Halloween Scene: Ghost Rider/Captain America FEAR (1992)

I haven't talked about it much on the blog here, but I'm a huge fan of Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. I think it's one of those runs that people will (and some already do) look back on with the same awe as Frank Miller's Daredevil or Chris Claremont and John Byrne's X-Men (but, unlike those runs, I actually like reading this one). Outside of Brubaker's Cap and his appearances in the Avengers, I don't have a lot of experience with the Sentinel of Liberty so I'm always look for new trades read. And, after just reading those first five issues of the 90s Ghost Rider, I'm now also looking for Ghost Rider books. So, when I saw a book on Sequential Swap called Ghost Rider/Captain America FEAR, I was sold. Well, as it turned out, it's not really a trade, it's a 48-page prestige format book with a fold-out cover (I wish Swap was a little more discerning in what they consider trades, but I also should have done a little research). When I opened the package, I thought it was actually a bonus comic thrown in for good measure along with Walking Dead Vol. 10 until I went back and realized I swapped for it. No big deal, just a cautionary tale to do your research.

Anyway, I had a good time reading this book. The story, written by Howard Mackie and drawn by Lee Weeks, teams Ghost Rider and Captain America up against an enhanced Scarecrow. The one and only interaction I've had with Marvel's Scarecrow is an appearance in DC Vs. Marvel when he appeared with the real Scarecrow, so I don't know what he was like before, but after a series of surgeries he now has enhanced strength and he makes anyone within 20 feet of him feel scared. It's a hormone thing. Oh, he also talks about his mommy a lot.

The story is pretty much a Ghost Rider one with Cap thrown in to make Ghost Rider feel like a hero and track down Scarecrow who's obsessed with him. You've probably seen the moment before when a young/new hero talks to Cap, Cap says he's doing a good job and they feel honored or vindicated. Well, Danny Ketch here has been Ghost Rider for roughly 25 issues (according to an editor's note, I miss those things) and he's feeling like everyone hates and is afraid of his alter ego (it's probably the flaming skull), but Cap doesn't judge him harshly. Cap says he's doing a good job by only going after bad guys and that being a hero isn't easy. Then they pretty easily go after Scarecrow and fight him and win.

I will admit, I'm still not clear on all of Ghost Riders abilities or how they work. I get that his bike can fly/jump/ride up walls, he's strong and pretty much every part of his jacket can be used as a weapon, but what I don't get is the Penance Stare. There's a moment where he tries to give Scarecrow the Stare but he can't because Scarecrow's brain is so screwed up. Shouldn't Hell trump craziness? I dunno, maybe it's explained somewhere.

It might sound like this is just a stretched-out single issue, but Mackie handles the 48 pages really well without much drag. It's like one of those rare annuals that is actually enjoyable and well-paced (I know you've got one or two in mind). And even though this is a Ghost Rider story mainly, it reminds me of how much fun Marvel's NYC must have been in the 90s. Both Captain America and Ghost Rider were hanging out, fighting bad guys and occasionally crossing paths. I would hope that the Ghost Rider issues after this helped Danny get a little bit more comfortable in his vengeance-seeking skin and that the weird Scarecrow ending came back somewhere. I probably won't be keeping this book in my collection but hope that when every comic book ever finally gets collected, this is included in it's correct chronological order with the rest of the Ghost Rider books. Those I would keep.

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The Box: Warlock And The Infinity Watch #21-24

It was bound to happen. It's not like I could have 100% luck liking these comics I picked at random and let me tell you, these four issues of Warlock And The Infinity Watch from 1993 and 1994 written by Jim Starlin and drawn by Tom Grindberg (21, 23, 24) and Angel Medina (22) are just bad. It doesn't help that 21 and 22 are Infinity Crusade tie-ins while 23 and 24 are part of the four title, 13 issue Blood and Thunder Thor crossover and I have very little working knowledge of Warlock and his team aside from what I've read in the current Guardians of the Galaxy and Infinity Gauntlet. Oh, also, I hate Grindberg's art. He's like a less anatomically correct and more sloppy Mike Mignola. And I love Mignola, which got me thinking about how fine the line between art I like and art I don't is. I wasn't going to even bother scanning one of the pages, but since these covers don't seem to be online anywhere and I was scanning anyway, I figured "what the hell." You can see the last two covers with your own eyes. I have no idea how the inker and colorist figured out what belonged to which character.


But enough about that. I like Jim Starlin space comics and these were not good Jim Starlin space comics. They don't even approach something like Infinity Gauntlet or Dreadstar (a book I highly recommend checking out). It did go a little away from his usual "space government fighting against space church" thing he seems to go to a lot, but I really had no idea what was going on in these issues. Again, it's hard to really judge a series of comics that have no running story between them, zero character development (Drax fights Thor...a lot), very little team interaction and absolutely no room for newbies like myself to gain a foothold. Blech. Maybe they're better in the context of their related stories, but as of now, I'm not putting the effort in. Hopefully the other WATIW comics in the box are a lot better because there are quite a few of them (their numbers come in second to the nearly complete run of Power Man and Iron Fist I keep hoping I don't pull for this column (did you like the new logo?).



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Halloween Scene: Art Adams' Creature Features (1996)

I seriously hope you guys are familiar with Art Adams. He's one of those phenomenal artists with a dazzlingly unique style that unfortunately doesn't do much more than covers. He's probably one of my top 10 favorite artists, but I've probably only read a handful of comics he's drawn. So, when I found out about this book from Dark Horse which combines a Creature From The Black Lagoon one-shot, a Godzilla one-shot, two short Monkeyman & O'Brien strips (I still need to read those comics) and then a 3-page Godzilla strip set to the words of Alan Moore, who wrote a song about Godzilla. I had no idea that existed and it wasn't all too thrilling, but I will never pass up a Moore/Adams collaboration.

I've never seen The Creature From The Black Lagoon, so I have no idea if this Steve Moncuse-written story completely follows the movie script or if it's an original story. I'm guessing it's an adaptation, but I like I said I don't know. Usually, I would be bummed out that all the details of a movie were ruined by a comic, BUT, I don't really mind in this case because I guarantee that Adams' version of the monsters and characters looks way cooler than the movie. The story was a bit long, but I love looking at anything Adams draws, even panels that are just headshots.

The Godzilla one-shot is a lot of fun because it involves four people in a high-tech anti-Godzilla attack squad AND a giant Japanese demon fighting Godzilla. Adams co-wrote it with Randy Stradley and the two created a really well-paced, fun action movie in comic book form. I wish more Godzilla movies were actually like this: focusing less on the boring humans (these humans are interested and, like I said, are high-tech so they can actually dent Godzilla's hide) and, of course, offering up a strong, dangerous and unique enemy for G-unit to fight. Good stuff.

The other smaller stories are interesting enough and really just make me want to read Monkeyman and O'Brien. It's rare for me to get a trade solely for the art. I think the only other trade that's on my shelf that I got based on the artist is the Marvel Visionaries: Jim Steranko book, which is amazing. Creature Features will be joining it on my shelf because, like the Steranko Visionaries, the amazing art is paired with rad stories. Plus, I love Godzilla.

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The Box: Batman vs Predator II #4 & Defenders #119

For the full rundown of what The Box is all about, check this out. This week's picks (I went with two because I had some spare time and felt like trying my luck again) are Batman vs. Predator II #4 and The Defenders #119. One thing I forgot to mention before is that, as you can clearly see in the picture, there are actually two boxes ("The Boxes" just doesn't have the same kind of ring). Also the box that's completely full of comics is full of Marvel, the less full one is mostly DC and Dark Horse with some incredibly random stuff thrown in (there's even a copy of Spawn #1).

Alright, enough explaining of things. Let's get into the comic reviews. First up is BVPII #4 from 1994 which was written by Doug Moench and drawn by Paul Gulacy. I'm 90% sure I haven't read this series before. I have read--and own--the original and more Predator comics than I care to admit (or am able to remember), but I'm still thinking this one wasn't on the list. I'm glad I snagged the last issue and not a random one in the middle (I think there's a few more in the box, but I'm not sure). Anyway, you pretty much get the full story right here even though there's nothing like a flashback to catch newbies up. Batman's got a contract out on him while one Predator is attacking Gotham. Meanwhile, another Predator is there to stop the bad one. I'm not sure what makes him bad, as Predators all love to hunt humans. Unlike the first volume there's some government dudes in weird costumes and Huntress is involved. It's not a great comic, but the last bunch of pages were a lot of fun as the poo hits the fan and we get our final battle. Maybe I'll check the trade out online.

