

The only one that really annoys me is LDK as, it is one of only two comic book-comics I still buy and read from DC serially (and provided a nice "refuge" from the New 52, as Batman: Black and White will). I understand that they'll still do them digitally and go straight to trade, which kind of makes sense: Those trades, while a grab bag of subject matter and quality and even characters, will make fine gifts for random friend or family member that likes Batman but you don't know what books he already has, and are great for public library collections.

Me, I'm just personally bummed because after canceling Superman Family Adventures, it looks like someone from DC is breaking into my apartment, looking to see what DC comics I still buy as comic books, and then canceling out of spite. I don't expect Adventures of Superman to last much longer.

I'm not surprised to see Ame-Comi go, as that was a sort of confused and pointless endeavor from the beginning. The point of inspiration was manga/anime style reimaginging of DC characters as scantily-clad fan-service statues. The comics kept the basic costume designs, but the ever rotating art teams didn't draw in a manga/anime style, the storytelling wasn't manga/anime and the writers eschewed fan-service completely: I could find more of it any five pages of, say, Yasuhiro Kano's Pretty Face Vol. 2 (the last manga volume I read) then in any five issues of this series, which was basically just generic superhero stuff in a world with no male super-people (I was pretty put off and dropped the series around the time the writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray had a good guy character and a villain both call Harley Quinn retarded in roundabout ways ("special," and "short bus," if I recall corectly).

One virtue was that we got to see artists like Sandford Greene and Ted Naifeh draw some DC super-comics, even if their talents were kind of wasted here.

It is odd, however, that the book was just upgraded from a mini-series to an ongoing, and then canceled just a few issues into its ongoing statues.

(Given all that, I would probably be down with a Bombshells book based on their new line of super-ladies redesigned as 1940s-era pin-up girls and airplane nose art, if DC could secure a really good good-girl artist—Guillem March? Bruce Timm? Darwyn Cooke? J. Bone? Ronnie del Carmen, who they probably can't? Arthur Adams or Frank Cho, who they probably also can't? George Perez or Jerry Ordway would be good for this, as would Kevin Maguire, although he's got a pretty plum assignment...—and a good writer for a World War II era story (Maybe James Robinson?) of super-Rosie the Riveters kicking Axis ass).

As for Arrow, I have no experience with that book, and am as uninterested in it as I am in the TV show. I wonder if it's simply being canceled because the TV show is, or because, as the solicit says, it ties in to the end of a season, and thus maybe it will be relaunched in the near future with a new season...?

Suffering Shad! Is Aquaman growing out his beard again? Is this the beginning of the gradual Batman: The Brave and The Bold-ification of the King of the Seven Seas? Outrageous!


AQUAMAN ANNUAL #1
Written by JOHN OSTRANDER
Art by GERALDO BORGES and RUY JOSE
Cover by PAUL PELLETIER and DANNY MIKI
On sale OCTOBER 30 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
Aquaman must reunite with The Others to investigate whether or not their recently deceased member Vostok has returned from the dead. If he has, he is definitely not the same Vostok they remember…

Hey everybody, look! It's veteran writer John Ostrander!

I'm sort surprised to see an The Others focused storyline, given how dull I found "The Others," and I don't recall hearing much excitement in the shops or online about those character (aside from disappointment that Johns introduced a female Iranian character just to have her murdered to move the plot along).

That said, I would totally buy an The Others Vs. The Justice Experience comic!

BATMAN AND TWO-FACE #24
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art and cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY
On sale OCTOBER 16 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
“The Big Burn” part one of five! Two-Face’s first epic in The New 52 sees Batman unraveling the mysterious connections between Harvey Dent’s life and the origin of Carrie Kelley!

Okay guys, if Damian's not really coming back to life and we're not getting a new Robin or a new/old Robin in Tim Drake, I think we can just go ahead and cancel Batman and Robin, rather than just changing it's title every couple of issues to reflect a different guest-star.

You still want Tomasi and Gleason to have their own Bat-book? That's fine. Give 'em TEC or Dark Knight or, hell, just launch a new book—you're not using Gotham Knights or Shadow of the Bat at the moment—and you can even have a new #1 and everything...!

