Read Comics

Free Comic Book Day was Saturday, and I hit four stores, only two of which were worth going to. The Source and Big Brain always do it up, though, and I amassed a full run of the FCBD offerings…minus Nascar Heroes. I opted not to get that one. It was probably really well written and would’ve changed my life forever. I’ll have to make do with Blackest Night #0 instead. I also made a point of buying stuff at the three stores that actually gave me free comics.

At the Source, I picked up my pull of comics, which consisted of RASL #4, and also the DVD of Black Orchid, a Doctor Who story which I hadn’t bought yet. At Big Brain, I bought Queen & Country Declassified Vol. 1, which I had been looking for for some time. Nice price for the trade, less than ten bucks! And at Beyond Shinders, I grabbed issues 3 and 4 of Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam. It was my first trip to Beyond Shinders, and while quiet, it was very reminiscent of the old downtown store. I’ll have to go check out the suburban stores, which are actually in old Shinders locations.

The next ReadComics book club is planned for Saturday, May 16th, or two weeks from this coming Saturday. We hope to have all the regulars, and some supporting cast for this book club, when we’ll talk about Green Lantern, The Sinestro Corps War, volumes 1, 2, and if you can get your hands on it, Tales of the Sinestro Corps, which collects the final (auxiliary?) bits.

Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War (Vol. 1, 2, etc.)
Saturday, May 16th 3PM
Florence & Marty’s apartment

I picked up Paul Hornschemeier’s Mother Come Home from the library because I vaguely remembered someone somewhere giving it a good review. I found it to be a profoundly sad and beautiful study of how children process loss. The core of the story is about seven or eight year old boy coping with the death of his mother and the resulting mental breakdown of his father. A subject that hits rather close to home for me. The loss of mother of the title has uprooted his father from reality, he loses track of anything other than his overwhelming grief, and the boy, Thomas finds himself in the care taker role. Thomas creates his own myths to explain his altered life, and clings to invented rituals to anchor himself in his now unstable world. The climax of the story involves his need to fix his father’s problem, and therefore fix his own life, which fails utterly. The book is narrated by an older Thomas, and it is his more mature understanding of the events that he is relating that keeps the story from being completely devastating. The art suits the story perfectly. It is straightforward and grim but at the same time innocent and childlike. I would recommend this to anyone who would claim graphic novels can’t have the same emotional impact of prose.

Jason, Marty, Mike and Florence are mostly all drunk, talking (slurring) about the following comic-related subjects (and many others less so): twitter and comics and facebook, Scott Pilgrim, Bomb Queen, New Mutants, Dark Avengers, Grant Morrison, Runaways, Frank Miller’s Daredevil, The Webcomic List, piperka.net, Susan Boyle and Marty’s mom. We hope you enjoy this rambling masterpiece.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #032 (17 MB, 37 minutes)

Forgive me ReadComics, for I have sinned. It has been AGES since my last post.

I’ve read tons of stuff lately. Two TPBs by Grant Morrison, in particular. First was Batman R.I.P., (pictured) which was basically about convincing us that Batman might die, or at least go insane, no maybe even die, no, just loose his mind, no, just die. I think in that order, although it hardly matters. It was only slightly more coherent than Kid Eternity, which was essentially about some folks in hell trying to get mankind to grow up and figure out this whole living on earth thing sucks. At least, I think that’s what the story was about… in the end. Both stories had lots of WTF moments, and neither really ties everything up to any satisfying degree. Both had incredible art, however, that, at least in the case of Kid Eternity, really went a long way toward making the trade worth consuming.

There have also been numerous single issues in the last few weeks. Florence and I have kept up on our pull, and last week in particular there were at least four new comics to read, including Sword, Echo, Doctor Sleepless and a new one by Warren Ellis called Ignition City. I’ll admit that I devoured Sword, (which had a satisfactory, if not overwhelming amount of content again this month) and Echo (which unfortunately didn’t) right away, but have yet to get to the Warren Ellis stuff. I’m behind on Freak Angels too, and in general have a lot of webcomics to catch up on when I get around to it.

I also want to announce that we know what comics we’re going to be reading for our next book club, even if we don’t know when it’s going to take place yet. Jason J has announced that we’ll be reading the Sinestro Corps War stuff. He hasn’t let me know exactly which comics yet, but wikipedia says it’s an “11-part saga was originally published between June and December 2007“. It goes on to say that “in addition to the main storyline, four supplemental “Tales of the Sinestro Corps” one-shot specials and a Blue Beetle tie-in issue were concurrently released.” So there are potentially sixteen comics for us to read. It looks like there are at least two trade paperbacks, and possibly a third with the supplemental stuff. Anyway, we should know soon enough when the Book Club will be, and there’ll probably be another post about what books to read then.

