It's funny how time flies. The title of this post is a Simpsons joke thats really dated now, and its barely ten years old. Anyway, this is my comics blog, in addition to my regular blog and my photo blog, dedicated stricly to comics. There's a longer drawn out intro here, if you really care that much about the thought process behind this whole thing. Briefly though, regarding the format: Each review starts with the name and number of the particular comic being reviewed, then gives the publisher, writer, and artist. If it's the first time I'm reviewing a particular book, I'll write up a short overview to go with it. If not, there will just be bullshit about whats going on in that issue. This will usually be updated Monday's, because that gives me time to read that weeks batch and write this shit up, and (gasp) go out and do stuff on the weekends, because, espescially when I'm working, Friday night to Sunday night is a strictly "be an idiot and wear myself down" time. As much as I love comics, I love doing stuff way more. The current blog begins below. Ta ta.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Comics Haul and Reviews Week of Weds 8/1/07
Finally back up to speed.
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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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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.
-------------
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
Giving Up.
After my reviews being so out of date that they rolled past the two months behind mark, I've given up on catching up. I'll still be doing this blog, but I'm just jumping right to last weeks stuff. So there's a huge batch of somewhere between sixty and a hundred comics that I'm just not going to review. Not that anyone's going to be looking for a high ledge to waltz off over it, but I figured I'd make note in case any of my loyal readership of, well, Scott and...Scott...was wondering why there's a gap of two issues or so out there. And, for further filler, I'm going to post some of the cooler covers from that two month gap.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Comics Haul and Reviews Week of Weds 5/16/07
Slowly but surely getting caught up.
------------
Army @ Love #3
(Vertigo, W: Rich Vietch, A: Gary Erskine)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: THE WAR COMES HOME! I see that on all sorts of advertising for various war related movies/books/tv/whatever. And now it's here. Hopefully it's effective. The chick who was in the hot zone club (effin under fire) is back home in the states to see her husband, who's been plowing his wife's commanders wife, who finds out that said commander has been balling some local afghani woman, and the guy who railed the hot zone club chick is following her back in the states in hopes of more screwin. Lotta suckfuck in this book!
Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #5
(DC, W: Frank Miller, A: Jim Lee)
Overview: If it wasn't the fact that this book has been so fucking sporadic, it would be my #1 book without a doubt. It's Frank Miller, who's pretty much my favorite writer, doing Batman, who's pretty much my favorite character. Re-writing/re-working Batman is hardly new territory for Miller after Year One and The Dark Knight Returns/The Dark Knight Strikes Back. I'm not going to talk about any of those right now as DKR is, in my opinion, the best comic ever, and something I could go on and on about. And I mean, if I'm going to ramble semi coherently about something, it might as well be more directly on topic. The big difference this time around is that Miller has this Batman being much more over the edge and dangerous than ever before. Not dangerous in the vicious yet tactical and controlled way he was in DKR, but dangerous in a total psychopath kind of way. A good example that goes beyond his even more brutal than usual method of beating-the-fuck-out-of-bad-guyzz is that when he first brings Dick Grayson/Robin home, he leaves him in the cave to fend for himself. When Alfred brings the kid a cheeseburger Batman flips out on Alfred because he wanted Robin to have to survive on his own, by eating rats like Batman did when he first found the cave. That's the problem with the British though, they don't understand that sometimes you've just gotta teach a kid that there are worse things in life than being hungry. Like, say, catching and eating live rats. I don't know how long this book is going to last, or if it will ever get on a regular release schedule, but it's kind of a nice surprise now whenever it comes out, because I've almost forgotten about it and it's all "OHHH, SHIT" day at the comic shop.
Current Storyline: Robin is almost ready to head out and stomp ass.
Cable and Deadpool #40*
(Marvel, W: Fabian Nicieza, A: Riley Brown)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: I stopped reading this because I'm spending too much money on comics. I may have bought another issue after this one, in fact I'm pretty sure that I did, but I don't care. This was starting to focus way more on Cable than on Deadpool, so it lost my interest pretty quickly. I'd like to see someone do a serious take on Deadpool, maybe in a miniseries or something. If someone could pull it off, a totally insane/wisecracking Deadpool who's actually dealing with some kind of big intense problem and losing his mind even more and so on and so forth would be really sweet. But for now, so long, jerkass.
Fallen Son: Captain America*
(Marvel, W: Jeph Loeb, A: John Romita Jr.)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: I don't remember. These are annoying.
Moon Knight #10
(Marvel, W: Charlie Huston, A: Mico Suayan)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Unlike the last issue which by the misleading cover would suggest that the Punisher and Moon Knight have some sort of get together but was really just a cocktease as the Punisher was only on the last page or so, this issue ACTUALLY has the Punisher in it. And it's pretty boring. There's more shit going on with some guy who can read people like a book, and see how they'll react to things, and more with the guy who wanted to be Moon Knight's sidekick but got spurned and is now trying to kill him. As memory serves, this was kind of a filler issue. But that's rarely the case.
Ultimate Spider-Man #109
(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Mark Bagley)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Things get deeper in the whole "who sold out who" thing amongst the little group of dudes who teamed up to take down the Kingpin. The Ulitimate versions of Daredevil and Iron Fist and that karate asian guy are all fine, but the Ultimate Dr. Strange is kind of retarded. His response to pretty much everything is "woah, chill bros." That's the attitude I want from my teen comedy 2nd banana's, not from my sorcerer supremes. Come on Bendis, quit coasting.
------------
Army @ Love #3(Vertigo, W: Rich Vietch, A: Gary Erskine)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: THE WAR COMES HOME! I see that on all sorts of advertising for various war related movies/books/tv/whatever. And now it's here. Hopefully it's effective. The chick who was in the hot zone club (effin under fire) is back home in the states to see her husband, who's been plowing his wife's commanders wife, who finds out that said commander has been balling some local afghani woman, and the guy who railed the hot zone club chick is following her back in the states in hopes of more screwin. Lotta suckfuck in this book!
Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #5(DC, W: Frank Miller, A: Jim Lee)
Overview: If it wasn't the fact that this book has been so fucking sporadic, it would be my #1 book without a doubt. It's Frank Miller, who's pretty much my favorite writer, doing Batman, who's pretty much my favorite character. Re-writing/re-working Batman is hardly new territory for Miller after Year One and The Dark Knight Returns/The Dark Knight Strikes Back. I'm not going to talk about any of those right now as DKR is, in my opinion, the best comic ever, and something I could go on and on about. And I mean, if I'm going to ramble semi coherently about something, it might as well be more directly on topic. The big difference this time around is that Miller has this Batman being much more over the edge and dangerous than ever before. Not dangerous in the vicious yet tactical and controlled way he was in DKR, but dangerous in a total psychopath kind of way. A good example that goes beyond his even more brutal than usual method of beating-the-fuck-out-of-bad-guyzz is that when he first brings Dick Grayson/Robin home, he leaves him in the cave to fend for himself. When Alfred brings the kid a cheeseburger Batman flips out on Alfred because he wanted Robin to have to survive on his own, by eating rats like Batman did when he first found the cave. That's the problem with the British though, they don't understand that sometimes you've just gotta teach a kid that there are worse things in life than being hungry. Like, say, catching and eating live rats. I don't know how long this book is going to last, or if it will ever get on a regular release schedule, but it's kind of a nice surprise now whenever it comes out, because I've almost forgotten about it and it's all "OHHH, SHIT" day at the comic shop.
Current Storyline: Robin is almost ready to head out and stomp ass.
Cable and Deadpool #40*(Marvel, W: Fabian Nicieza, A: Riley Brown)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: I stopped reading this because I'm spending too much money on comics. I may have bought another issue after this one, in fact I'm pretty sure that I did, but I don't care. This was starting to focus way more on Cable than on Deadpool, so it lost my interest pretty quickly. I'd like to see someone do a serious take on Deadpool, maybe in a miniseries or something. If someone could pull it off, a totally insane/wisecracking Deadpool who's actually dealing with some kind of big intense problem and losing his mind even more and so on and so forth would be really sweet. But for now, so long, jerkass.
Fallen Son: Captain America*(Marvel, W: Jeph Loeb, A: John Romita Jr.)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: I don't remember. These are annoying.
Moon Knight #10(Marvel, W: Charlie Huston, A: Mico Suayan)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Unlike the last issue which by the misleading cover would suggest that the Punisher and Moon Knight have some sort of get together but was really just a cocktease as the Punisher was only on the last page or so, this issue ACTUALLY has the Punisher in it. And it's pretty boring. There's more shit going on with some guy who can read people like a book, and see how they'll react to things, and more with the guy who wanted to be Moon Knight's sidekick but got spurned and is now trying to kill him. As memory serves, this was kind of a filler issue. But that's rarely the case.