Hey, that girl who looks exactly like Barbara Gordon isn't supposed to be Carrie Kelly is it? Because that would be kind of silly if there were two teenage girls hanging around Batman and they both looked the exact same, wouldn't it?


BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE #2
Written by RAFAEL GRANPA, DAN DIDIO, RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE, JEFF LEMIRE and MICHAEL USLAN
Art by RAFAEL GRAMPA, J.G. JONES, RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE, ALEX NINO and DAVE BULLOCK
Cover by JIM STERANKO
On sale OCTOBER 2 • 48 pg, B&W, 2 of 6, $4.99 US • RATED T
The Eisner Award-winning series continues with a second amazing issue! Don’t miss new takes on the Dark Knight from legendary creators including Rafael Grampá, Dan DiDio and J.G. Jones, Rafael Albuquerque, Jeff Lemire and Alex Niño, and Michael Uslan and Dave Bullock! Plus, a cover by the amazing Jim Steranko!

Let's pause a moment to look a little more closely at the credits of this comic, the second issue in the second series in which DC rounds up the world's greatest living comics artists and allows 'em to do pretty much whatever they want for the length of a short black-and-white comic book.: Jim Steranko, Rafael Grampa, Rafael Albuquerque, Alex Nino, Jeff Lemire, Michale Uslan, Dave Bullock, Rafael Albuquerque and Dan DiDio.

Tell me, does one of those names look just a little out of place?

I can appreciate DiDio's desire to write comics, and I imagine if he does write them, he feels he must do them for the company he's working for rather than, I don't know, self-publishing mini or webcomics or something. And I can see him taking on a special challenge like "None of the last 80 guys we hired to make an Outsiders series work? I guess I can take that challenge and see if I can do better," or to work on something by special request, like the Metal Men strip he did in Wednesday Comics (another series in which he was [one of] the odd creators out in terms of talent, acclaim and stature).

But to give yourself—or even accept an offer—on such a prestigious project as this? I don't know, guys; it seems like a basketball coach deciding to put himself in the game for a quarter or something.

I know appearances and perception of being stand-up, genteel, all-around admirable and cool guys isn't something DC management are overly concerned with these days (see Before Watchmen), but this just looks gauche.

Hey look, it's a Darwyn Cooke cover for an issue of Batwing! Is this the first time you've been tempted to consider purchasing an issue of Batwing? Sadly, even Cooke trying to minimalize the hell out of that image and that costume still can't make all those little lines work, which is probably a good indication that it's not a very good costume.

You know, if they lost all the little lines, that would rather pleasantly like a blue and black version of a the Batman from Batman Beyond, wouldn't it?

DC UNIVERSE VS. THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #3
Written by KEITH GIFFEN
Art by DEXTER SOY
Cover by ED BENES
On sale OCTOBER 23 • 32 pg, FC, 3 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T
After the shocking ending to issue #2, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe find themselves hunted by the Justice League. In the midst of the chaos, Skeletor’s plan moves into its next, dangerous phase!

I'd be a lot more interested in this series if they hadn't just redesigned all of the characters from both franchises to make them nigh-unrecognizable. Like, I suppose that lady on the right is supposed to be Teela, but I'm not sure why she's dressed like Man-At-Arms and shooting a laser gun at Wonder Woman, who has traded her magic lasso in for a sword.

FOREVER EVIL #2
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by DAVID FINCH and RICHARD FRIEND
...
On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, 2 of 7, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
The villains have taken over the world! The Teen Titans fight back! Can the inexperienced teen heroes do what the adults could not? (Answer: Nope. It goes very poorly.)
This issue is also offered as a combo pack edition with a redemption code for a digital download of this issue.

Oh my God, DC has Batman appearing on so many covers now that he's got cover appearance fatigue, and whenever he sees two or more characters doing a cover shoot, she just assumes he's supposed to be on the cover too and just shows up and starts posing.

I believe Wolverine suffered from that for a while not too long ago...

