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American Virgin #17(Vertigo, W: Steven T. Seagle, A: Becky Cloonan)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Adam is on some kind of "find yourself" roadtrip with the foxy black chick he met while trying to track down "the" girl from the pageant. He's pretty into this chick, but she's all "free spirit baybee" which is a bit much for him. It might not have been this issue, it might have been the one before it, but they went to some cock worshipping festival, where there's giant carved cocks everywhere, and its a whole loving the body blah blah thing, and Adam wasn't having that at first because he's still at least partially an uptight christian dude. Then she gives him a cock lollipop and he's all trying to play it cool but still isn't down for suckin on that shit. In this one he has a fight with his spicy exotic lady because he wants to stay at an actual hotel and she's into traveling hard and staying in hostels and whatnot. So he goes to get some kind of mystic tattoo that makes you see things, and he has a spiritual sex dream where he fucks Cassie, his ex thats dead, but when he's all pumped and saying how amazing it feels, she's like "yeah, thats what it's like your first time. But this is a yawnfest for me cause I didn't die no virgin." And thats where R Kelly should pop in wearing his white suit and toss out and "OH SHIT!" because that means she balled some other guy before she died. Harsh times. And then he gets back to the hostel to talk to his nubian princess and she's got some other dude who punks Adam out pretty hard. This issue should have been called "[Even bigger bummer than being an] American Virgin."
Chronicles of Wormwood #6(Avatar, W: Garth Ennis, A: Jacen Burrows)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: The Devil almost tricks Wormwood into killing Jay(Jesus), and furthering along the apocalypse, but Wormwood gets the Rabbit guy to distract The Devil by pissing in his beer and then when he isn't looking Wormwood kills both the Devil and God with the special spear from the Vatican that the Devil wanted him to use to kill Jay. So there's no more god, no more devil, and things are still the same. Very deep, Ennis. Total bummer ending to what I thought was going to be a longer story that actually went somewhere. This was basically a miniseries jerk session. My friend Scott wrote a review of the first 6 issues of The Boys, that some saintly fellow bought him in trade paperback format (AUTOGRAPHED TPB format no less), and while I don't agree with all of his review, he makes some good points about Ennis's shortcomings in that series that are magnified with this one. Check out Scott's blog and read that review HERE. In the end, this series had some good moments (Cocknose, the Rabbit character, etc) but now knowing where it was going to end up, I could have slept pretty soundly, and $18 richer, never having read this. Oh well.
Daredevil: Battlin' Jack Murdock #3(Marvel, W: Zeb Wells, A: Carmine Di Giandomenico)
Overview: This is a four party mini-series about Matt (Daredevil) Murdock's dad, Battlin' Jack. For those who don't know anything about Daredevil (jerks), his dad was a professional boxer who ended up getting stuck working for the mob and had to take a dive to protect his (now blind) son. This mini-series is basically a more fleshed out version of that story. There's some more stuff with Matt's mom, who left Jack to become a nun after Matt was born because he was too much of a violent boozing badazz. I'm really into these "way back when" mini series type jobs where they re-examine origins, especially when it's more modernized while still set in the past. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but most comic book characters that were created in the 60's/70's have origin stories that are cool and all when it comes to the broad strokes of it, but the actual details are usually pretty cornball. So these kinds of updates/second look stories are pretty sweet, if you ask me.
Current Storyline: Jack's been rising up through the ranks of boxing only to find out that not only has the mobster who basically owns him set him up to take a dive, he's paid all the fighter's he's beaten to take dives as well. The bartender who's all sweet on him finds out that he's going to take a dive and now she's lost faith in him too. And Matt makes his first appearance (albeit sans DD costume) to save his old man from some goons. "Who is it?" "Goons." "Who?" "Hired goons."
Exterminators #20(Vertigo: W, Simon Oliver, A: Ty Templeton)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: This one dude has been out of prison for a bit and is trying to maintain for his baby mama and kid and shit while staying on the straight and narrow and not getting back into the life. His buddies are all still raking it in hustling, but one of them gets carried off by these crazy giant Mayan Hissers, which are the cockroaches that wiped out the Mayans. I don't know if that's true or not, being that I'm not a scholar of either Mayan cultures or roaches. But I don't care, I'll buy it for the sake of the story. The idea is that these are just fucking brutal giant cockroaches that can eat people. Not like whole people, but they can do some sort of poisoning thing where they incapacitate a person and then eat them slowly from there. Which is pretty fucking creepy and all, considering roaches are fairly gross when they're just normal sized. In my old apartment I was sitting on the can and a decently big roach crawled up my bare leg and was heading right towards my very naked cock and balls, and that was probably one of only times in my life I've been severely grossed out by a bug or animal or whatever. So, giant man eating roaches...fucking awful. This comic continues to impress me, and despite being very much in what's increasingly recognizable as the "vertigo style", stands out to a degree as well.