I saw the movie this week and I wil write about eventualy, but I had to post this video I just ran into on you tube.
Watchmen cartoon

It is brilliant! And not that implausible, I recall cartoons being made from innapropriate source material pretty regularly, although none of them spring to mind just this second.

Also It’s Just Some Random Guy has been doing a Watchmen series as well.
Random guy watchmen #1
random guy watchmen #2
random guy watchmen #3

Regardless of how I felt of the movie, the release has wrought these and that is good.

Tonight’s podcast was just Marty Florence and Jason when we began, but then Susie joins us about ten minutes in. It’s a shorter one, but we manage to at least mention offhandedly the following topics: The Muppet Show Comic Book #1, Boom Studios new Pixar licensing, DC’s After Watchmen …what next? campaign, Ex Machina TPB #7, Batman RIP, old standby topics: Grant Morrison and Walking Dead, Angel: After The Fall, Blank It webcomic, Menage A 3, Piperka, Sister Claire, Promethia, and all female comic book podcasts: Comic Racks and Birds of Geek.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #031 (18 MB, 38 minutes)

Comics read since last time:

Justice League of America 17-21
Marvel Boy 1-6 (Morrison series)
Titans East Special #1
The Titans 1-6
Iron Man: Director of SHIELD 29-32
Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four 1-3
Hedge Knight II: Sworn Sword 1-6

Man, I’m so far behind on these. I probably can’t legitimately write too much about my thoughts on the above, since it’s been weeks now since I’ve read them, and so much has been read between then and now. Let’s see what I can remember…

Morrison’s Marvel Boy. Dig that kooky retcon, man. He’s been brought into the main Marvel continuity as part of the Dark Avengers, but when did he move from whatever earth this six-issue mini took place in to the regular Marvel Earth?

The Titans relaunch…nothing too exciting. It’s basically getting the band back together, isn’t it? Have they become the Rolling Stones of superhero teams? And it just seems wrong to have it not drawn by Perez. Trigon’s new look works for him. Did I say Rolling Stones? Trigon was definitely modelled after Ozzy.

Iron Man’s art was a little disturbing. I got kind of an uncanny valley experience looking at the people’s faces and how their bodies were positioned. How many stories can we have that are about Tony dealing with the unintended consequences of his actions regarding technology?

I like these Hedge Knight stories. Who knows, maybe I’d actually enjoy Martin’s series about pageantry and heraldry. Mike has been recommending it again and again.

This bookclub podcast was all about Thor, issues #1-600 (all 13 issues). BRAKKA-DOOOOOOM! We have Florence, Marty, Jason, Mike, Susie (actually present!), and Jason Johnston with us for this lively discussion of Straczynski’s run of Thor.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #030 (26 MB, 57 minutes)

It’s time for me to finally do the post about webcomics I have meant to do since Christmas.

Here are three I don’t think have been mentioned on this site yet.

Anders Loves Maria

I love this strip!  It is about a young Swedish couple who are having a baby, and probably shouldn’t be.  Given that Anders can’t stop getting involved with other women, and Maria can’t seem to grow up.  It is wickedly funny and terribly authentic.  The art work some how manages to be simplified, and sophisticated at the same time.  I was really tempted to buy an original page, but unfortunately the I did not get my tax return before the half off sale ended.  It should be mentioned that even though the people are drawn in a very non photo realistic manner, 60% of the strips have included extremely explicit sex, that is probably not safe for work.

Sister Claire

This strip is only a few months old.  It follows the adventures of a very naive young girl who was raised by nuns.  It is drawn in the style of  kwai(cutesy) anime.  Claire  wants nothing more in life than to be the best nun ever, while still getting to indulge in all things sweet and cuddly.  Unfortunately for her a sexy messenger from God disrupts her cloistered existence.  I am totally digging it!

Finally we have Finn and Charlie are Hitched

It is a slice of life styled strip centered around a gay male couple and their circle of friends.  It is not as serialized as the previous two I mentioned, going with the more traditional 3 to 4 panels leading to a gag format.  It is consistently funny and done by local Chicago artist.

Thanks to Jason, I actually knew when MarsCon was this year (for the first time). I went to a few panels, and the highlight of the ones I made it to was the WebComics Panel, with Rob Balder. Rob is the writer for Partially Clips, which I had seen before, and Erfworld, which I hadn’t. I hadn’t been particularly interested in Partially Clips when I discovered it the first time, and a re-visit today confirmed that it’s amusing, but again holds very little interest for me. Erfworld, on the other hand, is now something I’m totally going to devour in little chunks until I catch up to the 131 pages they’ve got in the archives thus far.