Ultimate Spider-Man #109(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Mark Bagley)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Things get deeper in the whole "who sold out who" thing amongst the little group of dudes who teamed up to take down the Kingpin. The Ulitimate versions of Daredevil and Iron Fist and that karate asian guy are all fine, but the Ultimate Dr. Strange is kind of retarded. His response to pretty much everything is "woah, chill bros." That's the attitude I want from my teen comedy 2nd banana's, not from my sorcerer supremes. Come on Bendis, quit coasting.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Comics Haul and Reviews Week of Weds 5/9/07
I'm now dangling on the edge of being two months behind with these. It's almost to the point where reviewing/recapping books this old is useless, but NOT QUITE. So I'll keep going, and hopefully catch up so I'm back to getting these up a few days after the books come out.
Amazing Spider-Man #540*
(Marvel, W: J. Michael Straczynski, A: Ron Garney)
Overview: With the exception of The New Avengers, this is probably the most straightforward super hero comic that I read. Like so much other stuff I started reading it during the Civil War for the tie-in issues, and I've stayed with it a bit longer because Straczynski is a pretty good writer, and the current storyline is pretty sweet. I'll probably drop it relatively soon though, as I'm not into straight up super hero comics enough to read two Spider-Man books, and Ultimate Spider-Man is by far the better of the two.
Current Storyline: As retribution for all the bullshit between them throughout the years, Kingpin hires an assassin to kill Peter Parker now that his secret identity is not so secret. Being that his spider sense still works, Peter dodges the bullet, but it hits Aunt May. She's not dead, but she's in a coma or something equally bad. So now not only is Spider-Man a fugitive because he's still unregistered, but he's hunting down the guy who shot at him, and (in theory) is going to kill him. I feel like this is the umpteenth time I'm saying this, but the fact that he's all aggro and darker and violent now makes the book a bit more interesting than normal, especially when you put that in contrast with Spider-Man's normally goofy demeanor. The only thing that's annoying about it is that while he's all "FUCK DA WORLD" in this book, in New Avengers he's his normal stupid joke making self. So if you read both at the same time, it's mildly frustrating. But the other thing that's pissing me off about Amazing Spider-Man right now is that I'm pretty positive Aunt May died a long time ago, when I was little and still reading comics all the time, like in issue 400 or something. I really clearly remember a cover shaped like a tombstone and all sorts of special horseshit like that. And I'm sure she was just a clone or a shaved ape or a robot or god knows what. And twenty five year old Sawyer is 100% A-OK with that, because thats what comics do to sell more comics. But twelve year old Sawyer is bummed that he wasted time wondering if Aunt May was going to make it, when the only thing that was dying was a broomstick in a sun dress with a big floppy hat.
Chronicles of Wormwood #3*
(Avatar, W: Garth Ennis, A: Jacen Burrows)
Overview: Wormwood is a marketing executive who also happens to be the son of the devil. He primarily hangs out with a talking rabbit, and his buddy "Jay" who's Jesus reincarnated as a black rasta guy. But Jay is kind of retarded because some ig-nant motherfuckers hit him with a brick cause they don't like the blacks. The current pope is Pope Jocko, an australian who is mostly into getting his dick sucked all the time, AND he happens to be in cahoots with the Devil. Ennis deals with religion in some form in a lot of his writing, most notably in Preacher obviously, but this is a more direct approach than even that book. Being that it's only three issues deep, it's hard to tell where he's going with it in the long run, but it's entertaining to say the least. Not the best thing Ennis has ever done, but worthwhile. The only thing I really dislike is that Avatar also puts out all the Lady Death books so in the back of each issue of Wormwood there's a catalog of all the zillion different variants of each issue of Lady Death you can buy and whack off to, and it depresses me because then I start thinking about all those dudes I duck at the comic shop each week who are so far removed from vagina that sticking it to a blowup doll requires a few drinks for courage. Man, this fucking world.
Current Storyline: Wormwood is severely bummed because he got caught screwing around behind his girlfriends back, and she dumped him. In very unlike-the-son-of-the-devil behavior, this is actually really bothering him. He's taking the rabbit on a tour of heaven and hell, and the whole Pope/Devil thing is starting to kick up.
DMZ #19
(Vertigo, W: Brian Wood, A: Riccardo Burchelli)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: Matty Roth gets deeper into his investigation of the Day 204 massacre. After talking to one of the soldiers involved in the last issue, he goes to interview one of the commanding officers who, shockingly, gives him a much more cleaned up and professional version of the events. WHO KNOWS WHAT TO BELIEVE IN THIS TANGLED WEB....he?...WEAVES?
Immortal Iron Fist #5
(Marvel, W: Matt Fraction/Ed Brubaker, A: David Aja/Travel Foreman)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Danny Rand, and the old time-y WWI era Iron fist, Orson Randall, go up against a full on attack from Hydra. In theory, Hydra are a big bad scary terrorist organization that have been around forever, and are generally into ruining everyone's good time. But it seems like even though every time they show up and people lose their minds, all "oh, shit, Hydra's here, we're fucked", they get their asses handed to them no problem. I don't get how Hydra are a considered a serious threat when they always put up such a yawnfest of a fight. Oh, and the last thing I wanted to mention was that the older Iron Fist has figured out how to extend his Iron Fist power to his handguns, and so now they're just super guns. How is it that he figured that out forever ago and Danny Rand is still running around punching people like a jerkoff? COME ON.
New Avengers #30
(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Leinil Fancis Yu)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: The New Avengers are over in Japan trying to rescue the Ronin girl who went over there for some reason or another. As the cover suggests, Dr. Strange gets stabbed with a big honkin ninja sword, by Elektra, as memory serves, who's leading the Hand ninja's they're fighting. Iron Man also hires some voodoo mystic to try and break Dr. Strange's spell that cloaks his house/The NA HQ and makes it seem empty. But the guy can't do it. Which is pretty shocking, that some dumbass Voodoo guy with a silly hat can't break Dr. Strange's spells. I mean, it's not like he's the sorcerer supreme of the world or anything. Fuck this, I'm already embarrassed to be arguing a point related to sorcery. This book is sweet, but it's moving way too slowly right now.
Punisher War Journal #7
(Marvel, W: Matt Fraction, A: Ariel Olivetti)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Frank's been captured by Hatemonger, the white power dude who's been killing an asston of mexicans down on the border. This issue starts out with Hatemonger about to execute the Punisher...and then it goes back to explain how the whole thing came to be. Fraction has been doing this for a bunch of the last few issues, the whole "start at the end" thing, and always then tracking all the way back up to a point just after where the issue started. I guess it would be exceptionally snotty to gripe about that considering the fact that he's written about ten times more good comics than my...zero. But whatever, I'm the customer dammit. And it's beginning to wear on me. You're a good writer, you don't need a device for a crutch in every issue. And you have a cool name. I bet Matt Fraction could even do the whole thing where he raises his sunglasses all slow and squints down at you and not look even somewhat ridiculous. I mean, I can't pull that off. Maybe Mrs. Fraction is a fox too. Ah, life.
Thunderbolts #114
(Marvel, W: Warren Ellis, A: Mike Deodato Jr.)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: The Thunderbolts are out to capture the Steel Spider, because Norman Osborn is all bonkers and keeps thinking it's Spider-Man, who he has something of an issue with. But the Steel Spider is not exactly all there either, so what was already bound to be a fucked up mission gets even more complicated when two random 'jobber hero's show up. I can't remember the girl one's name, but the other guy is actually called AMERICAN EAGLE. He's a Navajo Indian or some shit, and I guess he's pretty strong, and can do some other stuff too, but it's just such a shittly dated character name considering that now pretty much every mall has an American Eagle store that sells cheaper versions of the date rapist/rapee clothes you get at Abercrombie. So the idea of a super hero who champions the cause of discount dickhead clothes is actually a lot sweeter than an Indian super hero who's just another guy that's really strong and stuff. At the end of the issue the Thunderbolts are about to face off against the Steel Spider, American Eagle and some lady hero, and it's all "oh, shit, will they be able to take down THREE AT ONCE???" Yeah, three unregistered heroes is a bigger challenge than one, but if the Thunderbolts can't take down this crew of C-listers, they should just buy a bunch of guns or something, because their various "powers" obviously aren't cutting it.
Wolverine Origins #14
(Marvel, W: Daniel Way, A: Steve Dillon)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: As Wolverine heals himself from the serious ball-stomping he received from his kid in the previous issue, Cyber tells him the story behind his origin. I'm not into Wolverine enough to know every single villain he's ever fought, so this Cyber dude is a blur at best to me. But how his origins fit into Wolverine's history is pretty cool. Which is good, because the elaborate back story that's being played out throughout the run of this book is what makes it worth reading. Because when it devolves (thankfully briefly, for the most part) into Wolverine fighting dudez and clawing them up and what not, it gets pretty boring.