Midnighter #10(Wildstorm, W: Keith Giffen, A: Chris Sprouse)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: Midnighter fucks up and while trying to save a girl scares her into killing herself. Being that his whole deal is being able to figure out what people are going to do before they do it, this is bad news and unnerves him. He decides he needs to get away from it all so he has some hacker nerd make him a new identity. Then, he kills said hacker nerd because the nerd is making kiddie porn. Right on, Midnighter. He then catches a ride to small town where there happens to be some super patriotic dude going around killing people for things like letting the flag touch the ground. I'm pretty sure there's some other comic villain/anti hero that had that same M.O, but I might just be thinking of that one Punisher mini series that Ennis did where there were three other vigilantes going around killing people. One was a priest, the other was some guy I can't remember, and the third was some rich guy who's deal was killing rude people or people bringing down the quality of life in nice neighborhoods (read: minorities). That last guy had a plain white mask that covered his whole face, no eyeholes or anything and this new guy has the same shit but american flag instead. So it's entirely possible I'm not being fair in suggesting that Giffen is less creative that he might seem, but thems the breaks.
New Avengers Illuminati #4(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis/Brian Reed, A: Jim Cheung)
Overview: This is a mini series focusing around the "Illuminati", the group responsible for, among other things, a good deal of the Civil War, blasting Hulk into space, and, in this series, fighting off a would be Kree invasion. And also they fought some Skrulls for some reason or another. The Skrulls and the Kree are two alien races that seemed to be forever trying to take over earth, or kill each other, or just being a general handful for superheroes when I was little. I don't know what they've been up to since, and I don't know their backstories all that well, but for the most part I don't give a fuck about aliens, so tough titty. That said, a Skrull shapeshifter took over Elektra's body, as we found out in New Avengers a couple months ago, and the infiltration of the Marvel universe's heroes and villains by Skrulls is probably going to be the next big stupid "event" that causes me to buy a bunch of comics I really don't need, after World War Hulk is over. Oh, right, the illuminati- Dr. Strange, Professor X, Black Bolt, Namor, Mr. Fantastic, and Iron Man. Varying from super jerks to just dudes-who-should-be-behaving-less-jerkily-than-they-are-now.
Current Storyline: This issue starts out with Dr. Strange bitching about how his girlfriend or wife or whatever left him. And then they all start griping about their various lady problems, the single guys saying they don't get laid enough and the married ones complaining about the squawk squawking of the hens back home. Seriously, that goes on for pages and pages. And then it somehow segues into a normal story about convincing a Kree prince to be the new Captain Marvel rather than trying to start a war on earth. I feel like the whole time I was reading the intro Bendis was just jerking off in my face and getting all "LOOK AT ME, I GOT A BIIIIG BONER, WOOMP WOOOMP WOOMP, AND YOU GOTTA LOOK AT IT JUST LIKE YOU GOTTA READ THIS HORSESHIT." And then he busted his nut and got tired and went to get a snack and made Brian Reed, whoever the fuck that is, write the rest of the normal comic book story. And probably toast the marshmallows for his post whack session s'mores. Oh, and why does every Asian comics guy draw like Jim Lee? FREE YOURSELVES FROM YOUR COUNTRYMEN.
New Warriors #3(Marvel, W: Kevin Grevioux, A: Paco Medina)
Overview: If you haven't been paying attention to comics at all, The New Warriors were the team whose actions set off the explosion in Stamford, CT that killed all the school kids and eventually led to the civil war. Supposedly they all died in the blast. BUT MAYBE NOT.
Current Storyline: Someone who at least claims and appears to be Night Thrasher is re-assembling a new New Warriors team in secret, to act as a direct response to Tony Stark/Iron Man's Initiative, which is having registered super hero teams in all 50 states. There's some shit going on with the individual characters that I don't feel like getting into, but I basically buy this because I like the fact that they're jerks and spraypaint snotty messages to Iron Man after they're done beating up villains. Anytime you combine attempts at good deeds with jackassery, you've got my buck.