Once I do catch up (and even before), I’ll be using the awesome Piperka to keep track of my progress! Rob mentioned Piperka in the panel, and it’s basically a very light-weight site designed to do nothing more than keep track of your progress in all the webcomics you read. The sweet thing is that it lets you know which comics have new entries since you last visited, making it a perfect one-stop location for webcomic reading.

Rob (and the other panelists) also mentioned a bunch of other webcomics, including Menage a 3 (which florence and I just read all the way from the beginning–contains mild nudity). If I find more good ones, maybe I’ll post them here also.

We’re having our next book club this Saturday, March 14th, at 3PM at Florence & Marty’s apartment with our special guest, Susie!

This month we’ll be reading’s Mike’s selection: Thor #1-600 (it actually covers only 13 issues because of their crazy numbering logic).

Thor #1-600, J. Michael Straczynski
Saturday, March 14th 3PM
Florence & Marty’s apartment

Check out this awesome and unlikely combination: Spider-Man + Broadway musical+ Julie Taymor directing + U2 composing = Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.

I adore Julie Taymor and her entirely unique twisted dynamic view, so I can’t wait to see this show. They have cast Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane. I loved her as a young lesbian on ‘Once and Again’, and I thought she did a decent job in Julie Taymor’s ‘Across the Universe’.  No casting for Peter Parker yet, but they’re supposed to start rehearsing in the fall and debut in January 2010.

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.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #029 (30 MB, 66 minutes)

Those who know me realize that I haven’t been posting much on here because I’ve been focusing most of my extra-curricular efforts on developing a puzzle game for the iPhone. But that’s not why I’m writing today! I actually just read over at massively.com that there is going to be a Watchmen game for the iPhone released at the same time as the movie (this Friday). As far as I know, this is also going to be the first MMO (massively multiplayer online) game for the iPhone. There is also a video of some interviews with the developers, and it shows some of the gameplay too. Interesting stuff.

I found this somewhat lengthy article on the WIred site. It’s a very informative look into Moore’s past, present and upcoming projects.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/17-03/ff_moore_qa?currentPage=1

Comics read since last time:

Birds of Prey 118
GeNext 1-5
Ms. Marvel 25-30
Invincible Iron-Man 1-7
Punisher War Journal 18-23
JLA 72-76
Teen Titans 24-26, 29-33, Annual 1
Outsiders 24-25, 28
Robin 146-147
Infinite Crisis 5-6
Jack of Fables 17-21

And I thought I had a lot of comics to talk about during my trip. Apparently, I’ve been on a bit of a binge lately, and have just been tearing through the trades. Again, I’ll break this up into a few posts for manageability.

Birds of Prey 118 was part of the Dark Side Club crossover that had been happening in Teen Titans, with Misfit and Black Alice duking it out for the entertainment of the masses. I liked this single story better than any of the ones with the Titans, probably because it seemed to have a bit more background on what was going on with the club. A bit of gruesomeness with Misfits powers, not to mention a deepening mystery surrounding her and Black Alice. Too bad the series is getting cancelled. Maybe DC will turn the Bat-family books into an anthology series. That would actually be kind of nice.

GeNext was kind of disappointing. I think that I’m looking for the classic Claremont that I remember from the ’80s, and I’m just not going to find that. I either have to accept him for how he writes now, or just give up on him completely. Personally, I think he’d be better off staying off the mutant books and writing something completely different. His history with the X-Men is going to colour everything he writes with those characters from now on. GeNext really seemed more like a marketing plan than a good story. It feels like Marvel trying to invent schemes to find the “youth market”, like a new young set of mutants set however many years in the future, tying into a few other titles of a similar theme. But hey, I was part of the youth market once, and I got into comics because I enjoyed the stories they were telling in the regular books at the time. I still think that they don’t need to trick kids into reading comics, they just need to have comics where kids are going to find them.

Ms. Marvel is more Secret Invasion side story. I’m expecting the actual Secret Invasion trade from the library soon, so it’ll be interesting to see what I think of that after having read all the side stories first. Maybe I’ll enjoy it more that way; the biggest complaint I’ve heard about it is that nothing really happens issue after issue. That’s probably because everything is happening in these crossover series. Ms. Marvel seems to be a bit more bloodthirsty in this trade, pretty much deciding skrulls during wartime are fair game for slaughter. Melo’s art is very reminiscent of Chaykin, especially considering the violence involved in the Battle of Manhattan arc.