Y: The Last Man #56
(Vertigo, W: Brian K. Vaughn, A: Pia Guerra)
Overview: I was browing through my old posts to find the first review I'd done for Y so I could link to it for the overview part, but apparently I haven't done any of this book yet. Which is weird because I could have sworn the previous issue came out during the time that I've been doing this blog, but I guess not. So basically in the semi-near future a plauge comes that kills everything with a Y chromosome. I hope I spelled chromosome right. Women take over the world and prepare for extinction more or less. But it turns out, that one guy, Yorick, and one male monkey, Ampersand, somehow survived the plague. Yorick's now pretty much the last hope the human race has for survival. This book is his story. It seems like this should have something snarky like all the other entries, but it doesn't. As I'll mention again below, I've read a whole bunch of issues of Y but only the last few in any sort of consecutive order, so my understanding of the finer points of the larger story isn't too clear. All the trades should be readily available, and unless you're an idiot like myself who insist on buying every individual issue rather than the TPB's, you should go out and get them.
Current Storyline: I've been buying up back issues left and right recently, including a batch of Y's. Having read handfuls of issues from throughout the run in the last few weeks, it's even harder than usual to remember exactly what happened in this issue. So instead of trying to do any sort of decent recap, I'm just going to talk about how this book is really sweet in general. My friend Scott recommended it to me and being that this was around the time I first started buying comics on the regular again, I didn't have the excess of monthly books that I do now. It took some time to grow on me now it's easily in my top 10. Vaughn is a pretty good writer in his own right, and with "Y" he's taken the whole post-apocalyptic thing and twisted it a bit. Admittedly it's a genre that I'm going to give a writer more leeway with than, say, the quiet decline of the British monarchy, but my biases aside, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say this is one of those books that will appeal to anyone.
Amazing Spider-Man #540*(Marvel, W: J. Michael Straczynski, A: Ron Garney)
Overview: With the exception of The New Avengers, this is probably the most straightforward super hero comic that I read. Like so much other stuff I started reading it during the Civil War for the tie-in issues, and I've stayed with it a bit longer because Straczynski is a pretty good writer, and the current storyline is pretty sweet. I'll probably drop it relatively soon though, as I'm not into straight up super hero comics enough to read two Spider-Man books, and Ultimate Spider-Man is by far the better of the two.
Current Storyline: As retribution for all the bullshit between them throughout the years, Kingpin hires an assassin to kill Peter Parker now that his secret identity is not so secret. Being that his spider sense still works, Peter dodges the bullet, but it hits Aunt May. She's not dead, but she's in a coma or something equally bad. So now not only is Spider-Man a fugitive because he's still unregistered, but he's hunting down the guy who shot at him, and (in theory) is going to kill him. I feel like this is the umpteenth time I'm saying this, but the fact that he's all aggro and darker and violent now makes the book a bit more interesting than normal, especially when you put that in contrast with Spider-Man's normally goofy demeanor. The only thing that's annoying about it is that while he's all "FUCK DA WORLD" in this book, in New Avengers he's his normal stupid joke making self. So if you read both at the same time, it's mildly frustrating. But the other thing that's pissing me off about Amazing Spider-Man right now is that I'm pretty positive Aunt May died a long time ago, when I was little and still reading comics all the time, like in issue 400 or something. I really clearly remember a cover shaped like a tombstone and all sorts of special horseshit like that. And I'm sure she was just a clone or a shaved ape or a robot or god knows what. And twenty five year old Sawyer is 100% A-OK with that, because thats what comics do to sell more comics. But twelve year old Sawyer is bummed that he wasted time wondering if Aunt May was going to make it, when the only thing that was dying was a broomstick in a sun dress with a big floppy hat.
Chronicles of Wormwood #3*(Avatar, W: Garth Ennis, A: Jacen Burrows)
Overview: Wormwood is a marketing executive who also happens to be the son of the devil. He primarily hangs out with a talking rabbit, and his buddy "Jay" who's Jesus reincarnated as a black rasta guy. But Jay is kind of retarded because some ig-nant motherfuckers hit him with a brick cause they don't like the blacks. The current pope is Pope Jocko, an australian who is mostly into getting his dick sucked all the time, AND he happens to be in cahoots with the Devil. Ennis deals with religion in some form in a lot of his writing, most notably in Preacher obviously, but this is a more direct approach than even that book. Being that it's only three issues deep, it's hard to tell where he's going with it in the long run, but it's entertaining to say the least. Not the best thing Ennis has ever done, but worthwhile. The only thing I really dislike is that Avatar also puts out all the Lady Death books so in the back of each issue of Wormwood there's a catalog of all the zillion different variants of each issue of Lady Death you can buy and whack off to, and it depresses me because then I start thinking about all those dudes I duck at the comic shop each week who are so far removed from vagina that sticking it to a blowup doll requires a few drinks for courage. Man, this fucking world.
Current Storyline: Wormwood is severely bummed because he got caught screwing around behind his girlfriends back, and she dumped him. In very unlike-the-son-of-the-devil behavior, this is actually really bothering him. He's taking the rabbit on a tour of heaven and hell, and the whole Pope/Devil thing is starting to kick up.
DMZ #19(Vertigo, W: Brian Wood, A: Riccardo Burchelli)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: Matty Roth gets deeper into his investigation of the Day 204 massacre. After talking to one of the soldiers involved in the last issue, he goes to interview one of the commanding officers who, shockingly, gives him a much more cleaned up and professional version of the events. WHO KNOWS WHAT TO BELIEVE IN THIS TANGLED WEB....he?...WEAVES?
Immortal Iron Fist #5(Marvel, W: Matt Fraction/Ed Brubaker, A: David Aja/Travel Foreman)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Danny Rand, and the old time-y WWI era Iron fist, Orson Randall, go up against a full on attack from Hydra. In theory, Hydra are a big bad scary terrorist organization that have been around forever, and are generally into ruining everyone's good time. But it seems like even though every time they show up and people lose their minds, all "oh, shit, Hydra's here, we're fucked", they get their asses handed to them no problem. I don't get how Hydra are a considered a serious threat when they always put up such a yawnfest of a fight. Oh, and the last thing I wanted to mention was that the older Iron Fist has figured out how to extend his Iron Fist power to his handguns, and so now they're just super guns. How is it that he figured that out forever ago and Danny Rand is still running around punching people like a jerkoff? COME ON.
New Avengers #30(Marvel, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Leinil Fancis Yu)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: The New Avengers are over in Japan trying to rescue the Ronin girl who went over there for some reason or another. As the cover suggests, Dr. Strange gets stabbed with a big honkin ninja sword, by Elektra, as memory serves, who's leading the Hand ninja's they're fighting. Iron Man also hires some voodoo mystic to try and break Dr. Strange's spell that cloaks his house/The NA HQ and makes it seem empty. But the guy can't do it. Which is pretty shocking, that some dumbass Voodoo guy with a silly hat can't break Dr. Strange's spells. I mean, it's not like he's the sorcerer supreme of the world or anything. Fuck this, I'm already embarrassed to be arguing a point related to sorcery. This book is sweet, but it's moving way too slowly right now.
Punisher War Journal #7(Marvel, W: Matt Fraction, A: Ariel Olivetti)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Frank's been captured by Hatemonger, the white power dude who's been killing an asston of mexicans down on the border. This issue starts out with Hatemonger about to execute the Punisher...and then it goes back to explain how the whole thing came to be. Fraction has been doing this for a bunch of the last few issues, the whole "start at the end" thing, and always then tracking all the way back up to a point just after where the issue started. I guess it would be exceptionally snotty to gripe about that considering the fact that he's written about ten times more good comics than my...zero. But whatever, I'm the customer dammit. And it's beginning to wear on me. You're a good writer, you don't need a device for a crutch in every issue. And you have a cool name. I bet Matt Fraction could even do the whole thing where he raises his sunglasses all slow and squints down at you and not look even somewhat ridiculous. I mean, I can't pull that off. Maybe Mrs. Fraction is a fox too. Ah, life.
Thunderbolts #114(Marvel, W: Warren Ellis, A: Mike Deodato Jr.)
Overview: HERE.
Current Storyline: The Thunderbolts are out to capture the Steel Spider, because Norman Osborn is all bonkers and keeps thinking it's Spider-Man, who he has something of an issue with. But the Steel Spider is not exactly all there either, so what was already bound to be a fucked up mission gets even more complicated when two random 'jobber hero's show up. I can't remember the girl one's name, but the other guy is actually called AMERICAN EAGLE. He's a Navajo Indian or some shit, and I guess he's pretty strong, and can do some other stuff too, but it's just such a shittly dated character name considering that now pretty much every mall has an American Eagle store that sells cheaper versions of the date rapist/rapee clothes you get at Abercrombie. So the idea of a super hero who champions the cause of discount dickhead clothes is actually a lot sweeter than an Indian super hero who's just another guy that's really strong and stuff. At the end of the issue the Thunderbolts are about to face off against the Steel Spider, American Eagle and some lady hero, and it's all "oh, shit, will they be able to take down THREE AT ONCE???" Yeah, three unregistered heroes is a bigger challenge than one, but if the Thunderbolts can't take down this crew of C-listers, they should just buy a bunch of guns or something, because their various "powers" obviously aren't cutting it.