You know, after watching that little promotional video DC made up for "Trinity War," this whole event is starting to feel kind of Marvel-ous, what with the hero vs. hero war leading to a take over of the DCU by the villains a la "Dark Reign"(And Brian Michael Bendis was basically just writing Norman Osborn like he was Lex Luthor with a toupee for much of that time period anyway, except for the parts where he was talking to his mask and being all Goblin-y, of course). See also DC's own Final Crisis for another "the heroes lose, the villains win" storyline.

FOREVER EVIL: ARKHAM WAR #1
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art by SCOT EATON and JAIME MENDOZA
...
On sale OCTOBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, 1 of 6, $2.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information.
As FOREVER EVIL hits the world, no corner of the DC Universe is in worse shape than Gotham City! Madness and mayhem hit the streets as both Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison unleash their prisoners upon the helpless citizens of Gotham. And with no Dark Knight to protect the city, what horrors will follow?

If that is the creative team for the series, it's not a bad one, and this would (pre-New 52) been right up my alley. Post-New 52? Well, as someone who hasn't read all that much New 52 Batman yet (like, relative to the amount they've published so far), I think it might be interesting to see who made the continuity cut and who didn't, how radically some of them have been transformed (Like Joker's Daughter; yeesh) and how the new guys (Emperor Penguin, and, what was it, Lingerie Bunny...?) fit in with the older villains.

The thing is, there's so little information in that solicitation that I have no idea what this is gonna be about. Are the villains gonna be fighting one another? Is it just going to be six issues of them murdering civilians? Are Alfred Pennyworth and Commissioner Gordon gonna team-up with Bat-Mite, Bat-Cow and Titus to kick the living shit out of all these bad guys What's the conflict here, exactly...?

Hey, why is Emperor Penguin called Emperor Penguin if he looks nothing at all like a penguin? Why isn't he just called, like Blue Face...? (I mean, aside from the obvious fact that it's a really stupid name).

GREEN LANTERN ANNUAL #2
Written by ROBERT VENDITTI
Art and cover by SEAN CHEN
On sale OCTOBER 30 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
Don’t miss the stunning conclusion of “Lights Out!” Can Relic be defeated? Who lives? Who dies? The new status quo for the Lanterns is revealed here!

Wait a minute, didn't the new status quo for the Lanterns just get revealed, like, two issues ago? Three more issues and they'll be ready for a new new status quo...?

HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #7
Written by DAN ABNETT
Art by RAFAEL KAYANAN
Cover by YILDIRAY CINAR
On sale OCTOBER 16 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
A new adventure begins here! With Eternia still occupied by the Horde, He-Man and King Randor lead a small group of Masters on a quest to find the one object that might free Eternia! Join the new creative team of Dan Abnett and Drew Johnson as they take He-Man and the Masters of the Universe into their next great chapter!

He-Man's the one with the H, right? And I guess the bearded guy is supposed to be King Randor...? He's...changed. And Teela and Stratos? Is that you Stratos? Jeez, these redesigns are all headed in the wrong direction; rather than updating the original costumes with tweaks that made them look more cool, more detailed and more realistic, as they did for that cartoon a few years back, they seem to be moving everyone away from the medieval/barbarian look and towards something more superheroic and sc-fi; this feels more The New Adventures of He-Man than the 21st century version of He-Man and THe Masters of the Universe.

Hey, serious question: Have they shown the new Buzz-Off design anywhere? I really, reeaalllly wanna know what Buzz-Off looks like now.

Here's something I never expected to type: Man, I sure am glad there are variant covers for these comics.

(Hey, "Justice League Dark" isn't actually the team's name, right? No one "in story" calls them that; it's just the title of their comic book, right?)

JUSTICE LEAGUE 3000 #1
Written by KEITH GIFFEN and J.M. DeMATTEIS
Art and cover by KEVIN MAGUIRE
...
On sale OCTOBER 2 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Don’t miss the debut of the new series starring the heroes of today—tomorrow! But what are they doing in the year 3000? And who (or what) brought them there? Get ready for a double dose of wonder as only the stellar creative team of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire can deliver!

God knows I love this creative team, and I'm pretty much always up for Kevin Maguire art, but there is absolutely nothing on this cover that doesn't make me want to laugh at this book. And I think is is supposed to be a straight, serious super-comic, and not a "Bwa-ha-ha" parody of one, right?