Speaking of Chaykin, I think he’s a good fit for Punisher War Journal, at least as good as Steve Dillon on the Punisher Max series. I’m not sure what I think of Matt Fraction and Rick Remender on this series. It could just be that the character is hard to identify with, and it really depends a lot on how he’s being written. Garth Ennis did such a great job with Punisher Max, and the regular series, and PWJ has seemed a little….silly in comparison. Of course, more than anything, I think the Punisher is more of a foil than a character in his own right. This arc kind of ties up a few things about his history, right in time for the next arc to connect into Secret Invasion. The whole thing about a SHIELD agent obsessed with the Punisher has seemed a little contrived to me, and now having him in a crossover with skrulls? It’s getting a little cosmic for Frank Castle. Next he’ll end up in a team-up with Rocket Raccoon.

Fraction is also writing the new Invincible Iron Man series. I’m not sure why another Iron Man series was necessary to complement the current Leader of SHIELD series. Maybe they just wanted to give Fraction more work. The interactions between Tony, Pepper and Rhodey are great, but it seems to be retreading a lot of Orson Scott Card’s Ultimate Iron Man series. (Yeah, I read the Card series–he’s a bastard, but I got them from the library, and I’m a sad completist fan).

I never read The Question in the ’80s when it was coming out, but since DC seems to be publishing everything that Denny O’Neil wrote, and I can get it from the library, I figured why not. I really liked how the character was used in 52. This run is very different from that portrayal, with Vic Sage being a bit more of a bastard. I’d read O’Neil’s run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and he’s very topical. I wouldn’t say these Question stories are dated, in fact, I think they’re kind of timeless, but you get the same sense of the ’80s as you do when you watch a movie like American Psycho. Cowan’s art also defines the era, with the women’s hairstyles and shoulderpads. The art reminds me of Sienkewicz. I wonder if the Ditko stories have been collected anywhere. I’d love to read those and see how the character differs.

I loved the New Warriors comic in the ’90s, and I’ve recently started hunting them down at conventions from the quarter bins. Even when I got out of collecting in the ’90s, I would still stop in at Shinders and read this one on the rack during my lunch break. I’d never read the reality show mini-series version, and having them be the fall guys for Civil War (not to mention killing off half the team) left a sour taste in my mouth. The current run feels like it’s building to something, but taking its own sweet time to do it. There’s definitely plenty of action, but some of the secret motivations are going too long without a reveal. I know that the next arc ties in to Secret Invasion, and I’m enjoying where the creators are going with it as a counter to the registration act policies. It’s a bit of a stretch to suspend disbelief with the amount of tech they’re supposed to be reverse-engineering, but I guess it is a question of whether you can believe this but not this. Comics do seem to be in love with child geniuses these days, particularly of the technological variety. There’s Amadeus Cho in the Hulk/Herc comics, Marvin and Wendy in Teen Titans, the Blue Beetle’s posse, and now Kaz, Grace and a third whose name I forget in New Warriors. Oh, and the Japanese Toyman in Superman/Batman. Must be the new math.

Speaking of stories going on and on, the Gog/Magog story in Justice Society of America, tying in the Kingdom Come continuity is something I’m ready to be done with. I’m still enjoying the writing, and the characters, but I just don’t care about Kingdom Come enough. It was an okay series, but I just didn’t connect with it as anything other than an Elseworlds story. More interesting is the tie-in story bringing Power Girl home to Earth-2.

My thoughts on ElfQuest are going to get their own post, I think.

Comics read since last time:

The Un-Men 6-13
The Mighty Avengers 13-15
Teen Titans/Legion of Super-Heroes Special
Teen Titans 15-23
The Question 13-18
New Warriors 6-13
ElfQuest 6-10
New Avengers 38-42
Jokers Asylum
Justice Society of America 13-18 + Annual 1

A whole bunch of comics this time, since I was unable to post during my trip to the Doctor Who convention. I’ll break this into a couple of posts, probably.

The Un-Men was just starting to get interesting, bringing in Swamp Thing continuity, when it got the axe. Referencing Arcane and introducing his insect creatures made me take notice of the series more, but I guess for sales it was too little too late. I suppose it’s nice that they even put the series out in two trades and I was able to get them from the library.

Mighty Avengers and New Avengers are both Secret Invasion tie-ins with these issues. I still haven’t read the main story of Secret Invasion yet, so I was afraid that there would be much spoiled, but so far, that hasn’t been the case. Part of New Avengers is set in the Savage Land, without explanation of how the team got there, but for the most part, both MA and NA are having stories set in the background. You get what are practically one-off stories, where the main event is being hinted at, and here you have all the cool stuff that’s going on while the big guns are off saving the world. I approve. I think that I could probably skip SI itself and still know what’s going on from reading these.