Wolverine Origins #14(Marvel, W: Daniel Way, A: Steve Dillon)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: As Wolverine heals himself from the serious ball-stomping he received from his kid in the previous issue, Cyber tells him the story behind his origin. I'm not into Wolverine enough to know every single villain he's ever fought, so this Cyber dude is a blur at best to me. But how his origins fit into Wolverine's history is pretty cool. Which is good, because the elaborate back story that's being played out throughout the run of this book is what makes it worth reading. Because when it devolves (thankfully briefly, for the most part) into Wolverine fighting dudez and clawing them up and what not, it gets pretty boring.
Y: The Last Man #56(Vertigo, W: Brian K. Vaughn, A: Pia Guerra)
Overview: I was browing through my old posts to find the first review I'd done for Y so I could link to it for the overview part, but apparently I haven't done any of this book yet. Which is weird because I could have sworn the previous issue came out during the time that I've been doing this blog, but I guess not. So basically in the semi-near future a plauge comes that kills everything with a Y chromosome. I hope I spelled chromosome right. Women take over the world and prepare for extinction more or less. But it turns out, that one guy, Yorick, and one male monkey, Ampersand, somehow survived the plague. Yorick's now pretty much the last hope the human race has for survival. This book is his story. It seems like this should have something snarky like all the other entries, but it doesn't. As I'll mention again below, I've read a whole bunch of issues of Y but only the last few in any sort of consecutive order, so my understanding of the finer points of the larger story isn't too clear. All the trades should be readily available, and unless you're an idiot like myself who insist on buying every individual issue rather than the TPB's, you should go out and get them.
Current Storyline: I've been buying up back issues left and right recently, including a batch of Y's. Having read handfuls of issues from throughout the run in the last few weeks, it's even harder than usual to remember exactly what happened in this issue. So instead of trying to do any sort of decent recap, I'm just going to talk about how this book is really sweet in general. My friend Scott recommended it to me and being that this was around the time I first started buying comics on the regular again, I didn't have the excess of monthly books that I do now. It took some time to grow on me now it's easily in my top 10. Vaughn is a pretty good writer in his own right, and with "Y" he's taken the whole post-apocalyptic thing and twisted it a bit. Admittedly it's a genre that I'm going to give a writer more leeway with than, say, the quiet decline of the British monarchy, but my biases aside, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say this is one of those books that will appeal to anyone.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Comics Haul and Reviews Week of 5/2/07
So this is almost a month late. For a variety of reasons, most of them related to the whole shitty moving process. I'll be catching up the next week or so, and the entire thing should be back on track and on time by next week's batch (6/6/07).
Anyway...
100 Bullets #83
(Vertigo, W: Brian Azzarello, A: Eduardo Risso)
Overview: A crime/noir type comic with what I'm pretty sure is a rotating cast of characters. This issue ends the first full story arc I've read, so I'm still not too sure of exactly what/who makes up the "world" of this book, and how the whole routine works. I know I say "generally well written" all the time in these reviews, but in this instance it really is GENERALLY well written. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about the writing that works. The genre is one that lends itself to rely more heavily on strength in the writing than the art, as stylized and awesome as Sin City looked, pictures of thugs and sexy dames and guns and what have you get old pretty quickly if there's nothing behind it, wheras super hero comics tend to be able to lean more on sensational art. And those kind of comics are more likely to attract a crowd that doesn't really care about writing and is more into pictures of dudez and babez with big biceps and tits. I'm trailing off into snob territory, so suffice it to say that if you're going to be reading crime comics in the first place, you're more apt to expect a higher caliber of writing, which 100 Bullets delivers. Not grand slam storytelling all the time, but always better than average. This is a book I usually have to re-read and go back to the few prior issues to keep up because there's so much going on that with the amount of stuff I read every week I lose track. Thats not a slight, it's actually to Azzarello's credit.
Current Storyline: This hard old dude whose name I can't remember has been dispatched to Italy to steal a painting. His contacts turn on him, he gets jacked up by some young punks, gets some sexin' in with a mysterious lay-dee, and so forth. There's also a side plot about the FBI trying to recruit this kid who killed someone and got away with it.
American Virgin #14
(Vertigo, W: Steven T. Seagle, A: Becky Cloonan)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: A hurricane or something rips through Florida, or wherever the Chamberlain mansion/compound is (it's sad how briefly my memory functions). Adam is still on his search for the girl from the pageant who's "the one", but as the gets closer to the end of the list, he begins to think "gee, maybe this isn't it after all." Maybe it's just because that little revelation occurs every few issues, and it's ALWAYS accompanied by Adam saying/thinking some variation of those words, that I'm getting kind of sick of it. Sure, a big part of life is realizing that things are always changing, and that something you may have thought to be the end all be all truth one day might not be so the next is a theme which pretty much everyone can/should be able to relate to. But I mean Vertigo books, at least in theory, aren't written for 12 year olds, so it's kind of insulting to have the writer beat me over the head with a theme that's pretty recognizable left to it's own devices, not to mention more meaningful that way. Good comic, weak point. Oh well. Oh, and there's some "oh my, he's a she but she's gonna DO IT with this other she!" stuff going on.
Deadman #9*
(Vertigo, W: Bruce Jones, A: John Watkiss)
Overview: This is a book I picked up because I had just paid rent for the month and I was like "fuck it, why SHOULDN'T I blow more money than usual on comics this week!" I honestly rememeber zilch about the book now, but at the time I read it, which is almost a month ago, I'm pretty sure I liked it enough to decide to get the next issue as well. So hopefully I'll be more prompt with my weekly reviews when that week rolls around, and I'll be able to actually review this. Yeah, I could just read it again, but my comics are at home, I'm at work now, and I'm on a roll with these reviews so I don't want to stop and get sidetracked.
Current Storyline: Chandler starts to worry that he's not a serious enough partner for Monica, and that she'll go back to Richard who has always been a more mature and stable presence in her life. Meanwhile, Ross tries to figure out how to tell Rachel how he truly feels, and Joey brings home identical twins but forgets which is which right in the middle of an intimate moment and blows the whole thing.
The Exterminators #17*
(Vertigo, W: Simon Oliver, A: Ty Templeton)
Overview: It seems to be similar to 100 Bullets in that there's a cast of characters that floats from story to story, but each story arc focuses more on some characters and less on others. Everyone/everything is generally related to the world of pest extermination, which, being that this is a comic, is much more exciting and dramatic than I imagine the real world business of pest control to be. I just started reading this book at #16, so I've only really gotten a slice of said world so far, but I think the above assessment is pretty accurate.
Current Storyline: There's an exterminators convention in Vegas, and the upstart company, "Shock and Awe" is running the floor. Their business model is making pest control sexy, sending buff dudes in hotttt little outfits on house calls and having all their promo work done by girls with big hooters in bikini's. The CEO type guy is an old friend of that black guy on the cover, who's more of an old-fashioned pest control sort of guy. He's also on the wagon and trying to lead a more straight and narrow life, but the Shock and Awe guy lures him back in to the world of partying and gambling. It's all a blast until he wakes up and is arrested for a robbery he didn't commit. I guess there's something to be said for having a kind of bizarre/different frame such as the world of pest control to put around your story, as it allows for semi-typical plot lines to be more interesting.
Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #4
(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Clayton Crain)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Travis Parham (the NOT RACIST ANYMORE confederate soldier) has his first run in with the Ghost Rider, as they've both been tracking and attacking the gang of Klansmen. Said Klansmen are getting all sorts of "shit-fuck-fuck-we're-dead" scared, until one of them figures out they can get their own ass kickin ghost rider demon type guy. I'm hoping for Foghorn Leghorn with a Klan Hood.
Hellboy: Darkness Calls #1*
(Dark Horse, W: Mike Mignola, A: Duncan Fegredo)
Overview: Hellboy is this demon thing that was brought to earth by Nazi scientists and occultists in WWII. But American soldiers found him and raised him and now he investigates all sorts of crazy monsters and shit for the government. I'm sure most people either saw or are aware of the Hellboy movie from a few years ago, so I'm not going to waste too much time with this.
Current Storyline: Hellboy goes to visit some old buddy of his at his house or castle-y house, whatever it may be. Hellboy being Hellboy, trouble always follows, this time in the form of a bunch of witches being brought back from the dead, or back out of hiding, something along those lines. It's times like this that I'm tempted to google or wikipedia this shit so my little entries are more accurate, but I feel like that would be cheating somehow. I have zero logic to back that up, but such is life. So that's some form of apology for all the "or somethings", "or some such shit", and "I dunno's." Hellboy is a great horror-crime-whatever comic, and since Mignola does it every now and then instead of an ongoing series these days, it always seems fresh and exciting. Not "BOOOOIIIINNGGGG" exciting, but still up there.