Kind of surprised they're going with that title instead of some form of Justice Legion, given the setting...

Like Earth 2, this is a title I'm extremely curious about, but not necessarily interested in, if that makes any sense; I'll definitely check out the first trade in a year or so.


KATANA #8
Written by ANN NOCENTI
Art by ALEX SANCHEZ and ART THIBERT
Cover by FABRIZIO FIORENTINO
On sale OCTOBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Don’t miss this rematch with Coil! Plus: Who is the Mad Samurai, and what is his connection to the soultaker?

I don't know, he's mad at it...?


NIGHTWING ANNUAL #1
Written by KYLE HIGGINS
Art by JASON MASTERS
Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
On sale OCTOBER 30 • 48 pg, FC, $4.99 US • RATED T
Robin and Batgirl grew up fighting side by side…but with Dick Grayson about to embark on a new crimefighting quest and Barbara Gordon no longer fighting under the Bat, is there anything left between them? Following the “Batgirl: Wanted” epic, this is the story of a twosome with nothing left to lose, fighting for the only thing they can: each other!

They did? Then how come that Robin is now a grown-ass man while Batgirl is still Batgirl?

(Wait, they didn't grow up fighting side by side...I thought Dick Grayson was only Robin for like eight and a half months in this new continuity...?)

I would like to take a moment to extend my sincere sympathy to the very talented Mr. Guillem March for having had to draw...whoever that big guy on the cover of The Phantom Stranger is.

SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN #1
Written by CHARLES SOULE
Art by TONY S. DANIEL and BATT
Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
...
On sale OCTOBER 9 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
Beginning a bold new series that details the relationship between The Man of Steel and the Warrior Princess as rising star writer Charles Soule is joined by fan favorite artist Tony S. Daniel to tell the tale of a romance that will shake the stars themselves. These two super-beings love each other, but not everyone shares their joy. Some fear it, some test it—and some will try to kill for it. Some say love is a battlefield, but where Superman and Wonder Woman are concerned it spells Doomsday!
...

Well, they had me right up until the art credit...

(This would be an excellent book for Phil Jimenez to draw, as he draws both of those characters very, very well. Ditto George Perez).

It is well worth noting that this is the first time that Wonder Woman has been able to support two—well, one and a half—titles—since...well, in my life-time anyway. Odd to see Hermes and Zola on that cover too, as there has been such an incredibly rigid, impenetrable wall between Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman (which features those characters) and the rest of the DC Universe. Not only has Wondy's relationship with Superman never been referenced in the book, Superman's existence hasn't been referenced. If you were only reading Wonder Woman, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was set outside the DCU, in its own world where the only super-people are gods and demigods (and at least one New God).

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, of course. Wonder Woman works just fine as it is (even if it is glacial in its pacing) and doesn't need to constantly check in with the rest of the DCU line, but it's an outlier in that DC editorial seems to be letting Azzarello get away with ignoring the rest of the universe, whereas so many other writers have left their books complaining of constant interference, and that if you read both Wonder Woman and Justice League, it really does seem like there are two entirely different Wonder Women in those books.

Here we see DC attempting to appeal to the broad and natural audience for a superhero princess consisting of thousands of little girls, a YA-reading teenage girls and Bronies by putting a pony on the cover.

Naturally, they had to DC it up though, and so the pony is a big, scary, angry monster pony standing atop a mountain of skulls.

Meanwhile...

This week I spoke to both halves of the Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdika creative team for Good Comics For Kids in a pair of interviews. Here's one with writer Jim Ottaviani and here's one with artist Maris Wicks. I hope you guys check the book out. It's a pretty good one, and, thanks in large part to Wicks' art and the subject matter, maybe my favorite of Ottaviani's comics since Bone Sharps, Cowboys and Thunder Lizards.

And over at Robot 6, I have a review of Persia Blues Vol. 1, by Ohio's own Dara Naraghi and Ohio's own Brent Bowman. Even if you don't feel like reading me babble on for a few hundred more words, do click on that link just to look at the image Bowman produced at the top of the piece. Wow, that's some nice drawing.