Teen Titans had a couple of story arcs, one of which I read a few years when I was getting caught up on all the Infinite Crisis lead-ins. The stories get pretty dark starting around this period, as the characters deal with the aftermath of Identity Crisis and Doctor Light regaining his memory, and finding out how fallible their heroes are, not to mention the possibility that they’ll grow up evil. I really enjoyed the introduction of Speedy, Green Arrow’s HIV+ protege, and the massive reunion of just about every former Titan. I’m surprised they didn’t get George Perez to draw it.

To be continued…

This podcast/book club features Florence, Jason, Mike, Susie and Marty, and is all about PS238: Volume 1, With Liberty And Recess for All, written and drawn by Aaron Williams. We stay mostly focused for the first 45 minutes or so, then veer off on a Dr. Who tangent in anticipation of Jason’s upcoming convention trip.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #028 (30 MB, 65 minutes)

Comics read since last time:

Incredible Hercules 116-120
PS238 0-5
Locke & Key 1-6
Captain America 37-42

Secret Invasion is kind of incidental to the events in the Incredible Hercules, almost a device to tell the larger story and to be honest, I think it suffers for it. From what I’ve heard, Secret Invasion hasn’t been nearly as interesting as the crossovers to it, but Hercules would’ve been better off if they found some other reason to get the God Squad together than to go after the Skrull deities. It’s kind of a neat idea for a team book, and there could be a lot more stories there, a la Fables. I like the historical cutaways, which a lot of comics seem to be doing these days. What was Hercules doing between the classical Greek era and the modern comics era? Amadeus Cho is a fun character, but he’s starting to get annoying. Having him be a little more fallible made him more interesting in this story.

Locke & Key was fascinatingly creepy. I’ve been left hanging after this first collection, and I want to know more. I want to know what the key is that Bode found. Hill is going to give his dad a real run for his money. I’ve complained in the past about decompressed storytelling, and whole issues where absolutely nothing happens. This series, while I read it in the trade, I think I would actually enjoy more in single issues, as each issue builds a bit more, moves the creepiness forward a bit. The art fits the otherworldliness of the story, the artist doing a great job at drawing sinister, scary and in the case of Sam, just a little bit dead inside. I desperately want to know where this is going to go.

Captain America is dead. Long live Captain America! But which one? Brubaker is going into the history of the character, by bringing back the 1950s Cap, who altered his appearance to look like Steve Rogers. At the end of this trade, he vanishes, but is clearly going to come back to battle Captain “Bucky” America again. Part of this story was set in Minneapolis, at a political rally. Nothing in the background was completely recognizable as downtown, but you could see skyways. I don’t think we have any news reporters who wear shirts that show their navels, though. Are there any serious female reporters that would wear a bare midriff shirt while on air?

Tune into the the next podcast to hear our discussion of PS238!

Comics read since last time:

Last Defenders 3-6
Teen Titans 13-15
Echo 1-6
Wolverine: Logan 1-3

The Last Defenders got a lot better as it went on. I liked how Nighthawk tried different line-ups until he found one that worked, even if it didn’t include him. I can see this continuing on as a series, with a team on the run from the authorities, kind of an A-Team, always one step ahead. It had a bit of a NextWave vibe to it, with a little bit of Exiles thrown in. It really feels like a prelude to something else, with Yandroth playing a bigger role down the road.

Going on with team books, I’m still catching up with the 2003 series of Teen Titans. We’re running up to Infinite Crisis in a couple of trades, which is where I started reading the series regularly. A few of the subplots allude to the upcoming events; the main story in this three-issue arc covers Gar Logan’s temporary cure of his green hue, but at the loss of his animal powers, of course. Entertaining, but to be honest, I was more interested in the asides with Wonder Girl, Superboy and Tim Drake (formerly Robin–this is where Spoiler took over, just prior to War Games). How do you stop being a super-hero? The Loners touched on this with Julie Power trying to give up being Lightspeed (something I’d like to see more of–someone should write a Power Pack All Grown Up comic–maybe I should!) I should look for the Robin issues that tie-in here.

Terry Moore’s foray into the super-hero genre is good so far, but he seems to be taking his sweet time in getting anywhere. I’m not sure I could handle reading these in single issues–it was much more satisfying as a trade, although only sort of, because after six issues, it seems like we still haven’t really gone anywhere. The crazy homeless guy seems a bit of a stereo-type.

Brian K Vaughan wrote a sweet Logan story here. It’s short, it’s beautifully illustrated, and fits in well with the Wolverine: Origins series, although not officially a part of that. While Wolverine is far too overused as a character (I wonder what would happen if there was a year-long hiatus of using this character), I’m enjoying these little chapters in his life. It’s reminding me a lot of what’s going on with Iron Fist, where we get a window into the past, and the stories are very self-contained.