The Incredible Hulk #106*
(Marvel, W: Greg Pak, A: Gary Frank)
Overview: Bruce Banner was a scientist researching radiation and gamma rays, whatever the fuck those are, and accidentally got blasted by some trying to save some jackass kid who was in the testing area. After that point, whenever he got angry, he'd turn into the Hulk, this giant monster thing with basically unlimited strength but minimal intelligence who would go berserk and eventually turn back into mild mannered Banner. That was like forty years ago. Since then, the Hulk has been green, grey, smart, stupid, hulk all the time, Banner/Hulk, and who knows what else. I haven't followed the series too closely, so I cant really give you too much more of an accurate timeline than that, though from the current issues my understanding is that he's Hulk all the time these days, and rational and intelligent as well. The Hulk is one of those characters that can make for a really great or really lousy comic depending on who's writing it at the time. There was a movie made a few years ago that had a serious love/hate divide because some artsy froo froo director did it, and it was less action and more talking and thinking. I want to say it was Ang Lee, but that could be wildly inaccurate. If I ever manage to get paid to write anything, it's going to be a bitch to have to start fact checking things, and researching the topics I write about, as I'm pretty deeply immersed in my little "ah, fuck em, I'll just make it up" swamp. Also, whenever I think of Ang Lee directing movies, I just picture him smiling a lot giving the peace sign. Yes, because I'm a shitty person and think of all asian people as the tourists in New York. But if you think of him saying "ACTION!" like that right before the big gay wresting no-wait-we're-fucking scene in Brokeback Mountain, it's pretty funny.
Current Storyline: I'll come right out and admit that the only reason I'm reading anything Hulk related right now is the whole World War Hulk thing going on in the Marvel universe. As a general rule I'll almost always give in and buy up all the crap surrounding these big "events" in comics. Basically, right before the Civil War, the New Avengers Illuminati (Tony Stark/Iron Man, Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Professor X, Namor and the Black Bolt) decided Hulk was too much of a danger to earth and tricked him into getting on a space ship they then sent to what they thought was some crazy uninhabited dimension, basically banishing him forever. He ended up crash landing on this alien planet, enslaved and made a gladiator in his weakness, then rising up with other gladiator warrior alien things and overthrowing the evil King and becoming the new King himself. He then married, and his queen was pregnant with his child when the space ship he came in blew up thanks to a self destruct mechanism Tony Stark et al had built in, killing both his wife and unborn child. Until this point Hulk had been happy with his new life, but needless to say, this got him a little steamed, and now he's coming back to earth with his new alien warrior buddies to kill Stark, Richards, etc. And after the way that whole little crew, especially those two, were such douchebags during the Civil War, it's going to be awesome.
Iron Man #17*
(Marvel, W: Daniel Knauf, Charlie Knauf A:Patrick ZIrcher)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Fuck, man, I really need to start writing these like the day after I read the comics. I have no goddamned clue. Thanks to the cover I know something to do with the Mandarin returning and powering up is going on, and obviously that's bad news for Iron Man, as the Mandarin is this ancient Chinese guy with power rings that can do most anything. Oh, and he's hated Iron Man since pretty much...forever. I'm pretty sure there's also some espionage hooey going on behind the scenes with S.H.I.E.L.D, which, as I'm pretty sure I mentioned in the review of #16, Tony Stark is now director of. Again, it's 95% my problem with obsessively collecting things that makes me keep buying this book.
Midnighter #7*
(Wildstorm, W: Brian K. Vaughn, A: Darick Robertson)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Another one shot (stand alone) story, and with Brian K. Vaughn of Y: The Last Man fame guest writing. This issue is done in reverse end to beginning style, you know, like Memento but with less of that Joe Pantigl-something-italian-oni guy who's acting I really enjoy. Obviously I don't enjoy it enough to remember his name properly, but as should be readily evident by now, that's really just a problem of mine. Something that I guess I hadn't picked up on in the handful of issues of Midnighter that I've read previous to this one, is that his main power, or at least one of them, is knowing what someone is going to do before they do it, and also knowing all the possible outcomes of any given situation. That may not be exactly it, but it's pretty close. So he breaks into some bad corporation's tower, steals something or destroys something or whatever it is he's supposed to do, and gets home in time to fuck his dude. But like I said, the whole issue is written so that the last thing (chronologically) happens first and the first thing happens last. Because he knows what's going to happen before it does. Yeah. I actually read it backwards after I was done, and it fits perfectly. Kind of a gimmicky thing to do, but it's just this one issue, and I think Vaughn just came in to do a special issue while Ennis was off for a month. This comic is growing on me, bit by bit.
The Punisher #47
(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Lan Medina)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: The widows have fucked up their attempt on the Punishers life, and he's now recuperating with the help of his new ally, the chick with no tits. I cant remember if I explained that part earlier, and I don't have the internet right now to check my back postings. If I didn't, she's hot but has no tits (not like she's on the itty bitty titty committee, like she had them cut off) and she's crazy and violent. This issue mostly tells her back story, how she was a mafia wife too, but her husband was exceptionally abusive, even for a mafia guy, and when she contracted breast cancer, some of the guys in the mafia got worried she might spill to the FBI. So one of the other wives, who also happened to be her older sister, arranged to have her killed. But the killers unknowingly fucked it up, and now she's alive, and REALLY hates the mafia wives, especially her sister, and is looking to help the Punisher fuck them up but good. Great comic, staying great.
Scalped #5
(Vertigo, W: Jason Aaron, A: R.M. Guera)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Can't exactly remember, pretty sure there's some more shit going on between Bad Horse and the Red Crow's daughter, and more back story about his Mom and everything that went down with the FBI back in the 70's. Since this is a really good book and I wish I could remember more about what's going on, I'll make a point of mentioning that I picked up The Other SIde TPB that came out last week, which collects the Vietnam book that Aaron wrote before this. After reading that and Scalped thus far, Aaron is pretty quickly climbing into the "I'll check out pretty much anything he writes" club, along with Ennis, Miller, Bendis, Brubaker, and Ellis. Note that it said "anything HE writes", because I've yet to read any halfway decent comic that a woman has written. And frankly, I doubt I will anytime soon. It's not that I don't think women can be good writers, it's just so rare that a woman writes something I'm interested in, that I've pretty much written off the entire gender. That actually extends to comedy and movies as well. I know that sounds shitty but as a card carrying sexist** I don't really care. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, and I'll be the first to admit when those arise (Amy Heckerling, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler), but it's not too often. Anyway, in addition to highly recommending Scalped, I'm now extending that endorsement to the Other Side as well. Oh, you know what, there was this book Skinnybones that I liked a lot as a little kid, about this wiseass kid and his various misadventures, and I think a woman wrote that. So it's not totally hopeless, ladies.
(**copyright Mike Dikk)
Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil
(DC, W: Jeff Smith, A: Jeff Smith)
Overview: Look, I loved Bone, and after recently re-reading the entire run, it easily stands in my top 20 comics of all time. And I really like Jeff Smith's cartoony style in both his writing and his art. So when I heard about the four issue Shazam mini series he was going to do I was pretty excited. This is the third issue, and as much as I'd like to say otherwise, I've been pretty disappointed. I think what worked about Bone was that it was so far removed from any kind of real world that the goofy fantasy nature of the whole thing fit well. While Shazam isn't the grittiest, most real world comic character out there, there's something about Smith's take on him that makes it just too "aw, shucks" and "gee whiz!" for me to take. I think Shazam is a character that's due for a reinvention, but this just isn't it. Oh, and the comic is really fancy, cardstock type covers, extra glossy pages, and no ads, but each issue is fucking six dollars. Six dollars is 12 pack of Busch money, not corny comic book money. Screw you, DC.
Current Storyline: Billy Batson, the little kid who's Shazam's alter-ego, is a little homeless kid who becomes Shazam by accident. There's bunch of Monsters taking over the city, and a war profiteering vice president who's trying to do something crummy. And Billy's little sister turns into Little Girl Shazam for some reason, as if this comic weren't gay enough to begin with.
Ward of the State #1*
(Image/Shadowline, W: Christoper E. Long, A: Chee)
Overview: This woman keeps taking in foster kids, but raises them all to be killers. Thats pretty much it. I picked his book up pretty much based on the cover alone, and also flipping through it for about thirty seconds. It's done in black and white, which works well for the tone of the thing. Reading this makes me feel uncomfortable, sweaty, and the kind of dirty you feel when you've been driving for fifteen hours straight and haven't showered in a few days. That's a glowing review, believe it or not. One or two more decent issues and this one will jump into the pull bin.
Current Storyline: This is the first issue, soooo...yeah.