And now we have The Defenders #119 by Steven Grant and Sal Buscema which has a cover date of May 1983. Having only ever read one Defenders comic (the first issue of Erik Larsen's series), I was glad to find out that, even though the issue number was so high, this was actually a "never told story" that takes places between issues #68 and #69. That might not seem like much help, but, apparently at this time, the team still consisted of the main members I'm vaguely familiar with: Namor, Dr. Strange, Hulk, Hellcat, Valkyrie and Nighthawk (who apparently died right before this issue came out). The flashback shows us a tale of Yandroth taking mental control of most of the Defenders only to have them fight the ones who aren't controlled in the end. When I first looked at the cover it was just a glance and I read the text "MARVEL SUPER-HEROES BATTLE SIDE BY SIDE AGAINST...EACH OTHER." I thought "Awesome, big huge fight issue. Then I looked at it a little closer and saw that Namor, Clea and Dr. Strange were on the opposing side. That's not really that interesting of a stand-off and unfortunately the issue mimicked those sentiments. I guess the real point of this story is that Nighthawk's nurse Luann Bloom was actually a robot, spying on him for a shadowy organization yet to be revealed. All of which would make a lot more sense if I knew anything about the Defenders. Oh well, it was a fun enough issue to read and did make me curious about checking out other Defenders comics.
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Halloween Scene: Batman Haunted Gotham (2000)

Welcome to October folks! I'm just barely making it in under the wire here, but my goal is to have a Halloween Scene (or at least one) up every day of October so here we go. Today's installment is on a trade I picked up called Batman: Haunted Gotham. Originally printed as four 48 page issues, this Doug Moench-written and Kelley Jones-drawn mini-series takes a look at an alternate reality in which Gotham is literally haunted. It's kind of like Bette Noire from Fallen Angel.

Anyway, in this version of the Batman story, Bruce looses his parents, who happen to be part of a group trying to keep the dark forces at bay, as an adult after they've trained him his whole life to take up the mantle of the bat as Gotham's protector. What I really like about this story--essentially an Elseworlds, but I'm not sure if it was every officially labeled as such--is that not every relationship from regular Batman continuity is the same regardless of the universe. Yes Batman is aided by Alfred and Gordon and there's a Catwoman-type character, but there's enough differences and new characters that things don't feel rote.

Another thing that helps keep these stories interesting is Jones' awesome art. I've talked about liking him before when I wrote about Batman comics last October, and my opinions haven't changed. No one draws a spooky Batman like Jones and Moench's story offers him plenty of other horror themes to try his hand at: werewolf assassins, demons, ghosts, talking skeletons, an even more Gothic Gotham, and Jones just runs with it.

I will say that this is one of the few trades I've read and realized that it would have probably read better in single issues (or at least in fewer settings). The first two issues show as Bruce becoming Batman and facing off against a Frankenstein-like Joker (another interesting alteration of the mythos), then the second issue goes off on a tangent about a snake god and then with the last issue we're back to the story elements from the first two issues. It's a bit strange that a four issues series would have time to take a tangent like that, but I guess it's better to expand the world than stretch the story for no creative reason.

All in all I dug this book. It's not scary by any means, but it's a fun read if you take your time.
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Trade Post: The Pile

Hey Gang, seeing as how I've got a lot of time on my hands now, I've been tearing through some movies and trades. I haven't done posts yet, but you can be on the lookout for more of those down the road. These trades are actually from last week and the week before. As usual, I'll run down the pile top to bottom.



CAPTAIN AMERICA BATTLES BARON BLOOD (Marvel Illustrated Books) Written & drawn by Roger Stern and John Byrne
This little number was quite the oddity. I thought it was going to be one of those novels-based-on-comics things. I read a ton of the ones that came out in the 90s back then. I guess I should have noticed the "Illustrated" portion of the title. So, what you've got here is a strange book that collects (according to this site) collects Captain America 250, 253 and 254 which covers those issues where Captain America fights Baron Blood and meets the new Union Jack (as well as the newer Baron Blood) along with the issue where Cap says "no" to running for president. The interesting thing, which you can see in the below pic, is that they cut these comics into panels (black and white ones) and pieced them together on pages the size of the average Pocket Book. Weird right? The stories were good, though kind of slow and I would much rather read them in color. Roger Stern is the man, by the way, he's definitely one of the most unsung writers in the history of comics.


DC UNIVERSE SPECIAL: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 (DC) Written by Len Wein, Gerry Conway & Jack Miller, drawn by Dick Dillin & Joe Certa
Though technically not a trade, there were two reasons I included this issue in this post. One, it collects Justice League of America #111 ("Balance of Power!"), 166-168 ("The League That Defeated Itself") and Detective Comics #274 ("The Human Flame"). These are all stories that hold some relevance to Final Crisis and Infinite Crisis, though they're not really hyping the IC connection. You get Human Flame and Libra's first appearances, which make sense, and then the story in which the bad guys get inside the heroes' heads and find out all about them, this leads to Zatana doing mind wipes and on and on. So, these are pretty integral issues that a lot of later stories hinge on. That being said, I found them to be boring and mostly skimmed through them. The second reason is that these reprints should have been reprinted again in the Final Crisis Companion, which I will get to shortly. That just makes sense, though, right? Might as well make that companion as much of a companion as possible and the first appearances of the two biggest new characters in the story should have their stories told. But, hey, it's a rad cover, isn't it? That Ryan Sook dude knows how to DRAW!


MOME VOL. 14 SPRING 2009 (Fantagraphics) Written and drawn by a ton of talented folks
One of the many perks of working at Wizard for a dyed in the wool superhero fan like myself was getting exposed to some of the more alternative sides of comics. Between going through the library and borrowing books from friends who are way more knowledgeable about these things than I am, I feel like I've just barely started to uncover the tip of the indie iceberg. So, as you might imagine, I've heard a lot about Mome, the indie comics anthology that Fanta puts out (those guys are amazing), but I've never read one until Vol. 14 and I definitely liked it. I will be completely honest, I don't think I understood a lot of these stories, but I kind of like that. It's like watching an experimental film, but with cool art. By far my favorite strip was called Kool-Aid Comic by Jon Vermilyea. I like the simplicity of it, the subject and the art. It all comes together in a fun little comic, of which you can peep a page or two of below. Fun stuff and I'll definitely be on the lookout for future Momes.


SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE VOL. 7: THE MIST & THE PHANTOM OF THE FAIR (Vertigo) Written by Matt Wagner & Steven T. Seagle, drawn by Guy Davis
I've talked about my love of SMT before, but since then I've read the volumes I was missing and have come to like this series even more. For those of you not willing to click the link, SMT follows the Golden Age Sandman as he romps through pre-WWII NYC, fighting bad guys, evading the cops, being a genius, sometimes interacting with other Golden Age heroes (or soon-to-be ones) and sharing his life--both in and out of the gas mask--with his girlfriend Dian Belmont. What I love most about this book, aside from the NYC setting and my love of Golden Age DC characters, is the relationship between Dian and Wesley (Sandman's real name). I think they're my favorite couple in all of comics, mostly because they did away with the "keeping the secret identity from the girlfriend" thing. You also get to watch Dian evolve from a spoiled socialite to someone really trying to help the world. But, aside from all that, this volume gives us glimpses of a young, pre-Starman Ted Night and "The Phantom Of The Fair" which is the story that I remember reading about as being one helluva one back in the day from Wizard (they were right). I think you'd be okay if you jumped in here to read this much beloved story, but I highly recommend going back to the beginning. Here's hoping that Vertigo continues their plans to collect this whole series.