Comic shop comics: July 10th (Plus, Batwoman Vol. 1, because there were like no comics out this week)

Batwoman Vol. 1: Hydrology (DC Comics) It was a light week. A very, very light week so I bought a trade I had been meaning to buy for a while. Batwoman fell into that category of trades I wait for but then might not read for years and years, as it's one I know I'll like probably enough to own, and so I sit out the serially-published singles, waiting for the trade, and I refuse to borrow the eventual trade from the library, waiting until I have the money and inclination to pick up the trade for myself (In this case, I was somewhat hesitant as I don't think I finished all of the Greg Rucka/J.H. Williams III Batwoman comics from their short 2010 run in Detective Comics, which have since been collected in a trade with no volume number, entitled Batwoman: Elegy.

So this trade, Hydrology, is interesting in that it collects an early 2011 Hey, remember Batwoman still exists and we're gonna publish a monthly series like we promised five years ago someday, we swear! #0 issue (and second #0 issue would follow the next year) from before the launch of "The New 52" line and universe, and then the first five issues of the series from after it's September 2011 launch as part of "The New 52."

It is written by J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman, with Williams providing the bulk of the visuals (The #0 issue he splits art duties with Amy Redder and Richard Friend, and, for reasons unfathomable to me, letterer Todd Klein gives both Batman and Bruce Wayne their own, distinct narration box styles, even though the narration is presented as an investigation of Batwoman; Batman tails her in his costume, while Bruce Wayne tails her civilian identity in a variety of disguises).

As a story, it is remarkable in the degree to which it completely ignores the New 52 reboot. Even the the least rebooted franchises (Batman and Green Lantern) had some tweaks, like more lines in their costumes. The only changes here are this weird images where Williams or and/or colorist Dave Stewart alters a crowd scene of Batman, Inc members so that the costumes or characters that don't exist anymore look like they're being incinerated by lightning.

Otherwise? Kate Kane's wearing the exact same costume. She's still tangling with the were-people offshoot of the religion of crime from the weekly series 52 and Greg Rucka's millennial run on Detective Comics. Batman's still got Batman, Inc going (this would have been in the months between the cancellation of the first volume of the title and the launch of the second as a New 52 replacement series), Superman supporting character Maggie Sawyer is still around from back when Rucka was writing for the Bat-office, Renee Montoya still exists, fucking Flamebird still exists (despite their never having been a Teen Titans...?), Agent Chase Cameron and Director Bones from the DEO (seen in the short-lived 1998 series) are still around (although presumable Bones wouldn't have been part of an Infinity Inc team, which wouldn't have/shouldn't have existed in the New 52) and, of course, the plot of this graphic novel continues directly from the events of the Rucka/Williams TEC stories in Elegy.

As far as I've read then, this is the first of The New 52 comics to almost completely ignore the New 52 and pick up right where it left off, heavily reliant on the old continuity.

Oh wait, they made Stewart color Commissioner Gordon's hair and mustache red instead of gray; I guess that's a bow to the new continuity.

Is that a drawback? I don't know; it sure seems to run counter to the goal of the New 52, but it's not that hard to follow, and Williams' and Reeder's art is so goddam pretty—you can argue that a lot of the storytelling choices here are overly-byzantine and made more for baroque showiness than clarity, but you can't argue the images themselves aren't gorgeous—I think that more than makes up for it.

On the writing side, it's a little pedestrian, and a little far removed from a Gotham City Bat-story (When not dealing with were-creatures, Batwoman is pursuing a ghost that kidnaps children and drowns victims with her super-tears) but, again, art this good goes a long way. It's easy to imagine this same story being awful if drawn by, I don't know, Eddy Barrows or David Finch or Tony Daniel or whoever they've got drawing TEC this month, but Williams' solid character design and figure work and constant experimenting with lighting and texture keep each page exciting.

I was a little surprised—pleasantly so—how much female flesh there is in this book, as when in costume Kate is essentially naked, being maybe the only female heroine who looks like an anatomically correct female when she's wearing latex or spandex or black spray-paint or whatever her costume's made out of (Also surprising? The scene where Maggie Sawyer goes down on Kate while her sidekick is in the process of being brutally murdered...though she does pull through).