World War Hulk: Worldbreaker*
(Marvel, W: Peter David, A: Al Rio)
Overview: Yet another "lets milk a few more bucks out of the bastards" tie-in issue, ala all the "Fallen Son" comics. Though this was actually semi useful to me, as I haven't been following the whole Planet Hulk thing that leads into World War Hulk. For the purposes of this Blog though, I pretty much descirbed everything that you find out in this issue in the Hulk #106 review. Other than that, Hulk is on the ship with his Alien boyz and some of them worry that his Hulk rage might blind him in battle and lead him to attack them as well, because, well, he almost does exactly that. But Hulk's all "psh, naw" and they continue on their merry way.
Current Storyline: Stand alone issue.
Thunderbolts Presents Baron Zemo: Born Better #4*
(Marvel, W: Fabian Nicieza, A: Tom Grummet)
Overview: This is a four issue offshoot featuring Zemo since he isn't leading the Thunderbolts now that Norman Osborn leads the post Civil War squad. I missed the first issue, so I'm not sure exactly what set Baron Zemo off into this time traveling adventure, but by no control of his own he's been popping in and out of time, dropping in on each generation of the Zemo Barony, all the way from the first Zemo to the most recent. It's kind of Bill and Ted-ish but less of a comedic gold mine. As he learns just what it is that's made the Zemo lineage what it is, in the present day there's a distant relative of Zemo's who's decided to track him down and kill him and then kill himself to rid the world of the evil Zemo Blood. In the end, lots of lessons are learned, and some serious soul searching goes down. I'm kind of a sucker for the characters-out-of-time thing, and probably wouldn't have bought this otherwise. Alright, but forgettable.
Current Storyline: DOG FUCKER.
Next weeks pull:
-Amazing Spider-Man #540
-Chronicles of Wormwood #3
-DMZ #19
-Immortal Iron Fist #5
-New Avengers #30
-Punisher War Journal #7
-Thunderbolts #114
-Wolverine: Origins #14
-Y: The Last Man #56
Anyway...
100 Bullets #83(Vertigo, W: Brian Azzarello, A: Eduardo Risso)
Overview: A crime/noir type comic with what I'm pretty sure is a rotating cast of characters. This issue ends the first full story arc I've read, so I'm still not too sure of exactly what/who makes up the "world" of this book, and how the whole routine works. I know I say "generally well written" all the time in these reviews, but in this instance it really is GENERALLY well written. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about the writing that works. The genre is one that lends itself to rely more heavily on strength in the writing than the art, as stylized and awesome as Sin City looked, pictures of thugs and sexy dames and guns and what have you get old pretty quickly if there's nothing behind it, wheras super hero comics tend to be able to lean more on sensational art. And those kind of comics are more likely to attract a crowd that doesn't really care about writing and is more into pictures of dudez and babez with big biceps and tits. I'm trailing off into snob territory, so suffice it to say that if you're going to be reading crime comics in the first place, you're more apt to expect a higher caliber of writing, which 100 Bullets delivers. Not grand slam storytelling all the time, but always better than average. This is a book I usually have to re-read and go back to the few prior issues to keep up because there's so much going on that with the amount of stuff I read every week I lose track. Thats not a slight, it's actually to Azzarello's credit.
Current Storyline: This hard old dude whose name I can't remember has been dispatched to Italy to steal a painting. His contacts turn on him, he gets jacked up by some young punks, gets some sexin' in with a mysterious lay-dee, and so forth. There's also a side plot about the FBI trying to recruit this kid who killed someone and got away with it.
American Virgin #14(Vertigo, W: Steven T. Seagle, A: Becky Cloonan)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: A hurricane or something rips through Florida, or wherever the Chamberlain mansion/compound is (it's sad how briefly my memory functions). Adam is still on his search for the girl from the pageant who's "the one", but as the gets closer to the end of the list, he begins to think "gee, maybe this isn't it after all." Maybe it's just because that little revelation occurs every few issues, and it's ALWAYS accompanied by Adam saying/thinking some variation of those words, that I'm getting kind of sick of it. Sure, a big part of life is realizing that things are always changing, and that something you may have thought to be the end all be all truth one day might not be so the next is a theme which pretty much everyone can/should be able to relate to. But I mean Vertigo books, at least in theory, aren't written for 12 year olds, so it's kind of insulting to have the writer beat me over the head with a theme that's pretty recognizable left to it's own devices, not to mention more meaningful that way. Good comic, weak point. Oh well. Oh, and there's some "oh my, he's a she but she's gonna DO IT with this other she!" stuff going on.
Deadman #9*(Vertigo, W: Bruce Jones, A: John Watkiss)
Overview: This is a book I picked up because I had just paid rent for the month and I was like "fuck it, why SHOULDN'T I blow more money than usual on comics this week!" I honestly rememeber zilch about the book now, but at the time I read it, which is almost a month ago, I'm pretty sure I liked it enough to decide to get the next issue as well. So hopefully I'll be more prompt with my weekly reviews when that week rolls around, and I'll be able to actually review this. Yeah, I could just read it again, but my comics are at home, I'm at work now, and I'm on a roll with these reviews so I don't want to stop and get sidetracked.
Current Storyline: Chandler starts to worry that he's not a serious enough partner for Monica, and that she'll go back to Richard who has always been a more mature and stable presence in her life. Meanwhile, Ross tries to figure out how to tell Rachel how he truly feels, and Joey brings home identical twins but forgets which is which right in the middle of an intimate moment and blows the whole thing.
The Exterminators #17*(Vertigo, W: Simon Oliver, A: Ty Templeton)
Overview: It seems to be similar to 100 Bullets in that there's a cast of characters that floats from story to story, but each story arc focuses more on some characters and less on others. Everyone/everything is generally related to the world of pest extermination, which, being that this is a comic, is much more exciting and dramatic than I imagine the real world business of pest control to be. I just started reading this book at #16, so I've only really gotten a slice of said world so far, but I think the above assessment is pretty accurate.
Current Storyline: There's an exterminators convention in Vegas, and the upstart company, "Shock and Awe" is running the floor. Their business model is making pest control sexy, sending buff dudes in hotttt little outfits on house calls and having all their promo work done by girls with big hooters in bikini's. The CEO type guy is an old friend of that black guy on the cover, who's more of an old-fashioned pest control sort of guy. He's also on the wagon and trying to lead a more straight and narrow life, but the Shock and Awe guy lures him back in to the world of partying and gambling. It's all a blast until he wakes up and is arrested for a robbery he didn't commit. I guess there's something to be said for having a kind of bizarre/different frame such as the world of pest control to put around your story, as it allows for semi-typical plot lines to be more interesting.
Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #4(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Clayton Crain)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Travis Parham (the NOT RACIST ANYMORE confederate soldier) has his first run in with the Ghost Rider, as they've both been tracking and attacking the gang of Klansmen. Said Klansmen are getting all sorts of "shit-fuck-fuck-we're-dead" scared, until one of them figures out they can get their own ass kickin ghost rider demon type guy. I'm hoping for Foghorn Leghorn with a Klan Hood.
Hellboy: Darkness Calls #1*(Dark Horse, W: Mike Mignola, A: Duncan Fegredo)
Overview: Hellboy is this demon thing that was brought to earth by Nazi scientists and occultists in WWII. But American soldiers found him and raised him and now he investigates all sorts of crazy monsters and shit for the government. I'm sure most people either saw or are aware of the Hellboy movie from a few years ago, so I'm not going to waste too much time with this.
Current Storyline: Hellboy goes to visit some old buddy of his at his house or castle-y house, whatever it may be. Hellboy being Hellboy, trouble always follows, this time in the form of a bunch of witches being brought back from the dead, or back out of hiding, something along those lines. It's times like this that I'm tempted to google or wikipedia this shit so my little entries are more accurate, but I feel like that would be cheating somehow. I have zero logic to back that up, but such is life. So that's some form of apology for all the "or somethings", "or some such shit", and "I dunno's." Hellboy is a great horror-crime-whatever comic, and since Mignola does it every now and then instead of an ongoing series these days, it always seems fresh and exciting. Not "BOOOOIIIINNGGGG" exciting, but still up there.
The Incredible Hulk #106*(Marvel, W: Greg Pak, A: Gary Frank)
Overview: Bruce Banner was a scientist researching radiation and gamma rays, whatever the fuck those are, and accidentally got blasted by some trying to save some jackass kid who was in the testing area. After that point, whenever he got angry, he'd turn into the Hulk, this giant monster thing with basically unlimited strength but minimal intelligence who would go berserk and eventually turn back into mild mannered Banner. That was like forty years ago. Since then, the Hulk has been green, grey, smart, stupid, hulk all the time, Banner/Hulk, and who knows what else. I haven't followed the series too closely, so I cant really give you too much more of an accurate timeline than that, though from the current issues my understanding is that he's Hulk all the time these days, and rational and intelligent as well. The Hulk is one of those characters that can make for a really great or really lousy comic depending on who's writing it at the time. There was a movie made a few years ago that had a serious love/hate divide because some artsy froo froo director did it, and it was less action and more talking and thinking. I want to say it was Ang Lee, but that could be wildly inaccurate. If I ever manage to get paid to write anything, it's going to be a bitch to have to start fact checking things, and researching the topics I write about, as I'm pretty deeply immersed in my little "ah, fuck em, I'll just make it up" swamp. Also, whenever I think of Ang Lee directing movies, I just picture him smiling a lot giving the peace sign. Yes, because I'm a shitty person and think of all asian people as the tourists in New York. But if you think of him saying "ACTION!" like that right before the big gay wresting no-wait-we're-fucking scene in Brokeback Mountain, it's pretty funny.