FINAL CRISIS COMPANION (DC) Written by Grant Morrison, Len Wein, Peter Tomasi, Greg Rucka & Eric Trautmann, drawn by JG Jones, Tony Shasteen, Doug Mahnke, Ryan Sook & Marco Rudy
So, this is kind of a weird book. The actual Final Crisis collection is amazing. It's got everything written by Grant Morrison in one place, while this one has the rest of the stuff that isn't a regular series tie-in and the FC Director's Cut which is the first issue without color or word balloons followed by the script. Then you've got Final Crisis Secret Files, Requiem and Resist. All these issues are cool on there own, but I do wish this volume was a big more robust. In addition to the reprints I mentioned above, I'd also like to see some of the JLoA and Teen Titan tie-ins included, just to have everything in one place. Ah well, it'll still get a place on my bookshelf.

NIGHTWING: THE GREAT LEAP (DC) Written by Peter Tomasi, drawn by Don Kramer, Rags Morales, Doug Mahnke, Shawn Moll &
Joe Bennett
I dug Tomasi's previous Nightwing volume, so I'm not surprised that I dug this second volume. The only problem with it is that it got awkwardly swept up in the Batman: RIP story. Now, don't get me wrong, I loved Morrison's Batman run, but the tie-ins lost me for the most part, including Nightwing. So, I hadn't actually read most of these issues when they came out, but I did like the whole story, most of which involves Nightwing's weird relationship with Two-Face, which is being carried over into todays Batman stories written by Winick. Interesting for sure.

TRINITY 1 (DC) Written by Kurt Busiek & Fabian Nicieza, drawn by Mark Bagley, Scott McDaniel, Tom Derenick & MIke Norton
Trinity got a lot of flack, but I think it's because it wasn't what people were thinking it should be. 52 was an amazing look at some smaller characters, giving them new life and making them important again in the DCU, Countdown tried way too hard to be the backbone of the DCU and Trinity turned into this crazy, out-there story featuring all kinds of heroes the casual fan has never heard of. This is just the first series, collecting #1-17 and I will warn you, it's definitely for big time DC fans and not the feint of heart.

SECRET INVASION: INCREDIBLE HERCULES (Marvel) Written by Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente, drawn by Rafa Sandoval
Incredible Herc was one of those books that everyone loves but I missed out on in single issues. By the time I read the first trade, the issues were already into the third or fourth arc, but this, the second (collecting 116-120) collects the Secret Invasion issues. I wasn't a big fan of SI, especially the ending, but I really liked how Pak and Van Lente flipped the script and looked at the Skrull invasion from a different angle. This time we see it from a religious viewpoint, with Herc and some other gods from regular and Marvel mythologies trying their best to kill the god of the skrulls. It's a cool story, one filled with plenty of sci-fi goodness, but also some fun nods to mythology of all kinds that make this a really fun and well rounded book.

COUNTDOWN ARENA Written by Keith Champagne, drawn by Scott McDaniel
I've loved McDaniel's art since his Nightwing days. There's a short arc where NW fights Scarecrow early on that is just amazing and I highly recommend it. So, when I heard the news that DC was going to be putting out a book called Arena, drawn by McDaniel that would pit various versions of heroes against each other to see who would win, I was sold. Turns out this story didn't have a lot of bearing on the actual Countdown story (as I noted here to some extent), but it remains one of the better looks at the multiverse that's just been sitting around. I know that there's been word that they're waiting for Morrison to get in there and really dig deep on the multiverse at some point, but I'm getting tired of waiting. What's the point of having it if you're not going to do anything with it? Also, one quick thing that bothered me about many of the Earths they revealed was that they just took Elseworld books and extrapolated that into an entire universe. There's an entire universe out there based on the idea that Batman was a vampire. And, hey, I like that original story as much as the next guy, but that doens't mean it should necesarily get it's own universe. Does that mean those Elseworlds annuals they put out each have their own universe? The one where Steel was around in the Civil War, Batman was actually Two Face or Superman was straight out the jungle book? It's just a bummer because it feels like they just copied the original multiverse and added this other ones with haste, which wouldn't have been a huge deal if they hadn't limited themselves to just 52. Ah well. This book is definitely only for die-hards. Or maybe just me.

THE NEW TEEN TITANS ARCHIVES VOL. 1 Written by Marv Wolfman, drawn by George Perez
This might be comic book heresy, but I couldn't even get through this book, which collects DC COmics Presents #26 and New Teen titans 1-8. I think what ruined the book for me is the fact that every Teen Titans writer since has mined this territory so, SO much. The only aspect of this story that was surprising for me was the mystical way in which the team first came together. Beyond that? I've seen the Deathstroke stuff and the Trigon stuff before. Several times. Geoff Johns did it and it seems like it's been done a thousand times since then. And that's coming from someone who loves Geoff's Titans. Like, a lot. It's an amazing book. I just think it's about time for the Titans to move beyond their 80s roots and maybe make some new villains and get some new characters into the mix. Maybe I'll put this one back in my "to read" pile and give it another shot somewhere down the line, but I'm not sure yet. For me, it's just too "been there done that" for me. But man, Perez sure knows how to draw and I stand by my claim that he's one of the few artists who's actually gotten better with age. I'll read any new stuff that guy puts out.
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Trade Post: Last Week's Pile 8-9-09

It's been almost a month since I ran down what trades I've read recently and I'm sure you're chomping at the bit for more of my "insight" (ie blathering). To catch up on a few things. I finished Tor and Barry Ween from last time. Barry was awesome from beginning to end, while Tor felt a little long, though it might be solely worth checking out for the art.

MAJOR BUMMER #1-15 (DC) written by John Arcudi, drawn by Doug Mahnke
Okay, obviously this one isn't a trade, but that's because it hasn't been collected yet (not my fault). I remember reading about this book in Wizard all the time back in 1997-1998. It's about this guy named Lou who gets super powers thanks to a couple of aliens working on a college project, but he wants nothing to do with being a super hero. But that doesn't stop other similarly afflicted people from trying to get Lou into the super hero game. I love this creative team. Arcudi's doing rad things with B.P.R.D. and Mahnke's the sickest artist out there right now. No offense to JG Jones, but I really wish they would have gotten Mahnke to draw all of Final Crisis. And pretty much any other comic ever. Oh, also, one quick thought about this book: I wonder if it would still be going on (or at least gone on for longer) if it had been a creator-owned book from Image, Dark Horse or one of the smaller companies (this book has no connections to the DCU). Ah well, I think it works very well in its 15 issues.

DAREDEVIL: HELL TO PAY 1 & 2, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL (Marvel) written by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka for CAU, drawn by Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Lee Weeks, Marko Djurdjevic, John Romita Sr., Al Milgrom, Gene Colan, Bill Sienkiewicz, Alex Maleev, Lee Bermejo & Paul Azaceta
Altogether these three trades cover Daredevil #94-110 which is everything post Brian Michael Bendis' run minus Bru's first two trades. I started reading DD with Kevin Smith's first issue and enjoyed the book (for the most part) up through Bru's first arc called Devil Inside and Out which had Matt Murdock in jail. I really liked the secret agent-like quality of Murdock at the time and after he broke out of jail, but dropped off somewhere in the second arc when everything revolved around smell. The problem with basing a written story around the idea of smell is that, well, I can't smell it. So, I lost track of the book, but I still am a huge Ed Brubaker fan and heard his re-team with Rucka was good so I gave these books a shot and I liked them but I won't be adding them to my shelf. I think I'm all set when it comes to reading about a mentally unstable Daredevil. It was one of the aspects of Bendis' run that didn't really work (though, to be fair, I was reading monthly comics about once every five months, so I was cramming a lot in on college breaks). I did like how Bru got rid of Murdock's wife Milla without killing her and the #100 issue had a lot of cool art sequences, though watching yet another "drugged hero relives his mistakes" comic wasn't the most exciting thing in the world. All in all, they were solid comics, just not the kind of thing that I was looking for. I'd like to see a drastically new direction for DD. Maybe not something bright and sparkly, but maybe a little less crazy?

