This is the second installment of Florence and Marty reviewing their weekly pull list. Warning: these will be spoiler-filled entries.
Sword #12
Florence: So we’ve been complaining that not a lot has happened in a few issues. Something happened in this Issue that’s going to send ripples… But what happened seems so predictable that I wasn’t really excited about it. And it seems like what’s going to come next also seems incredibly predictable. I would love to be pleasantly surprised. With Girls I never knew what was going to come next. It’s almost as if what happened shocked the characters inside the book, but it didn’t really effect anyone reading it. Reading about people being shocked doesn’t necessarily produce excitement. They set up a big epic fight to the death, and they dragged it out for several issues, so at some point someone had to win, and it was probably going to be the main character. I’m bored.
Martin: What I’d like to say is that I think there’s really no way it can be that dumb. But all signs do indicate that’s what’s happening. I’m not sure he’s really dead.
Florence: It’s even more boring if he’s not really dead.
Martin: Yeah, I definitely see what you mean, then it’s like we’ve spent the last three issues doing nothing.
Florence: It seems like, in their minds (the luna brothers), it was really interesting and creative the things he could do with water. But we’ve all been reading comic books for a long time, being punched with an ice fist just doesn’t strike me as that innovative.
Martin: He had a big floating ice ball too! But I completely agree. I did think the end of the comic was interesting, the fact that this is all publicised and on the news suggests the government organization that had her in custody briefly earlier in the comic clearly doesn’t have all that much influence.
Florence: I did think the last page was my favorite part.
Martin: I think my favorite part was seeing the battle scene from above. It was cool how all the ice spread out from the center point of his death. I hope we get to find out how they got their powers. Because if this is really the death of a god, don’t you think there’d be reprecussions? I mean they just killed water. Now what?
Florence: I never thought they were actual gods, they just had the power of gods, compared with humans. There was an origin story somewhere in there.
Martin: I thought all we knew was that their mother had been an outcast, and gone up to a mountain, and that was about it.
Florence: I’ve forgotten it now.
Martin: Exactly.
No Hero #2
Martin: I can’t help but wonder how much we’re paying for those FIVE pages of Avatar ads and order forms in the back of this comic.
Florence: I definitely felt like the comic ended abruptly, because I didn’t know we were that close to the end with all those additional pages.
Martin: That minor quibble aside, I did really like this. I think the main guy, the inventor of the drug, is naive to think he can be the only one who ever creates superheroes.
Florence: I think he uses his current power to sabotage anyone who comes close to reproducing the formula.
Martin: Obviously. But there was some kind of hint in there that this has been an ongoing struggle. They’ve been “attacked”, and I thought that was clearly by some other people with superpowers.
Florence: I think that attack could have been accomplished by someone without superpowers, and I thought that no one else had reproduced it yet.
Martin: I think time will prove me right on this one. But who knows. I just can’t see taking a super-powered person apart the way they said happened (in Minneapolis no less!) without having other super-powered people on their side. (Try saying “super powered people” three times fast.)
Florence: I think their knowledge of the anatomy is what allowed them to do it, not that they had to have identical powers.
Martin: We shall see. But you’re wrong. Oh, and I do really like the art. I think Juan Jose Ryp is getting a lot better.
Florence: I don’t really like the art. I think it serves the story pretty well, but it’s too brutal and bloody for me to enjoy it.
Martin: There wasn’t even that much blood in this one. Just some vomit, and a sort of blood-spattered hallucinatory orgy at the end. Do you think he’ll survive the induction?
Florence: Yes, or else there wouldn’t be a comic about him. I do think he’s intended to be the main character. He’s just been sort of passive so far. I think his journey is supposed to be the main story.
Martin: I think he’s getting set up to be the one who takes down the whole organization.
Florence: So what do you think the consequences they are referring to are? Is it just the pain and suffering he’s going through now, or that it’s long term? I think it fucks with your anatomy and physiology in ways that are not well balanced. In standard superhero fare, once you get your powers, that’s sort of it, you usually don’t have to deal with long term consequences. It’s just assumed that the rest of your bodily functions remain as normal. But in this, a sort of intentional drug-based alteration of the human body, I think the intention is that the rest of your body isn’t going to compensate in a pleasant way. That one woman was saying that you get the power of flight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your kneecaps can withstand the force of landing. I think there are going to be additional consequences that we don’t really understand yet.
Martin: So do you think this is going to be more about him, or more about the political story? I feel like what you’re suggesting could be a really cool premise for an interesting comic. But I think, and maybe this is just because I know this same creative team (Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp) created Black Summer, that this is going in a totally different direction. I actually believe that the story you’re talking about might be more interesting, but that it’s more likely this is not a personal story. I would love to be wrong about that, but I think the frequent TV spots, and talking heads really illustrate that this is supposed to be a bigger story than just about one man.
In this episode of the ReadComics podcast, Marty, Florence, Jason and Susie talk about the biggest comic book event of the week: the Watchmen movie. Marty and Florence saw a sneak preview of the movie last night, but we took pains not to spoil anything. (Short review: It’s AWESOME, go see it!!!) We also discussed the following topics: Marty and Florence’s visitor Flat Stanley, movie special effects and CGI (at length, including Watchmen, Star Wars, Hellboy II, Pans Labyrinth, the Oscars and Batman), Dr. Manhattan’s BIG BLUE PENIS, other movies we want to see this summer (Super Capers, Wolverine, Harry Potter, Year One), the possibility of an Elfquest movie, Johnny Hiro, Scott Pilgrim, a bunch of comics we have read recently (Wonder Woman, Tek Jensen, Ender’s Game, Batman), Kevin Smith’s batman, the trend toward comic book continuations of TV shows (Farscape, Buffy, Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies), and Jason gives a shout-out to the GridCycle GeekCast, a new video game podcast.
For our next book club, we’ll be discussing 
Since these will be spoiler filled discussions, we’ll hide these behind a link. This week your favorite married comic-reading couple will be discussing four really good comics that happen to have come out this week: The Authority: World’s End #4, Gigantic #1, Sandman: The Dream Hunters #1, and Top 10 #2. (Not in that order.)
Everyone should check out the preview for this new movie called 
Echo #7
Invincible #54
I’ll admit to having read and dismissed 
It’s going to be all day comics at the 
A co-worker sent me this link to a 