Current Storyline: I'll come right out and admit that the only reason I'm reading anything Hulk related right now is the whole World War Hulk thing going on in the Marvel universe. As a general rule I'll almost always give in and buy up all the crap surrounding these big "events" in comics. Basically, right before the Civil War, the New Avengers Illuminati (Tony Stark/Iron Man, Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Professor X, Namor and the Black Bolt) decided Hulk was too much of a danger to earth and tricked him into getting on a space ship they then sent to what they thought was some crazy uninhabited dimension, basically banishing him forever. He ended up crash landing on this alien planet, enslaved and made a gladiator in his weakness, then rising up with other gladiator warrior alien things and overthrowing the evil King and becoming the new King himself. He then married, and his queen was pregnant with his child when the space ship he came in blew up thanks to a self destruct mechanism Tony Stark et al had built in, killing both his wife and unborn child. Until this point Hulk had been happy with his new life, but needless to say, this got him a little steamed, and now he's coming back to earth with his new alien warrior buddies to kill Stark, Richards, etc. And after the way that whole little crew, especially those two, were such douchebags during the Civil War, it's going to be awesome.
Iron Man #17*(Marvel, W: Daniel Knauf, Charlie Knauf A:Patrick ZIrcher)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Fuck, man, I really need to start writing these like the day after I read the comics. I have no goddamned clue. Thanks to the cover I know something to do with the Mandarin returning and powering up is going on, and obviously that's bad news for Iron Man, as the Mandarin is this ancient Chinese guy with power rings that can do most anything. Oh, and he's hated Iron Man since pretty much...forever. I'm pretty sure there's also some espionage hooey going on behind the scenes with S.H.I.E.L.D, which, as I'm pretty sure I mentioned in the review of #16, Tony Stark is now director of. Again, it's 95% my problem with obsessively collecting things that makes me keep buying this book.
Midnighter #7*(Wildstorm, W: Brian K. Vaughn, A: Darick Robertson)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Another one shot (stand alone) story, and with Brian K. Vaughn of Y: The Last Man fame guest writing. This issue is done in reverse end to beginning style, you know, like Memento but with less of that Joe Pantigl-something-italian-oni guy who's acting I really enjoy. Obviously I don't enjoy it enough to remember his name properly, but as should be readily evident by now, that's really just a problem of mine. Something that I guess I hadn't picked up on in the handful of issues of Midnighter that I've read previous to this one, is that his main power, or at least one of them, is knowing what someone is going to do before they do it, and also knowing all the possible outcomes of any given situation. That may not be exactly it, but it's pretty close. So he breaks into some bad corporation's tower, steals something or destroys something or whatever it is he's supposed to do, and gets home in time to fuck his dude. But like I said, the whole issue is written so that the last thing (chronologically) happens first and the first thing happens last. Because he knows what's going to happen before it does. Yeah. I actually read it backwards after I was done, and it fits perfectly. Kind of a gimmicky thing to do, but it's just this one issue, and I think Vaughn just came in to do a special issue while Ennis was off for a month. This comic is growing on me, bit by bit.
The Punisher #47(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Lan Medina)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: The widows have fucked up their attempt on the Punishers life, and he's now recuperating with the help of his new ally, the chick with no tits. I cant remember if I explained that part earlier, and I don't have the internet right now to check my back postings. If I didn't, she's hot but has no tits (not like she's on the itty bitty titty committee, like she had them cut off) and she's crazy and violent. This issue mostly tells her back story, how she was a mafia wife too, but her husband was exceptionally abusive, even for a mafia guy, and when she contracted breast cancer, some of the guys in the mafia got worried she might spill to the FBI. So one of the other wives, who also happened to be her older sister, arranged to have her killed. But the killers unknowingly fucked it up, and now she's alive, and REALLY hates the mafia wives, especially her sister, and is looking to help the Punisher fuck them up but good. Great comic, staying great.
Scalped #5(Vertigo, W: Jason Aaron, A: R.M. Guera)
Overview: HERE
Current Storyline: Can't exactly remember, pretty sure there's some more shit going on between Bad Horse and the Red Crow's daughter, and more back story about his Mom and everything that went down with the FBI back in the 70's. Since this is a really good book and I wish I could remember more about what's going on, I'll make a point of mentioning that I picked up The Other SIde TPB that came out last week, which collects the Vietnam book that Aaron wrote before this. After reading that and Scalped thus far, Aaron is pretty quickly climbing into the "I'll check out pretty much anything he writes" club, along with Ennis, Miller, Bendis, Brubaker, and Ellis. Note that it said "anything HE writes", because I've yet to read any halfway decent comic that a woman has written. And frankly, I doubt I will anytime soon. It's not that I don't think women can be good writers, it's just so rare that a woman writes something I'm interested in, that I've pretty much written off the entire gender. That actually extends to comedy and movies as well. I know that sounds shitty but as a card carrying sexist** I don't really care. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, and I'll be the first to admit when those arise (Amy Heckerling, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler), but it's not too often. Anyway, in addition to highly recommending Scalped, I'm now extending that endorsement to the Other Side as well. Oh, you know what, there was this book Skinnybones that I liked a lot as a little kid, about this wiseass kid and his various misadventures, and I think a woman wrote that. So it's not totally hopeless, ladies.
(**copyright Mike Dikk)
Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil(DC, W: Jeff Smith, A: Jeff Smith)
Overview: Look, I loved Bone, and after recently re-reading the entire run, it easily stands in my top 20 comics of all time. And I really like Jeff Smith's cartoony style in both his writing and his art. So when I heard about the four issue Shazam mini series he was going to do I was pretty excited. This is the third issue, and as much as I'd like to say otherwise, I've been pretty disappointed. I think what worked about Bone was that it was so far removed from any kind of real world that the goofy fantasy nature of the whole thing fit well. While Shazam isn't the grittiest, most real world comic character out there, there's something about Smith's take on him that makes it just too "aw, shucks" and "gee whiz!" for me to take. I think Shazam is a character that's due for a reinvention, but this just isn't it. Oh, and the comic is really fancy, cardstock type covers, extra glossy pages, and no ads, but each issue is fucking six dollars. Six dollars is 12 pack of Busch money, not corny comic book money. Screw you, DC.
Current Storyline: Billy Batson, the little kid who's Shazam's alter-ego, is a little homeless kid who becomes Shazam by accident. There's bunch of Monsters taking over the city, and a war profiteering vice president who's trying to do something crummy. And Billy's little sister turns into Little Girl Shazam for some reason, as if this comic weren't gay enough to begin with.
Ward of the State #1*(Image/Shadowline, W: Christoper E. Long, A: Chee)
Overview: This woman keeps taking in foster kids, but raises them all to be killers. Thats pretty much it. I picked his book up pretty much based on the cover alone, and also flipping through it for about thirty seconds. It's done in black and white, which works well for the tone of the thing. Reading this makes me feel uncomfortable, sweaty, and the kind of dirty you feel when you've been driving for fifteen hours straight and haven't showered in a few days. That's a glowing review, believe it or not. One or two more decent issues and this one will jump into the pull bin.
Current Storyline: This is the first issue, soooo...yeah.
World War Hulk: Worldbreaker*(Marvel, W: Peter David, A: Al Rio)
Overview: Yet another "lets milk a few more bucks out of the bastards" tie-in issue, ala all the "Fallen Son" comics. Though this was actually semi useful to me, as I haven't been following the whole Planet Hulk thing that leads into World War Hulk. For the purposes of this Blog though, I pretty much descirbed everything that you find out in this issue in the Hulk #106 review. Other than that, Hulk is on the ship with his Alien boyz and some of them worry that his Hulk rage might blind him in battle and lead him to attack them as well, because, well, he almost does exactly that. But Hulk's all "psh, naw" and they continue on their merry way.
Current Storyline: Stand alone issue.
Thunderbolts Presents Baron Zemo: Born Better #4*(Marvel, W: Fabian Nicieza, A: Tom Grummet)
Overview: This is a four issue offshoot featuring Zemo since he isn't leading the Thunderbolts now that Norman Osborn leads the post Civil War squad. I missed the first issue, so I'm not sure exactly what set Baron Zemo off into this time traveling adventure, but by no control of his own he's been popping in and out of time, dropping in on each generation of the Zemo Barony, all the way from the first Zemo to the most recent. It's kind of Bill and Ted-ish but less of a comedic gold mine. As he learns just what it is that's made the Zemo lineage what it is, in the present day there's a distant relative of Zemo's who's decided to track him down and kill him and then kill himself to rid the world of the evil Zemo Blood. In the end, lots of lessons are learned, and some serious soul searching goes down. I'm kind of a sucker for the characters-out-of-time thing, and probably wouldn't have bought this otherwise. Alright, but forgettable.