SUPERMAN MAN OF STEEL VOL. 4 (DC) written by John Byrne, Marv Wolfman & Paul Levitz, drawn by John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Greg LaRocque, Erik Larsen
So, the deal with the MOS trades is that they're (in theory) reprinting every post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman in order from John Byrne's reboot Man of Steel miniseries on. Being a huge Superman fan, these books were on the top of my "must get" list and as of this last Christmas, I acquired all the ones available as of then (and now I think). The thing about these comics (Superman 7-8, Action 590-591, Adventures 460-431, Legion 37-38) is that some of them are kind of hard to slog through. Partly because they still fall into that "I'm describing what I'm doing" writing style and partly because, by the time I started reading Superman in the early 90s I had heard about a lot of these stories already. But, this book does include the first appearance of Rampage, an encounter with the Metal Men, a convoluted origin for Chemo that includes multiple earths and Crisis, an adventure drawn by Erik Larsen and, most interestingly, a crossover between Superman and Legion that explained why Superboy was still appearing in the future even though, post-Crisis, he wasn't supposed to exist. It's kind of convoluted, but it also seems like Geoff Johns was very familiar with the story when he wrote the end of Legion of 3 Worlds (a series I REALLY liked). Another interesting thing about these books is that, after Crisis, they were still trying to figure out how Crisis effected everything and they were really focused on nailing down Superman's abilities. For instance, he's not as strong or fast as he was pre-Crisis and even has trouble fighting a goon like Mammoth from the Fearsome Five (sporting two new members in the form of Charger and Deuce, characters that I've never heard of). And, finally, I know this is just a coincidence, but doesn't this look kind like one of the new Corps symbols:

My only complaint about these books is that I wish they reprinted the covers between the issues. Kudos for including all relevant issues though and not skipping over tie-ins!

MILLENNIUM (DC) written by Steve Englehard, drawn by Joe Staton & Ian Gibson
I've read a lot of crossovers in my days. Some can be easily contained within the miniseries/crossover they were originally sold as (Sinestro Corps War), while some rely heavily on tie-in issues in addition to the main book to tell the full story (Civil War, Secret Invasion). I'm not sure if I prefer one way of telling a story to another, but I definitely prefer a trade that has all of the pieces of the puzzle in one place, which, unfortunately, Millennium doesn't. Huge story elements take place in the tie-in issues. See, the whole idea (which wasn't explained very well in the main series) is that the Manhunters from Green Lantern have infiltrated the lives of every hero (or at least every hero with an ongoing book at the time). One of the big ones at the time was Wally West's dad. I'm not sure if that still holds up, or if his dad was always a Manhunter or was just replaced at some point like a Skrull (for an incredibly in depth comparison of Millennium and Secret Invasion check out J. Caleb Mozzocco's Every Day Is LIke Wednesday "The Other Secret Invasion" posts). It would have been nice to read a fuller version of the story that might include more (or all) of the tie-ins. I love a good omnibus as long as it's not too heavy (I'm a contrarian). So, as a solo story, the Millennium trade doesn't really work, but it is a fun little time capsule that focuses heavily on the Green Lantern Corps (it was a weird time for them) and tries to launch a brand new team that I've seen in ads as The Wanderers, but I've never read an actual issue.

[Note: I haven't actually read Justice Society Vol. 1 yet, it must have snuck it's way into my pile on accident, or thanks to me cleaning up for the in-laws' visit.]

HOUSE OF MYSTERY VOL. 2 LOVE STORIES FOR DEAD PEOPLE (Vertigo) written by Matthew Sturges, drawn by Luca Rossi (plus guests!)
I am loving this book and with the cancellation of Exterminators, 100 Bullets ending and my inability to keep up with Scalped unless I'm reading trades, I'm still struggling to keep up with my current favorite Vertigo title. I think the "problem" is that there's so much going on that I can't really keep track of it from month to month. Anyway, this trade collects issues 6-10 of the Sandman spin-off, which really digs deep into why these people are stuck in the House of Mystery (I love that these old DC houses are still being used, the Secret Six were using the House of Secrets at one time as an HQ). We also get some more history of our heroine Fig. I've heard from friends that HOM comes off as kind of hitting all the right notes, but not being exceptional as far as Vertigo titles are concerned. I think this doesn't bother me because I haven't read all that many Vertigo titles in this vein. Plus, having just read Sandman in the past couple of years, it's nice to see some kind of continuation. I'm also, of course, a big fan of the side stories told in every issue drawn by guys like Kyle Baker and Bernie Wrightson. I think these stories are what really put me over the edge into the love column. Hopefully I can get caught up or at the very least, stay caught up on the trades. Oh, plus, Luca Rossi does a pretty great job in my opinion of capturing everything from regular folks to huge monsters and all kinds of fantastical elements in between. Plus, I can't think of anyone who has turned a house into such a character as him. Well done and hope this book has a long a fruitful life.

EASTMAN & LAIRD'S TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES COLLECTED SERIES VOLUME 1 (Tundra) written by Ryan Brown & Dean Clarrain, drawn by Ken Mitchroney and Jim Lawson
You guys, this was a weird one. I think this is a pre-Archie mini series (three issues, if I'm reading everything right) and boy is it crazy. Not only do you get a non-canon origin of the Turtles and Splinter as told by Splinter to April in the very beginning, but you also get highly complicated origins for Man Ray, Leatherhead and a surprise appearance from one of my favorite secondary characters (at least in toy form) Ace Duck. Voodoo curses, alternate dimensions, Krang in his robot suit, the Turtles in luchador-like costumes and a floating cow head who can traverse time and space. That's what you get in this volume. I'm not really sure how to explain it any other way than weird. If anyone knows how all this stuff fits in with the rest of the animated TMNT comics, please let me know. Here's a page scan to give you a taste of the weirdness:



Oh, DO go on.

Trade Post: This Week's Pile 7-17-09

I read a lot of trades in a week. In addition to the bursting-at-the-seems shelf of things I've read at least once, I also have two long boxes full of books I need to work my way through, plus things I borrow from other people and work. It's a lot to get through, but with my train ride and nightly reading, I'm at least putting a dent in those boxes.

So far this week I've finished two books I started reading a while ago, read three complete books, started and quit one and and halfway through two others. That's a total of 8 trades this week on top of Gulliver's Travels which I'm slowly getting through. Anyway, here's a few brief (I promise) thoughts on these books).


NORTH WORLD VOL. 2 (Oni) by Lars Brown
I haven't read the first volume of this book, but I enjoyed this one enough to go back and read te original. The idea is that the main character used to be a fighter in the vein of World of Warcraft or something and has since settled down to do taxes with his dad. I've heard the first volume gets a bit mired in the MMORPG in-jokes, but Volume 2 doesn't have those pitfalls. There are definitely aspects of the story I wasn't very clear on, but I'll chalk that up to me coming in part-way through the story and not as a fault of the author for now. Aside from entertaining me on the train ride home, I also used Brown's book as a reference for how to draw cartoony figures and had some success. Figuring out how he drew his main character lead directly to the creation of the nameless party guy I drew yesterday.

THE BIG BOOK OF BARRY WEEN, BOY GENIUS (Oni) by Judd Winick
I hate to double link to the same post, but I mentioned yesterday that I've been reading this brand new collection of all things Barry Ween from Oni for the past few days. I'm about halfway through and I'm loving the foul mouthed adventures of the smartest kid (person, really) on earth, his friend Jeremy and his love interest Sarah. If you liked Dexter and have no problem with a deluge of profanity and pop culture references (some of which have gone completely over my head), then you should definitely check this book out. I haven't enjoyed a reading experience this much in a long time.

LIGHT BRIGADE (DC) written by Pete Tomasi, drawn by Peter Snejbjerg
AS anyone who read my review of the Nightwing Freefall trade knows, I really enjoy Pete Tomasi's writing. So, when I was offered someone's copy of his first(?) comics work Light Brigade I jumped at the chance. I'm also a big fan of Peter Snejbjerg because he was involved with the second half of James Robinson's excellent Starman run (and the artist behind two pieces of original art I have from that last issue). The story focuses on a group of soldiers during World War II who get mixed up in the war between the renegade angels and God. I've seen a lot of stories like this (try and find a Hellboy comic that doesn't mention deities and Nazis), but I liked the yarn Tomasi wove here, especially the character who's a fan of DC comics of the time, going so far as to give their group a team name and make them shirts with a logo. Definitely worth checking out if anything above sounds even remotely interesting. Also, this is the best I've ever seen Snejbjerg. The colors really seem to leap off the page. Good stuff.