Our next Comic Book Club podcast will focus on PS238 Volume 1: With Liberty and Recess for All, by Aaron Williams.  This book is about a school for superpowered kids, and we’re looking forward to hearing everyone’s opinions about it.

We’ll start with Volume 1, but since some of us have already read ahead several trades, so we’ll be happy to talk about the entire run so far.

PS238 Volume 1:
With Liberty and Recess for All
Monday, February 9th 7PM
Florence&Marty’s place

Comics read since last time:

Young X-Men 1-6
Cable 3-5
The Last Defenders 1-2
Gotham Underground 7-9

Young X-Men is a lot more of a continuation of New X-Men than I thought it would be. Including New Mutants #1 was pretty neat; it brought back memories for me. I wish I could still get the feeling I used to get when I was reading New Mutants as a young teenager, but then again, isn’t that true of everything you remember from your youth? Nostalgia includes the Greek word for pain. The bad guy is telegraphed so early on, I hope they didn’t think anyone would actually be fooled by the subterfuge. I did enjoy this a lot more than I thought I would, but then, it is Guggenheim doing the writing. Although I’m annoyed by most of the characters, and miss some of the ones from New X-Men that I liked. Anole, come back, all is forgiven!

Cable got better, but only slightly. Cannonball apparently had no trouble finding steroids in future. Honestly, Sam Guthrie, one of the lankiest characters ever created suddenly has not guns, but cannons? At least I’m not paying for it, other than the cost of getting to the library. I have a feeling the time travel chase scenes will get old. Cable should’ve brought Sophie with him. Of course, it would’ve been a little too much of Voyagers crossed with Doctor Who at that point. Oh, with huge nonsensical guns.

I don’t know much about the history of the Defenders, just knowing some of the team line-ups. I don’t think I’ve read any of the original series, and much like the Champions, it’s always seemed like a way for Marvel to cash in on the success of the Avengers and the relaunched X-Men. At what point did the X-Men become an actual hit? I know that it was on the verge of cancellation in the ’60s, with a long run being reprints. But the Defenders has always seemed like a “why bother” team. Maybe it’s a way that Marvel retains copyright on certain characters by bringing them out, dusting them off for awhile. These first two issues are an awful lot of set-up, so far. I can feel Giffen’s touch, although not as much as when he and deMatteis wrote their other Defenders story earlier in the “bwah-ha-ha” vein. A few nods to Civil War, the Initiative, and even Secret Invasion, with Blazing Skull correcting Nighthawk about his moniker. I’m interested in Nighthawk’s history, so that might be a reason to go back and read some original Defenders stories. Was he one of Marvel’s answers to Batman?

Speaking of Batman, I wonder if anyone is able to tie together into a cohesive continuity all of the stuff going on in DC right now. Where exactly does Gotham Underground fit in to Batman RIP and Final Crisis? I finished this trade off last night, and it seemed mostly to be a rehash of War Games, as well as a way to reintroduce Spoiler. I love Batman’s rogues gallery, and would like to see more Penguin and Riddler–the Joker’s so over done now. But I’d like to see them given some respect again. Maybe a little less reinvention and bit more back to basics.

Comics read since last time:

JLA 70-71
Scalped 12-18
Spider-Man: Swing Shift
PVP (this week)

I’m halfway through The Obsidian Age arc, finishing off the first trade just in time to return it to the library on the due date, and haven’t yet started the second trade, so I’m still not sure where it’ll end up. Our heroes are stuck in the past, and in the present, the alternate JLA is facing the press, in a scene very reminiscent of when Captain America introduces Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. There are questions about where the “real” JLA is, which the Atom fields like a pro, only stumbling when a question gets asked by the reporter with the most invested in the answer: Lois Lane. I love team books, even though you can get pretty tired reading them. You increase the power level exponentially by having all these characters team up, so you need to up the potential catastrophe. It actually gets a little farcical. How does anyone actually get anything accomplished when disaster strikes constantly, the type of disaster that can only be averted by the JLA? And that’s what this new JLA is facing: crisis-level disasters. One of the things I love about team books is the changing roster of the team. I miss the covers with the faces bordering the artwork, showing the rollcall, especially when it was a team-up of teams.

One of the best series to come from Vertigo in a long time is Jason Aaron’s Scalped. Part film noir, part hard-boiled detective story, part police procedural, Scalped continuously amazes me issue after issue. I’ve been reading it in trades, the third trade being the most current. Vertigo has been doing a good job of keeping the trades of their series coming out at a good clip, nearly keeping pace with the single issue releases. Six or seven issues come out and bang, a trade is on the shelves by the time the next issue is released. Along with the recently cancelled Exterminators, Scalped is the cream of Vertigo’s crop–which probably means it’s the next to get the axe. I wonder if we’ll see it get translated to another media soon; I can see it picked up by Showtime or HBO for a series.