Punisher #50(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Howard Chaykin)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: BIG FUCKIN 50TH ISSUE. It's thick like the ass on the substitute English teacher back in high school that you kind of hoped would be one of those dirty teachers that gets down with students but was actually just a nerd with nice cans. That's such a shitty metaphor that they should invent a new term for it rather than sully the reputation of decent metaphors everywhere. BUT I was able to work the phrase "cans" into this entry, so there's that. All idiocy aside, this is a pretty big story, Barracuda is back and ready to get some revenge for Punisher taking an eye, some fingers, some teeth, and leaving him for dead bleeding in shark infested waters. He also might have figured out the one way to get at Frank emotionally, which is such a big "OH SHIT" reveal that I'm not going to spoil it here, even though I usually give away whatever big stupid surprise is supposed to move units in my reviews. Only complaint is the art sucks a cock, it looks like something I'd expect in an indie comic about a guy who works at a video store part time and then spends the rest of his days learning about trees and flowers to impress some girl who works as a park ranger but is actually an alcoholic who's been in so many abusive relationships that she's unable to love. Which is a long way of saying "this shit isn't gritty at all, much less gritty enough for a showdown between the Punisher and one of the hardest craziest baddest sumbitches he's ever faced. That said, anticipating this to be one of the best storylines in my favorite comic going.
Scalped #8(Vertigo, W: Jason Aaron, A: R.M. Guera)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: Lincoln Red Crow's casino gets robbed, and each issue in this story arc examines the robbery from a different point of view. This one happens to be from one of the guys doing the robbing, a crazyfuckingwhiteboy who's only one sixteenth indian. A decent part of the issue is his backstory, about how he got picked on because he lived on the rez and wasn't a real injun. So he grew up crazy and tough as shit and super into "red power." He's always been with the traditionalists and so of course he hates Red Crow and the casino. The fight that goes down between him and Bad Horse is really fucking sweet, and even though Bad Horse is really outmatched he still manages to win the fight, and the way he does is a nice little piece of character development. See, this blog isn't ALWAYS talking cocks and boobs and hoo-hahs.
Thor #2(Marvel, W: J. Michael Straczynski, A: Oliver Copiel)
Overview: After being...somewhere?...for a long time, Thor is back. There was some very existential shit going on in the first issue where Donald Blake (Thor in human form) was in some crazy imaginary world talking to Thor (Thor in Thor form) and trying to convince him to come back to earth and be Thor again. Lots of "the gods do not decide if they exist, man must believe in/want/decide/need the gods to exist" stuff. But Thor is like "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and stays put. So Donald Blake goes back to being a Doctor and sometimes gets to deliver a baby or deal with a car accident or a gunshot wound, but mostly its lots of prostate exams and colostomy bags.
Current Storyline: NO JUST KIDDING LOLOLOL. Thor comes back to earth, but it's the Blake/Thor combo, so Blake goes to Oklahoma where Thor's hammer has been lying for some time now, all sword in the stone-ish, with everyone trying and failing to pick it up. Of course Blake picks it up and the whole place goes wild with thunder and lighting. But he decides to stay in Oklahoma and check out that scene for awhile. He rebuilds Asgard, but makes it float in the air to avoid zoning issues. And thats pretty much all that happens. Yeah, that part I'm actually not joking about. Hopefully next issue deals with the disaster of trying to set up an entire castle for wireless internet, and the problem with the pesky newpaper kid not really trying that hard to get the paper up to the castle steps. Ah, the life of a god.
World War Hulk #3(Marvel, W: Greg Pak, A: John Romita Jr.)
Overview: Hulk is here, and he's irritated. These heroes sent him off and that was just so not cool, and he's so peeved he's not sure he's even going to invite them to his coming home party at Applebee's. Well, ok, he is, but they're DEFINITELY sitting at the kids table. And no sparklers in their desserts. Because Hulk doesn't forgive or forget that easily.
Current Storyline: Iron Man is prisoner and everyone else is beaten near to death, so General Ross gets to step in and take on Hulk with the Army. Yeah, that's going to work. This whole series is cool and all I just don't know what to say about it that's not pretty obvious. So instead, I'll let you in on the fact that I was typing fast in the Thor write up and spelled Oklahoma "Oklahomo" by accident the first time. And then I actually sat here by myself at my laptop and laughed for about two minutes straight. So that's a little slice of my life.
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And next week's books, which will actually for really real be up this Monday, the 13th...
The Boys #9
Criminal #8
Daredevil #99
DMZ #22
Green Arrow Year One #3
The Incredible Hulk #109
New Avengers #33
Powers #25
Punisher War Journal #10
World War Hulk Frontline #3
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