HELLBLAZER: THE FEAR MACHINE (Vertigo) Written by Jamie Delano, drawn by Mark Buckingham, Richard Piers Rayner, Mike Hoffman, Alfredo Alcala
I first got interested in Hellblazer back when Brian Azzarello started writing the title. At that point I was heavily into 100 Bullets and would read pretty much anything with his name on it. Those were good comics, but I had trouble getting a grasp on exactly what John Constantine could do. I knew he had some kind of magical powers, but beyond that? No clue. I'm still not really sure about the dude's powers even after reading this arc which comes from his earliest adventures (Hellblazer #14-22), but I still really like this enigmatic character. The funny thing about jumping into any Constantine story is that you have no idea if the old friends/acquaintances/enemies/lovers he runs into have been established in previous comics or just made up by the author. This story surprised me because of how far away from the John Constantine rubric it runs. You've got John joining up with some hippies, liking it, trying to find a missing girl and sporting (get this) a BLACK trench coat and even sunglasses, instead of a tan one. Remember how angry people were when Keanu wore the black coat in the movie?



Apparently it has precedence.



The story is very deep and involved and it took me quite a while to get through it because of waning interest and the absolute literariness of the whole thing, but by the end I had a great time and really enjoyed this seemingly atypical Hellblazer adventure. I've got one more Delano trade I'm interested to burn through now (PUNS!). I also want to get my hands on the Ennis/Dillon books.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (Marvel) By Jim Valentino
If you're like me, you've been enjoying the hell out of Guardians of the Galaxy which spun out of Annihilation Conquest's Star-Lord miniseries. That got me curious about the previous incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, so when it popped up on someone's Sequential Swap list, I swapped for it. And man, there's no more 90s story than this one, which collects the first 6 issues of the series. The idea is that this is set in an alternate future where War of the Worlds happened on the 616 and wipes out all the heroes. This is way in the future and the Guardians end up fighting a group called The Stark who, through means I care not to spoil, evolved with full-on Tony Stark technology. I liked the "what happened to THIS character" feel of the story and would definitely read an Essential volume or two to see where the full story went, but, like I said, it's very 90s. In addition to briefly explaining every team member's origin, powers and home planet with almost the exact same wording every issue and coming in that same weird size as the Armor Wars trade I read, there's also Taserface:


Nuff said.

CLASSIC G.I. JOE VOL. 1 (IDW/Marvel) Written by Lara Hama (mostly), drawn by Herb Trimpe (mostly)
I really, really wanted to love this book, but just couldn't. The book collects the first 10 issues of the series originally done by Marvel, but IDW put out the particular volume I read. These aren't bad stories, they're just not all that interesting, which goes for both Hama's stories and Trimpe's art. Maybe it's that I've seen so many spy/military-based stories that almost anything feels been-there-done-that. I had high expectations because I know a lot of people who sing the praises of this comic, including Kiel, so hopefully they'll jump on to let me know what it gets really good.

BAT LASH: GUNS & ROSES (DC) Written by Sergio Argones, drawn by Peter Brandvold
I got interested in this book after reading the latest issue of Jonah HEx which features a very well spoken Bat Lash. Unfortunately, this mini doesn't really pick up on any of those themes and just came off kind of boring to me. How cool would it have been if Sergio drew this bad boy though? That being said, I still really liked Bradvold's art, though I'm not familiar with him at all. This is the book I didn't get all the way through.

TOR: A PREHISTORIC ODYSSEY (DC) by Joe Kubert
This is the other book I haven't finished yet. That's because the entire story is told in text boxes instead of dialogue balloons. It fits the story just fine, it just takes me longer to read. Tor's a prehistoric character who got kicked out of his tribe for being smart and awesome and is having crazy adventures in parts unknown. So far I really like this book, it's a great showcase of the senior Kubert's style, which is one of the most recognizable in comics (I bet he could draw a stick figure and you'd still know it's him). He definitely hasn't lost his touch.

Anyone else read any of these books? Thoughts? If not, what are you reading and digging right now?


Oh, DO go on.

Trade Post: Creature Tech and Wormwood: It Only Hurts When I Pee

I don't want you guys thinking I'm slacking off and not reading trades just because I'm not posting them. In fact, I've got a huge pile of trades next to my desk here just waiting for reviews, but I've been slacking off when it comes to posting about them. That's a little better right? Anyway, as I mentioned in my post about the new SyFy (ick) show Warehouse 13, I recently read Doug TenNapel's Creature Tech from Top Shelf and it reminded me a lot of that show. I've also recently read Wormwood Gentlemen Corpse Volume 2: It Only Hurts When I Pee by Ben Templesmith for IDW. They're both in the sci-fi and fantasy genre so I figured they'd go well together.

CREATURE TECH (Top Shelf)
Written and drawn by Doug TenNapel
My bossman Justin Aclin recommended this book to me and I didn't really know anything about it. It wasn't until after I looked TenNapel up on Wiki that I discovered he was the brain behind the Earthwork Jim games, which I loved even though the first one is still crazy hard.

The story's about Michael Ong, a scientist who gets relegated to the Research Technical Institute (dubbed Creature Tech by the locals) by the US government. His former pastor, current man of religion dad lives in town as well, but they've got their problems. The black and white graphic novel (which, as far as I'm concerned, means an original work created specifically for the larger page count provided for by a trade, not just any collection of sequential art, that's pretentious) focuses on Michael dealing with the Shroud of Turin, a reincarnated ghost scientist, a giant bug lab assistant, falling in love with a girl and an alien, multi armed chest plate. It's kind of like the current Blue Beetle with some of the quirkiness of Gail Simone's All New Atom thrown in (loved her run on that book).

I really dug TenNapel's art style (you can really see the Earthworm Jim style in there) and the story was quirky without getting too extreme in that column. Ong is a fun, reluctant hero who has some obvious personal problems that he seems to be dealing with (he definitely has an arc, which is nice). Oh, plus, there's giant space eels and other cool looking aliens. I highly recommend checking this book out and I wonder if TenNapel's got plans for any future installments? Maybe I should read that Wikipedia page I linked too above...

But instead, on to the next review!

WORMWOOD GENTLEMAN CORPSE VOLUME 2: IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I PEE (IDW)
Written and drawn by Ben Templesmith
Like most other people I first heard about Ben Templesmith because he drew/painted the original 30 Days of Night along with some of the other follow-up minis. I'm not a big fan of that book, but it's definitely one of those slap-yourself-in-the-forehead, why-didn't-I-think-of-that moments. A few years back Templesmith started up his own creation called Wormwood Gentleman Corpse, which is a little worm dude who inhabits corpses. The funny thing is that I didn't even realize he was the worm and not the corpse until halfway through the first series. I can be a bit dense sometimes. He's got a few sidekicks in the form of a robot man (Pendulum) and a stripper girl with tattoos that come to life (I can't find her name after looking for one whole minute). I was a big fan of the take no prisoners craziness of the original mini-series, but lost track of the story in the following minis and issues. Luckily, I was able to pick up the second and third volumes and started reading through them.

This volume finds Wormwood cursed and needing the blessing of the leprechaun queen. In this mythology leprechauns are crude, gibberish-speaking little people with a penchant for violence and humping robots. In the process of trying to get the blessing to get rid of the sickness/curse, Wormwood runs into some squid-like invaders who he had a run-in with in a previous adventure. There's also a story about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who are being kept satiated in a hotel with a steady supply of prostitutes, food and drugs.

What I like about Templesmith's writing is that he doesn't shy away from things, while still not going too over the top in a bad way. There's plenty of over-the-topness, like when Wormwood shows his companions his "suit chamber" which is, of course, a room full of preserved corpses, including Jesus' (he decides on a little girl's). There's also a running gag about the genitalia Wormwood built for Pendulum. Good clean fun, you know? It's kind of like Hellboy, but if Hellboy was an ass who had been around a lot longer, hopped dimensions and made a lot more enemies than a demon from hell.