Current Storyline: DOG FUCKER.
Next weeks pull:
-Amazing Spider-Man #540
-Chronicles of Wormwood #3
-DMZ #19
-Immortal Iron Fist #5
-New Avengers #30
-Punisher War Journal #7
-Thunderbolts #114
-Wolverine: Origins #14
-Y: The Last Man #56
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Comics Haul and Reviews Week of Weds 4/25/07
Daredevil #96(Marvel, W: Ed Brubaker, A: Michael Lark)
Overview: Matt Murdock has been outed as Daredevil, sent to Ryker's (prison, with prisoners), escaped courtesy of the Punisher, been to Europe and back, propositioned by the Kingpin's dying wife, (not THAT way, pervs), and is now back in Hells Kitchen. He's cleared his name, or at least to the point that while plenty of people still suspect/"know" but it's not a given fact, and is trying to get his life back in order, both as Matt Murdock, attorney at law and sexy blind guy, and Daredevil, occasionally badass, often nice guy ass kicker and sometimes fruitcake.
Current Storyline: Melvin Somethingface aka Gladiator has been accused of killing some prisoners and guards at the mental facility/prison he's been placed in. I have no idea what this guy's deal is as far as a backstory, but I've gathered that he's s big buff dude who may or may not have superstong powers that may or may not get stronger when he gets angry. He also has a split personality or can't remember when his Gladiator side takes over. It all seems like a pussed out version of the Hulk, only that he's a criminal. Anyway, he and Daredevil/Matt have some kind of history (haaaayyy sailor...) and Daredevil is torn between feeling obligated to defend him in court as Matt Murdock and to distance himself to avoid drawing any Daredevil=Matt Murdock attention. The dude definitely is killing people however, because you see it happen more than once. Ed Brubaker is a great writer, especially when it comes to super hero books, and gay jokes aside, Daredevil can be a cool character, making this worth picking up every month.
The Exterminators #16*(Veritgo, W: Simon Oliver, A: Tony Moore)
Overview: Picked this up because it's a Veritgo book and it was a slow week. Still don't really have a grasp of what's going on as this is the last issue in a story arc, something I didn't realize when I first grabbed it. I bought #17 today which starts a new story, so hopefully next week I'll have a better idea of what this books deal is. Suffice to say that this issue was interesting enough to make me buy the next one. Oh, it is at least partially about actual exterminators, the bug kind, not the HARD-AZZ HITMEN kind. Speaking of bugs, Vincent D'Onofrio, the guy who played the farmer that the bug creature took over in the first Men In Black movie, is on one of the Law and Order's now, and actually is a fatass. He looks almost as bad as he did in MIB. Bummer for him. And possibly Mrs. D'Onofrio.
Current Storyline: Not sure/see above. There was a part where there's a dried out swimming pool full of frogs that they just steamroller over and smoosh with one of those big drums full of water they use to level out tennis courts. Fucking gross. Greg would be severely bummed.
Fallen Son: Avengers*(Marvel, W: Jeph Loeb, A: Ed McGuiness)
Overview: see the first Fallen Son review HERE.
Current Storyline: How the Avengers are dealing. They meet up to play cards. Everyone's all bummed out, especially Spider-Man. TheThing basically tells everyone to stop being such a bunch of babies, "Cap wouldn't have wanted it that way", yadda yadda yadda. Another three bucks down the drain. I wonder if the people at Marvel have a big picture of me on the wall of their boardroom that they just walk by after meetings and go "Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!"
Powers #24(Icon, W: Brian Michael Bendis, A: Michael Avon Oeming)
Overview: As I understand it, this is the book that "broke" Brian Michael Bendis. And by that I mean put him on the map in the comics world, not like Bane did to Batman (mmerrrr, merrrr). Powers follows two cops who are assigned to cases involving superheroes/villains, or "powers." The one thing that took getting used to is that the art is kind of cartoon-y, really similar to that Batman animated series that was on Fox-TV when I was like 10 (making that the very early 90's, for point of reference) but the stories are often pretty grim and violent, at least relatively speaking. And there's a decent amount of curse words and other things that you wouldn't expect judging by the artwork. That's not a complaint, because those things are what make it so awesome, but it was just something that struck me as odd/I was unaccustomed to. Pretty great book overall, definitely in my top ten, maybe even top five.
Current Storyline: This was the last issue of the current arc (I think) where some kind of devil/demon thing's offspring were possessing different Powers and making them kill people, particularly other powers. The two detectives had to try and track down the possessed Power, and stop the demons/her. It was revealed that the dude cop was a Power/still has his powers, which he used to get rid of the demon, which I gather is a big deal, because his quasi lesbo/hottt babe partner flipped when she found out. Oh, and the dude cop looks like he should be voiced by Patrick Warburton, (Puddy from Seinfeld, duh.)
The Punisher Presents: Barracuda #3(Marvel, W: Garth Ennis, A: Goran Parlov)
Overview: This series is an spinoff focusing on Barracuda, an assassin hired to take out the Punisher a few stories back in the Max book. Punisher eventually took out one of his eyes, all of the fingers on one hand, shot him with a shotgun and left him in shark infested waters. But Barracuda is wayyyyy too hard to die from some pussy shit like that. He grabbed the back of Punisher's boat and was towed back to safety. Generally, he's pretty into killing people, making money, getting his shit sucked-off, fuckin white women, and so forth. This mini-series has Barracuda being hired by a mafia don to take his son to kill a South American drug lord who's been fucking with him. Only problem is his son is a scrawny, nerdy hemophiliac. Barracuda also happens to be old friends with the drug lord, and a double cross is set up. Or maybe even a triple double dog cross...either way, plenty of killing and tits and so forth.
Current Storyline: Like the Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears book, that IS the whole story. Though in this issue Barracuda's old army buddy comes to join the fight, but now he's a she, but the dumb drug lord doesn't know any better, so there's some serious tranny-fuckin' going on. And then the drug lords place gets attacked by people hired by the mafia guy and everything gets batshit, but Barracuda and his tranny buddy fuck people up, and a plan is made where Barracuda double crosses just about everyone and still comes out on top. SOLID READ BRO.
The Walking Dead #37*(Image, W: Robert Kirkman, A: Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn)
Overview: There was some kind of zombie outbreak and like in pretty much every zombie story, groups of people have holed up in strongholds or whatever fortified little areas they can come up with. The book has been around for a few years now so I've missed the whole outbreak/initial reaction part of the story. It seems like a good amount of time has passed since the zombie attack in the story as well. I'm only one issue in but the writing is definitely better than average, as I'll probably keep reading this book and I'm not into zombies enough to buy it strictly on the basis of that.
Current Storyline: This couple gets married, but the compound is running out of food. Looks like a small group will have to go out into the world, a world full of ZOMBIES.... And as you can tell by the cover, this girl is pregnant. Probably not with a zombie. But who knows! Not the most original stuff, but like I said, well written enough to make it somewhat fresh.
Wolverine #53(Marvel, W: Jeph Loeb, A: Simone Bianchi)
Overview: Seriously? I know not everyone reads comics or is at all familiar with them, but with all the movies being monstrously high profile events, I think it's pretty safe to assume that most everyone under 50 knows who Wolverine is. He's basically the one comic book character you can openly think is cool without being ridiculed in public. But then you can also go too far and base your hairstyle on his, and probably have some sort of Wolverine doll that you dry hump feverishly before bed. Or maybe not. JOE. Anyway.
Current Storyline: Wolverine is beginning to uncover even more stuff about his past, including his ancestors and how he may have evolved from an entirely different species than normal humans and even other mutants. He has recurring dreams/memories of an ancient cat/human race, and Sabretooth is somehow involved in it as well. They're both in Wakanda now with the Black Panther and Storm trying to figure the whole thing out. Well, Wolverine and Sabretooth are trying to kill each other, and Sabretooth is just killing people period. But at some point in between there's non-killing related figuring-outing-going on. Jeph Loeb is pretty great, makes Wolverine even better.
Stuff I picked up this week, which will be reviewed sometime in the next couple days:
Exterminators #17
Hellboy: Darkness Calls #1
The Incredible Hulk #106
Iron Man #17
Midnighter #7
Shazam! and The Monster Society of Evil #3
Scalped #5
Punisher #47
Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #4
American Virgin #14
100 Bullets #83
Baron Zemo: Born Better #4
World War Hulk: Worldbreaker #1
Deadman Vol. 4 #9
Ward of the State #1
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