I also greatly enjoyed seeing Maggie Sawyer pursue Kate romantically while also trying to arrest Batwoman, all while she and Kate repeatedly talk about what a great detective Sawyer is. Batwoman and Kate Kane both have skin so white she seems more like a mime or a drowning victim than simply pale, and both have red hair (Batwoman's is a few inches longer). Not being suspicious that the two are one in the same is a lot like the people of Star City electing Oliver Queen mayor without being suspicious that he and Green Arrow are the only big, fit, blonds with goofy van dyke beards in the 21st century.

Anyway, this is good, great art elevating okay scripting to all-around good status. And, somewhat to my surprise, it looks like it's actually one of those "refuge" comics for folks leery of The New 52, along with Legends of the Dark Knight, Adventures of Superman, Wonder Woman and, um, and I missing any others...?

Hawkeye #12 (Marvel Entertainment) Another issue of Hawkeye, another issue in which Clint Barton barely appears. This is one of the sans-Aja issues, but, as with every time they've published and Aja-less issue, they've got a hell of a fill-in artist. Here, it's Francesco Francavilla.

This story follows Clint's older brother Barney, whom I had never heard of before the recap page, and who is apparently also really good at shooting bows and arrows, but is now a hobo. A hobo! I knew this book was missing something! (Shame on Francavilla for giving him a dufflebag instead of a bindle stick though).

Barney Barton is coming to visit his brother (who does own an apartment building, and Grills' place just opened up, so he really should hood a brother up) and runs afoul of those guys who say "bro." Along the way, we get flashbacks to the Barton boys' childhood, which apparently sucked. I didn't know that either.

But then, before reading this series, all I knew about Hawkeye was that he was kind of like Green Arrow in a purple costume with a loincloth and his initial on his forehead like an idiotic version of Captain America.

SpongeBob Comics #22 (United Plankton Pictures) Hey, did you know that artist Maris Wicks' day job is in programming at the New England Aquarium? It's true! That might explain her extra-long installment of the "Flotsam and Jetsam: Ocean Facts" in this issue, a four-page, full-color educational piece about coral reefs.

But don't worry, there is still plenty of silliness from some of the greatest cartoonists making comics today, including three strips written by Joey Weiser (one of which Weiser draws himself), a page from James Kochalka, another by Shane Houghton and Andy Rementer, and two-pages of art from Stephen DeStefano, one of my two favorite artists whose work I way to rarely get to see anywhere (The other? Ronnie del Carmen). Plus, some other stuff from other people too!

Young Avengers #7 (Marvel) So writer apparently Kieron Gillen jumps ahead a few months time with this issue, filling us in on what our heroes have been up to via a single, nine-panel-grid page in which text messages between several of the characters (ugh). I hate hate hate hate comics-told-through-the-premise/prism-of-social media, but I guess this was only one page, and it wasn't entirely necessary—a line of two or dialogue and a "three months later" text box does much the same thing—so I guess I'm willing to forgive him, based on how much I love Jamie McKelvie's designs, rendering and "acting."

So apparently this new group of Young Avengers have been having an on-again, off-again war with a group of shape-changing aliens they assume to be Skrulls, while kid Loki has been training Wiccan in the use of magic, and someone convinced him to get a new costume. Not quite sure how I feel about this new costume—not a fan of star-field patterns—but I didn't like the old one much either, so I think I'm going to end up being pretty okay with it.

Meanwhile, Prodigy finally tracks them down, and in two kind of cool/kind of dumb show-y for no real reason pages (for which I easily forgive them, given how fantastic the second to the last page featuring the characters breaking through to a different dimension is), and fills them in on what happened last issue, what with the Patriot-looking guy/thing abducting Speed and all.

(I do like that the Prodigy panels look Caleb-shaped, though)

It looks like Speed and Prodigy might end up joining the team after this story arc...? I don't know. I do wish the real Patriot would rejoin 'em at some point, as I kinda liked that character, but then, the way Gillen writes these guys, I kind of like all of 'em now.