Oh, also, Templesmith's art is sick. Thanks to the supplemental material in the back (bonus points for the bonus material, as always), we can see the steps he takes in creating his art. It seems to be a combination of penciling, painting and then digital painting. It's a super cool and unique style that a few others have tried to copy, but can't quite get. Whether you like Templesmith or not, you can't argue that he's one of the more original artists out there. And, while we're talking about his style, I really liked how the 30 Days of Night movie captures his style, while still keeping the realism of actual people. I can't wait to read the other trade and track down the first one.


Oh, DO go on.

Iron Mongering: The Armor Wars

A couple weekends back, Em wanted to watch Iron Man again, so we did and it was great once again. I do wish the end fight would have been a little bit more awesome and well-balanced instead of so clearly one-sided on Iron Monger's side. Anyway, it got me thinking that, over a year ago, I decided to check out various Iron Man stories and talk about whether a newbie would be able to jump right in and enjoy it or not. Well, with the news that Mickey Rourke is playing an armored version of Whiplash and pictures even surfacing, I think Armor Wars might actually be a good place for people looking to get a jump on the potential story behind Iron Man 2.

As the folks over at Slash Film have pointed out, the first two press photos from Iron Man 2 seem to be connected, with Tony Stark looking at what looks like a model of the arc reactor that Whiplash is wearing. I'm going to go one step further and guess that there might be some Armor Wars elements in the film. You see, the plot behind Armor Wars is that Tony Stark discovers that all these different armored villains (and even some heroes) have been using his Iron Man technology to commit crimes. This pisses Tony off and he goes rogue, taking out heroes and villains in a single minded attempt to neutralize their armors.

So, maybe in that first picture we're seeing Tony discovering Whiplash ripped off his armor tech and he's pissed. Sure, it's an awful lot of guessing, but that's what blog are for right?

Okay, so back to the trade. It's written by David Michelinie, pencilled by Mark Bright and one issue by Barry Windsor-Smith and inked and co-plotted by Bob Layton. The book collects Iron Man #224-232. I've already gone through the basics of the story, but the devil's in the details as Tony Stark goes a little crazy trying to neutralize the armors, he even attacks a superhero, and member of the Avengers, Stingray to do so. What I really like about the story is how nicely it fits into the overall Marvel universe. It mostly has Iron Man characters and villains, but it crosses over into other arenas when necessary, like when SHIELD gets involved or when the Avengers (the West Coast Avengers to be exact) show up to ask Iron Man what the heck is going on.

But, that being said, I don't think this would be a difficult book for someone whose only experience with Iron Man is the movie. You've got Rhodey and Tony and SHIELD, elements you'd be familiar with and the villains and other heroes get explained pretty well in the book itself, but if you're ever confused, I'd suggest hitting up Wikipedia, like when a dude called The Captain shows up looking kinda sorta like Captain America (it really is him, I promise).

So, in addition to being a compelling story, I think Armor Wars makes a lot of sense as a first look as far as comics go for new fans. It's also a good book for current comic fans to check out if they thought Tony's actions over the past few years seem to have come out of nowhere. This book put a few things in Civil War into context for me, though I still think no character has been screwed over and mishandled quite as much as Iron Man, though I keep hearing good things about Invincible Iron Man, I just haven't been able to scrape the trades together.

One other thing I wanted to mention, and it's really more of an oddity, is the size of the trade I read. I got it along with an original Guardians of the Galaxy trade in a Swap from Sequential Swap (seriously, you should all join this rad service) and both of them are kind of a funny size. You can see a scan of the cover itself, which I believe is different than the current trade cover, below followed by a scan of a regular sized comic overtop of the trade. As you can see, the trade is a little shorter and a little longer than your average comic, so they had to shrink and maybe stretch the pages when they reprinted them. Or maybe they're just shrunk. I didn't really notice anything while reading it, I just thought it was odd. Checking the date, this trade was created in 1990, back when there weren't a lot of trades being produced, just the big, big stories like Armor Wars... and Guardians of the Galaxy.




Oh, DO go on.

Countdown's Not SO Bad

DC's been losing my interest more and more with their weekly comics over the past few years. 52 combined most of my favorite writers with some really interesting characters (thanks to those writers) into a comic that rocked my world week in and week out. Then Countdown came along and I was with it for about half of the series before giving up. And I've only read one issue of Trinity. I'm super excited about Wednesday Comics though.

I think my biggest problem with Countdown was how much they tried to tie the rest of the DCU into the book. Plus there were just too many stories being spread thinner than maybe they should have. Did the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding REALLY need to tie-in? How do Superboy Prime and Kyle Rayner fit in here as compared to Sinestro Corps? What the heck was the point of Salvation Run?

Well, to try and answer some of those questions for myself and to give the book a fair shot, I decided to read the stack of Countdown trades I've acquired. I've got the four trades making up the regular series (52 total issues) and then a number of the tie-in books (pretty much everything with Countdown in the title). I wanted to start off with just the main book and see how well it reads on its own.

I'll be honest, it read a lot better than I thought it would. I definitely liked Adam Beechen's issues the best and there was some pretty good art by guys like Scott Kollins, Jim Calafiore, Jamal Igle and Freddie Williams III. Overall, aside from the continuity head-scratchers that people still reference (how did all this tie into Final Crisis exactly?), the story suffers from being too long and seemingly directionless for the first half of its issues. You've got characters like Holly the former Catwoman, a tainted Mary Marvel, Jimmy Olsen, Pied Piper and Trickster and of course Donna Troy, Jason Todd, the Ryan Choi Atom, Kyle Rayner and Bob the Monitor taking a tour of the microverse and then the multiverse. For the most part in the first half of the story, head writer Paul Dini and his crew of Sean McKeever, Tony Bedard, Adam Beechen and Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray do a good job of advancing these various stories (some more successfully than others), but they don't really tie-in for a while (there's also a lot of carry-over problems that lead to pacing issues and small things like the fact that at the end of one issue, Piper and Trickster are falling out of a plane with no bag and in the next, they have Trickster's bag of tricks).

I know a lot of people didn't like Mary Marvel's transformation from goody goody superheroine into badass, evil chick, but reading the whole storyarc in a few days, I actually liked the progression. However, I did not like the turn they gave her towards the end of the book, but what are you gonna do? I also liked the Earth they showed us that Ray Palmer has been hiding out, though the twist right after that felt a little rushed.

Speaking of the main characters, I never really got a sense of Jason Todd's character. I think it's because he kept bouncing between hero and killer and he had been handled so differently by different writers over time, plus I know how (pun intended) Bat-shit crazy he's gotten lately. And, on a final quick character note, as a big fan of Kyle Rayner (he was the GL that got me into that world), I found it annoying that they kept referring to him as someone who shouldn't exist. I get Jason "Wall Punch" Todd and Donna "Been Dead and Back a Bunch" Troy, but what'd Kyle do? It's never explained, he just shows up and is lumped in the the so-called Challengers (a name never actually established in this book, just stamped on at some point). I wonder if they'll ever reference these Challengers as watchers of the Monitors again, but I kind of doubt it.

I've got a few more complaints that I've got to get off my chest. Where the heck did Superboy Prime and Monarch explode to? This may have been addressed since, but I can't remember the events chronologically. I was bummed to see Monarch's awesome army of multiverse evildoers getting taken out so quickly. I was hoping they'd be a bigger part of the story. Also, what the heck is the purpose of the Monitors? We're never told anything more than they watch over their multiverse. Anything else? They seem to be pretty powerful at times, but not at others, what's the deal? Another thing that bugged me was how they just took old Elseworlds stories and made many of those the 52 worlds. Sure, 52 is a pretty big number of worlds, but do you really want to give a whole UNIVERSE to "Batman is a vampire?" Seems like a waste. Related to that, why were we given two full issues showing how one of the Earth's becomes the Jack Kirby-created Kamandi/OMAC world? I actually really, really liked those issues, but what was the point? Especially when they haven't been referenced since (like the rest of the multiverse, sadly).