I read Spider-Man: Swing Shift, the Free Comic Book Day issue from nearly two years ago. It was the first part of the first trade of Brand New Day, acting as a lead-in to the new Spider-Man continuity. Dan Slott’s stories of Brand New Day are probably my least favourite, as they seem to be a rehash of what he did with She-Hulk, particularly with the love triangles. I’d heard lots of complaints about Swing Shift. I’m not sure what there was to complain about, because there’s hardly anything there. I guess it really is a case of you get what you pay for. But, in essence, it fulfilled its mission; it introduced us to what Brand New Day was going to be.

I caught up on this week’s PVP, mostly one off strips after the arc with Brent meeting the 10th Doctor. Enjoyable as always, although Brent’s new chin is taking some getting used to. It’s interesting to look at the changes in the characters over the years, and how the designs have evolved. The chin is almost a minor change in comparison, but until I get used to it, I’m going to stumble a few times when reading the new strips.

I am too lazy to do the research myself, maybe you guys can help me figure out,  whatever happened to…?

1) Serenity: the Shepherd’s Tale.  When Dark Horse announced this three issue mini series  that would finally document Shepherd Book’s past, they said it would be out Fall 2008.  I have yet to see it listed in there upcoming lists.

2)Savant and Creote.  Gail Simone’s run on Bird’s of Prey produced some very cool new characters, such as Black Alice, and Misfit, both of whom are still showing up in the series pages.  However my favorite, the duo of Savant and Creote have completely disappeared.   Savant is a highly intelligent, extremely unstable, misogynist pretty boy.  Creote  is his extremely loyal bodyguard/manservant/sidekick/husband?  Despite the fact that their first appearance involved them holding Black Canary prisoner, Oracle was able to turn them into allies and ably used their skills to help her ever growing team.  Savant eventually fled since Oracle’s reforming of him had seriously disturbed his calm, Creote being completely devoted of course went with him.  I assumed they would be back at some point, but that was the last I saw of them.  I hope some writer revives them.  They might make an interesting addition to Gail’s own Wonder Woman run.

3) The next arc of Sky Doll.  Sky Doll was probably my favorite discovery  of last year.  I even bought the hardback trade when it was released even though I knew there was no material in it other than the contents of the three issues already published.  I want to collect it as books.  I am dying to know what happens next, but there has been no sign of when Marvel will bring out the second series.

I’ve totally had days like this. Haven’t you?

Comics read since last time:
JLA #55-69

Most of the comics I read come from the library, which really is an incredible resource for trades and even single issues.  I champion the library whenever I get the chance, showing people proudly that the trade paperback I’m reading came from one.  “Libraries carry comic books?” they say, incredulously.  “Why, yes!” I reply, telling them that I usually have fifteen or twenty checked out at any given time.  Sometimes, however, that comes back to bite me on the ass, like when I have to plow through three JLA trades in two nights because they’re coming due in the next couple of days, and I’m unable to renew them, because someone else has one of them on reserve.  I grit my teeth, though, and look at the bright side: people are looking for comics at the library, and requesting them.  So while I usually like to read several different series, usually from different companies, sometimes I get quite a long stretch of a single title all at once.

This run of JLA finished out Mark Waid’s time with the team, followed by an issues by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty, and now I’m well into Joe Kelly’s run.  Grant Morrison is definitely a tough act to follow.  Waid is decent, following up on Batman’s betrayal, with a storyline developed from a single line of dialogue, with half the league split from their own alter egos, playing off of what seems to be a throwaway line of dialogue.  And another line of dialogue in this storyline becomes the basis for the next one, the return of the white martians.  Waid’s entire run is very tight, practically interwoven together.  Dixon and Beatty’s issue is part of the Joker’s Last Laugh crossover.  I picked up that trade recently from the library, expecting a standalone Joker story, not realizing that it crossed into practically every title in the DCU.  Interestingly, the asterisks had been left in letting me know where I could find some of the other stories that crossed into Last Laugh.  Something which the JLA trades, and indeed most comic trades don’t seem to do.  I’ve always thought this a little weird, as it would be a great promotional tool to get people to buy other trades.  Is it that they figure people will be frustrated at not having the referenced comics immediately at their disposal?  These are comics!  For years, the asterisk was the starting point of a treasure hunt which had us wading through longboxes at comic shops and conventions, and staring longingly at backissues protected by mylar pinned up on the shop walls.  The lack of notes is particularly annoying during Kelly’s run, which ran during DC’s Our World at War crossover.  Events are mentioned about Wonder Woman not being a princess any more, Aquaman vanishing, and for some reason, the artist draws Superman’s emblem as red on black, rather than red on yellow.  But there are no notes telling you where you could read more about what happened.  Again, I feel a little hypocritical complaining about this, especially when I have all of the internet at my disposal to do research, but would it hurt to have an asterisk or some sort of annotation going on?  If you’ve never read it, the Annotated Crisis on Infinite Earths is a joy.  Such scholarship went into that, noting just about every character in every one of George Perez’s drawings.  Kudos to that effort, as well as the online annotations for just about everything Grant Morrison has ever written.