On comics critics talking more about art

The other day on Robot 6, my fellow contributor Michael May published an interesting quote from artist Declan Shalvey about how reviewers should probably focus on the art—or at least the art as storytelling—when discussing comics, and then May used it as a sort of springboard to talk about how that very important component of comics-making often gets short shrift in comics criticism.

At the time, my thoughts were along the lines of "Hmm, maybe Shalvey just isn't reading the right critics," and "Yes, of course, most comics criticism you find on the Internet is horrible, horrible writing more interested in plot synopsis than actual criticism" and "But then, on the other hand, are there any real professional comics critics who make their entire living off of criticizing comics without having to hold down a day job, too? And, if so, do I need more than one hand to count them on?"

It's a big nebulous topic that's really hard to get into, as there are all sorts of different kinds of criticism, and different people read reviews for different reasons and, ultimately, I don't really care all that much about the state of comics criticism as a whole, beyond wanting mine to be as good as it can be and to keep getting better (I will say this, though; I would be a much, much, much worse reviewer-of-comics if I didn't draw, and nothing has helped me better appreciate comics art—both positively and negatively—as trying to draw my own little comics).

But if I'm to add anything to the conversation, I think it would simply be a deflection. The devaluing of the artist portion of the alchemy of comics—at least among the Big Five, direct market, genre stuff—doesn't stop and start with critics. I'm not sure when we went from superstar artists of the '90s ("Who cares who's writing it? Jim Lee or Rob Liefeld or Todd MacFarlane or Erik Larsen are drawing it!") to the superstar writers of today—I imagine it had a lot to do with folks like Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis, writers who weren't only very good at what they do, very popular with their audience and productive enough to write 3-8 books a month or so. If Bendis is writing a half-dozen books every month, while even the most productive Marvel artist is drawing one a month, well, it's easy to see how, just mathematically, Bendis becomes a bigger, more influential force at Marvel than Frank Cho or Mark Bagley or Stuart Immonen or whoever's he working with on those books.

I was just leafing through a trade paperback collection I have sitting here though, and looked at the credits.

There are only six comic books worth of material in it (that's 120 pages of DC Comics), but nevertheless there are two writers and—get this—seven artists. This being a trade, there isn't a title page with credits in each and every issue, they're just grouped together at the beginning, and, in this case, they aren't even separated into inkers and pencilers, they're all just "artists".

I know what Eddy Barrows pencil art looks like, but goddamn, how exactly am I going to talk in any great depth about the art when given a ball of yarn like that to try and make sense out of? I mean, I can and will discuss the art when I get to reviewing this book somewhere, but one can't give credit (or blame) where credit (or blame) is due when there's no way of telling who did what (I had a similar problem with Batman and Robin Vol. 2: Pearl which I just reviewed here this weekend; it had four pencil artist and five inkers all listed only on the credits page at the beginning of the book, and it was up to me to recognize/figure out who did what).

I hate to pick on DC, but unfortunately all the trades I have lying around the house with similar credits pages at the moment are from DC (I have The Punisher By Greg Rucka Vol. 1 here, but it is all by a single artist, save a back-up, which is clearly labeled with the appropriate art credit. And I have a bible-sized Avengers Vs. X-Men collection, with extremely meticulous crediting on a two-page table of contents/credits page).

Here's the credits for Earth 2 Vol. 1: The Gathering:

Only two pencillers and two inkers, and while I'm quite familiar with work of Nicola Scott (and Trevor Scott and Sean Parsons, now that I think about it), I don't know Eduardo Pansica), and wouldn't know what he did unless it was extremely different than what Nicola Scott drew (and maybe/hopefully, he's trying to draw in a similar style, if he's doing fill-in work, and the inkers will further mask the change in artists).

Or hey, here are the credits for the very first issue of Pandora, a very big new series DC just launched, one that leads directly into their much-hyped "Trinity War" (which kicks off today!) and ties in to the foundation of their whole "New 52" line and reboot:

Here the problem isn't who did what, but simply that a whole bunch of artists were needed to get this sucker out on time.

Again, I can and will talk artwork, but—and I realize this is an entirely different conversation—the publishers don't exactly go out of their way to emphasize (or, in some cases, even acknowledge) the importance of the art part of the comics-making or comics storytelling equation.