And finally, I was disappointed in the presentation of the trades. I get that people were over Countdown as soon as the last issue hit, but there could have been an intro or two or even a kind of director's commentary. Worst of all, though, is that there weren't any kind of recaps about what happened outside of the Countdown series. We're not told anything real about Superboy Prime's previous dealings or what happened at Green Arrow and Black Canary's wedding. I'm totally fine with small paragraphs catching people up, they would have been a nice addition, especially when the book was so tied to continuity at the time.

Overall, it kind of feels like the creators either chose the most random characters they could find or were handed them and then asked to create a story. It's not until Keith Giffen gets brought on as story coordinator about halfway through that the stories start coming together and making sense. So, while it feels like a clean-up job, the book definitely takes on new life in the last two trades. There were even genuine moments where I was worried for the characters and pumped my fist when cool stuff happened (especially Red Robin and a Batman jumping into the fray).

If I thought it would make any sense I would suggest just getting the last two trades, but the second volume actually has Giffen's recap issue that kind of sets everything into motion. In the end, you don't really need to know what happened in Countdown to understand the DCU right now (and not reading it will probably keep you away from some questions, especially continuity ones) but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and got through the four volumes reading them on and off over the past five days which says something. If I really disliked it, I wouldn't have been able to finish the books.

So, I won't suggest that you've missed out on something big or that you should even spend the cover price of $19.99 per volume on these bad boys, but if you find them in a cheap trade bin at a con or on Amazon, it might be worth your time to check them out. For me, it definitely helped that I was a few months back from all the craziness of the DCU at the time and agonizing over where the various stories fit in (I AM a continuity nerd after all). Now on to some of the supplemental stuff like the Search for Ray Palmer one-shots, Countdown to Mystery and Adventure, Death of the News Gods and beyond.

Oh, DO go on.

A Blackest Night Theory

First off, apologies to all of you non-comic readers, but Blackest Night is a pretty big deal story in the DC Universe (that's Superman and Batman, not Spider-Man and X-Men) focusing on the Green Lantern Corps. The story's been building for years and the Blackest Night story itself focuses on the Black Lanterns, an evil group of zombies made up of dead characters from the DCU.

Okay, assuming all the non comic fans have probably dozed off, I'm going to get into the nitty gritty. DC recently released a trade called Tales of the Green Lantern Corps that reprints a three issue miniseries of the same name from the 80s (I believe), along with some back-ups starring individual GLs from throughout the cosmos. It also sports a rad re-painted Brian Bolland cover.

Well, the main story not only feels like a possible inspiration for Geoff Johns' wide-sweeping epic, as the entire GLC gets together to face a potentially galaxy shattering event, but elements of it seem like they could potentially play into Blackest Night. I'm not saying that that Johns stole from this story at all, so don't think that's the point of this. It's been clear in Johns' JSA, GL and Superman books that he's a big, big fan of DC's history so I'm guessing he's at least read this story and might refer back to it. Also, it's possible that DC put this trade out to get people ready for a story that Johns will be referencing (kind of like when they released that Jimmy Olsen trade around the time of Countdown).

Anyway, on to my point. The book's main threats are Krona and Nekron. Krona was a member of the Guardians' race before they became the Guardians. He was obsessed with seeing the beginning of the universe and actually created the big bang and, I believe unleashed evil into the universe. As punishment he was turned into energy (because he, like the Guardians are immortal, and, in theory, can't be killed) and sent to travel the universe. After some shenanigans Krona eventually reached the end of the universe where he found himself in Nekron's death dimension. Nekron's a pretty powerful dude because, at the end of the universe, everyone's dead, so he leads everyone.

The thing is, Nekron doesn't want to only be in charge of the dead, he wants to be in the regular world. So, he gives Krona physical form and some henchmonsters to wage war on the regular universe, focusing on killing Guardians because, when an immortal dies, it opens the rift between dimensions.

There's a battle and all that, and, surprise, the good guys win, but only after the bad guys show some of the GLs images of their dead relatives asking them to join the realm of the dead. Once everything's cool, they celebrate like true players, drinking from GL goblets! So, this leads me to my theory. I'm guessing that Nekron and or Krona will play some kind of part in Blackest Night. I guess that's not much of a theory, but there you go. We've seen that Scar will probably be/is the Guardian of the Black Lanterns who seem to be lead (at least for now) by Black Hand (as seen in this awesome piece of art by Doug Mahnke from the Free Comic Book Day giveaway Blackest Night #0) and they all have something to do with the Anti-Monitor's corpse. Obviously already connected to death and considering how Johns brought up the Controllers when it came to Agent Orance, it would not surprise me if Nekron was the driving force behind the Black Lanterns.

So, there you have it. I haven't seen this theory anywhere yet online, but I haven't looked too too hard. Maybe I'm onto something here. What do you think?

(Sorry for the crummy scans, this is my first big image post in a while. And of course, all the images are copyright and trademarked to DC Comics.)

Oh, DO go on.

Josie and the Pussycats: The Movie!

I know there's been a lot of talk about Josie and the Pussycats (2001) on the internet lately (well, Jim mentioned the soundtrack over on Enemy of Peanuts and also watched it last night at the same time I was and Kiel's been telling me to watch it for years). Well I finally checked it out and it was definitely surprising.

Did you fall for the hook? I hope so, because I loved this movie way more than I thought I would. Sure, I love Can't Hardly Wait, which was written and directed by the same team as Josie (Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont), but this is a movie based on an Archie comic. That would seem to limit the comedic potential, right?

Fortunately no. First of all, I was surprised with how many "bitches" and "shits" we got at the end of the movie, but nowhere near as much as in the beginning when Tara Reid's character causes a car crash by holding up a sign that, at first glance, reads "Honk if you love pussy." She pulls the sign out from behind something to reveal that it actually says "pussycats," but I was still surprised that joke made it into the movie. You always hear horror stories about really funny ideas being nixed because parent companies are worried about how it'll make their property look. Apparently Archie Comics is pretty cool, or just weren't paying attention.

The basic plot is that Alan Cumming (who I thought was Paul Reubens at first, sorry Alan) is a manager for a big record company looking for a new band to replace with the boy band whose plane he let crash (code "Put the Chevy to the levy"). He stumbles across Josie and the Pussycats and signs them, but it later turns out that Parker Posey, who runs the record company, has been encrypting subliminal messages in the music for various reasons. It's a really goofy plot, exactly the kind you'd expect for a movie like this, but there are enough winks to the audience and tongues in cheek to let you in on the joke that the writers are making fun of movies just like this. It's oddly subversive.

In honor of the marketing-to-kids theme/satirization, the filmmakers do quite a few things that I liked. First off, anytime the Pussycats are out in public, everyone else is where the "it" color of the moment (starting with pink, then orange and on and on). I noticed it before it was explained (the record company is controlling fashion and slang though these impressionable kids with tons of disposable income, as explained by Eugene Levy playing himself in a filmstrip), which made the reveal all the more satisfying. There's also enough product placement to make Michael Bay jealous. According to IMDb, they didn't actually receive any money for all the shout-outs as they were, again, there to show how crazy intense the marketing towards kids can be.

Josie also works as a strange kind of time capsule. TRL and Carson Daly play a somewhat important role in the movie. Daly and Reid have some screen time together and, as anyone who's anyone will remember, they dated for some time (though I couldn't remember when that happened or when they broke up, which made the scene both funny and awkward, like watching episodes of Newleyweds after Nick and Jessica got divorced). We also get glimpses of Behind the Music (a show they should really bring back along with Pop Up Video) and Serena Altschul of MTV News fame. If you were a way-too-avid watched of MTV in the late 90s, you'll remember Serena, if not, she'll just be another face on the screen, but man, that was a fun little flashback.