All of that said, I’m mostly enjoying Kelly’s run.  He brings up some interesting themes, such as Wonder Woman’s dependence on her lasso as a source of truth, and what happens when she vehemently disagrees with that truth.  I’m in the middle of The Obsidian Age arc, featuring the Justice League of 3000 years ago.  Here, he’s turning the moral table on the JLA, it appears, making them face what role they have in a completely foreign morality.  It seems a lot like a prelude to Justice League Elite, which he wrote a few years later, again drawn by Doug Mahnke, the artist on these JLA issues.  I wasn’t a big fan of Mahnke in JLE, and I’m still a little disturbed by his proportions and style here.  He does a good job at making people look unhealthy, and he seems a little obsessed with bugs and veins.  From the notes section of The Obsisdian Age, I discovered that Mahnke is from Minnesota.  I wonder if I’ve seen him at any of the conventions around here.

Check out all the cool links on this blog-style New Frontiersman website. There’s some fun photoshoppery in there. I’m (continually) getting more excited about the movie.

According to this interesting article, WB and 20th Century fox have finally reached a settlement, and the movie should come out as scheduled (March 6th). We’ll see! (The article also contains a bunch of other interesting comic news, including DC folks getting laid off.)

Comics read since last time:

X-Force 1-6 (new series)
Cable 1-2 (new series)
She-Hulk 26-30
X-Factor 30-32 and The Quick and the Dead
JLA 51-54

I have to start off by saying that I’ve never really liked Cable. Not now and not when he led X-Force. Not drawn by Ariel Olivetti and definitely not drawn by Rob Liefeld. I’m also not a huge fan of X-Force, coincidentally most identified with Rob Liefeld. I can’t say that what I’m currently reading has given me any great joy either. Both of the runs I’m reading now are part of the X-Men: Divided We Stand non-crossover. I’m actually being something of a hypocrite, in that I’m only reading them (in trades from the library) because X-Factor crosses into Secret Invasion and since the X-Factor trade I just finished is also part of Divided We Stand, I’ll read the rest of the related series. I say I’m a hypocrite, because when people say that they don’t want to read this series, or this crossover or comics from this company, because there’s too much background, or too much continuity, or they don’t want to have to know the past 50 years of comics, I gently scoff. And now, before diving headlong into Secret Invasion, I’m reading series I have no interest in, just to keep up with what’s going on. That’s kind of what I’m doing with She-Hulk, as well, although I’m more likely to have an interest in continuing on reading the Jade Giantess, afterwards.

Peter David is writing both She-Hulk and X-Factor (maybe he likes hyphens).The two series have a similar theme, in that they both cross into the crime genre: X-Factor is a detective agency, and She-Hulk along with her partner Jazinda (a skrull who currently doesn’t seem to be involved with the invasion) are bounty hunters. I’m definitely enjoying X-Factor more, though, than the “buddy film” adventures that She-Hulk is having.  It’s almost like David is having a better time writing these characters, than revisiting Gammaville.

Coincidentally, I also finished off a JLA trade: Divided We Fall.  As the X titles are all about what happens when Cyclops decides the X-Men are no more, this chapter of JLA is about what happens when DC’s greatest team has an irrepairable rift.  While the X-Men experience their disillusionment in the destruction of both the school and the near-fatal shooting of Professor X, the JLA’s wounds come from within, from Batman’s secret files on the rest of the heroes, specifically how to take them out.  All of that happened in the previous arc, where a villain gains knowledge of these vulnerabilities.  Now, the JLA has to decide whether they’re going to be able to function any more without their inherent trust.  Going back and reading all of this, after having read Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, and everything else that’s come after it, I can see how much has really been building for the past decade in DC.  This is a good example of what I was talking about.  I didn’t have to have read the JLA to enjoy the later stories, and going back now, it show just how much more of a tapestry everything is.  The threads have been there, and my noticing them now, makes it a much richer design.