Lastly, I've got to talk about the cast. First up, you've got the Pussycats played by the aforementioned Reid, Rachel Leigh Cook (what is she doing nowadays?) and Rosario Dawson (I had no idea she was in this until the credits rolled). They're all very serviceable in their roles, but they're significantly outshined in my opinion by the members of Du Jour, the boy band (another 90s flashback now that I think about it) from the beginning of the movie consisting of Breckin Meyer, Seth Green Donald Faison and a guy named Alexander Martin who played the foreign exchange student in Can't Hardly Wait. Now CHW fans will remember that Faison and Meyer played two members of the band at the party. I'd like to think that they ditched the other two guys, grabbed Green's Kenny, taught the foreign kid to speak English and blew up on the boy band scene. These guys are hilarious from the very first moment they're on screen to their inevitable plane crash.

After a quick look at the Robot Chicken IMDb page, I wonder if this is where Green met Meyer and Cook, both of whom who have regularly contributed voices along with tons of other late 90s "teen" actors. Maybe they can get a good script together and give us a new movie with all those familiar faces dealing with being in their late 20s/early 30s. I could go for that, how about you guys?


Oh, DO go on.

Sha-Zam, This Jeff Smith Guy Should Make Cartoons

There's two things you should know about me. First, I've never read Bone. I started it, got bored or distracted and am still only an issue or two into that giant omnibus. I'm sure I'll get to it at some point, just not in the near future. And thing the second, even though the idea of Jeff Smith's Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil made perfect sense to me and I had access to all the issues, I didn't read it when it came out in single issues. I flipped through and looked at the pretty pictures, but didn't get my hands dirty. So, now that I've read the trade, I've got a few thoughts.



Now, there's no doubt that Smith is a master of telling gorgeous stories that both children and adults can enjoy. I would hand this book to my younger cousins in a heartbeat. There's not a ton of violence and the violence that is on the panel is always between good and evil (usually between Captain and Mary Marvel and monsters). Actually, this book may be better for kids than adults.

The problem I had was that I could see all the beats coming from a mile away. Now, I'm no genius, but I have been reading comics and books and watching movies and TV for most of my 26 years on this earth, so I think I've got a pretty good grasp on stories, how they're told and, usually, how they'll turn out. I'm not going to give away the "twists" but they all seemed pretty telegraphed.

So, that left me looking for the smaller changes, mostly the differences between the previous incarnations of Shazam I've read like some of the Showcase Edition, Kingdom Come and current DC continuity, though not Power of Shazam (which is on my reading list). The new designs for Talky Tawny and Mr. Mind are very cool. I like how Billy Batson has it pretty rough as a homeless kid living in an abandoned house. I like that Smith went back and used the original "block falling on the Wizard" element, but the fact that the block is still on the chair when they head to the Rock of Eternity later is awesome. And I like how they updated Billy's job, making it more relevant.

But, unfortunately, all those little bits just weren't enough to keep me interested through the final issue, which is where all the plot points come together to a completely expected conclusion. Now, like I said, I think this is a great book for kids, but maybe not adults. Or maybe I'm just too jaded.

All this being said, I wish this was a cartoon. I have way more patience for something I'm watching than something I'm spending my precious few reading hours on and this would really be a dynamite way to bring Smith's already highly dynamic, yet classic art style to either the big or small screen. I'm thinking it would be a great regular cartoon series or one of Warner Bros.'s straight-to-DVD hero movies like Wonder Woman (which is on my to-watch list) and Green Lantern, which I can't freaking wait for.

Oh, DO go on.

Punisher War Zone Takes the Bronze!

As loyal Kicking It Old School readers might remember, a few months ago I declared Wanted as my third favorite comic movie of 2008 behind Dark Knight and Iron Man and miles ahead of Hellboy 2 and Incredible Hulk. Well, Wanted has been ousted by Lionsgate's Punisher War Zone which I watched last week and have been telling my friends about ever since (in real life, that is).


This flick is awesome. It's great in the same way that I thought it would be when I started seeing previews for it before it came out. This is like Crank or Shoot 'Em Up or any number of Jean Claude Van-Damme or Steven Seagal movies from the late 80s or early 90s. It's balls to the wall crazy for most of its 103 minutes, which is exactly what a Punisher movie should be in my opinion (for the record I really like Dolph's Punisher and barely remember Tom Jane's).

To put things in perspective, by the 8 minute mark, The Punisher had killed an entire party full of mobsters (including decapitation AND shoving a chair through a guy's face) before heading off to another creation when the man who will become Jigsaw gets one of the more gruesome villain origins in comic book movie history.

Joining Jigsaw in his murderous rampage is his brother known as Loony Bin Jim, who Lost fans may or may not recognize as Horace (I had no idea, this dude is a chameleon). Sure, both villains are way over the top and it's nearly impossible not to compare their versions of crazy to the amazing Heath Ledger's Joker performance, but I still found their brand of crazy enjoyable.

I understand it's kind of crazy to lump Punisher: War Zone in with two of the greatest comic book movies ever made (hey, we comic fans had a good year last year), but I had more fun watching P:WZ than I did Incredible Hulk and Hellboy 2, both of which suffered, in my opinion, for various reasons (I'd have to see both movies again to really remember why, but I just don't feel like putting myself through that again).

Speaking of comic fans, even though it's your basic "dude shooting and killing his way through a bunch of bad guys" story, there are still some nods to the comics. You get Detective Soap and Microchip (played by Newman himself, Wayne Knight), plus some other characters that I wouldn't have known about if IMDb hadn't told me about them in the trivia page. Plus, anyone can enjoy the awesome final showdown scene in an old hotel with tons of gangs each trying to kill The Punisher.

All in all, Ray Stevenson did a bang up job as Frank Castle (though, even he couldn't save himself from the sappy-ish parts of the script that should probably have been scrapped). Dominic West's Jigsaw and Dough Hutchinson's Loony Bin Jim were over-the-top crazy and director Lexi Alexander made me excited to see whatever her next project will be. And hopefully it will be another awesome action movie, because there really aren't enough female action directors out there. Actually I can't think of any others, can you?


Oh, DO go on.

Whiteout

I read Oni's smaller, digest-ish sized edition of Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber's Whiteout this weekend. It's a pretty good read, though I feel like I've read or seen all the pieces of this story already between episodes of shows like CSI, The Thing and Bad Boys II (especially the scene where Carrie and Lily drive a Hummer through the arctic shanty town). But, hey, that's not really an indictment on the book itself, I've often said that it doesn't really matter the order that pieces of fiction come out, but the order you've seen them. For instance, I read Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens well before I saw The Omen (well, I still haven't seen the movie, but I DID read the novelization of the movie that I thought was the novel it was based on). Really, though, reading Whiteout made me want to watch The Thing again, that's a freaking rad movie.



It also made me want to see the Whiteout movie starring Kate Beckinsale. What's the deal with that flick anyway?

One last thing I want to talk about, more so than the contents of the book is the scale of the book itself. I will never understand why companies want to shrink down artists' work to such a small format. It's one thing with manga or Scott Pilgrim when the book was originally conceived in that format, but shrinking Steve Lieber or Frank Miller's art (like in the Sin City volumes that came out around the movie) just boggles my mind. Their art is SICK, show it as big as you can! That's why we have Absolute editions.

Okay, that's my rant. What do you think of shrinking down artwork like that? Or Whiteout? Or Kate Beckinsale? Or The Thing?!


Oh, DO go on.

Black Panther Is Awesome Part 2: Wild Kingdom

2009-02-25
8:38:59 pm

Part two in my argument why Black Panther is an awesome comic.

X-MEN/BLACK PANTHER: WILD KINGDOM

(Black Panther #8-9, X-Men #175-176)

Written by Reginald Hudlin & Peter Milligan, drawn by David Yardin & Salvador Larroca

X-Men/Black Panther: Wild Kingdom isn't exactly the best example of why Black Panther is awesome. As I mentioned last time one of the big reasons I like this book so much is that it feels like it's firmly entrenched in the Marvel U without getting too detailed or confusing. That all gets hindered when you bring in the X-Men. I know a lot of people are all about the X-Men, but I still find them to be the most difficult franchise to get into thanks to the incredibly dense history. It's not even that Milligan's story is all that confusing, I just have a hard time placing this story in the long history of X-Men. You've got Gambit and Rogue on the same team, but what's their deal? Emma's there too, but is this still when Astonishing was going on? None of this really matters to the story, but it is distracting. I do like how both writers handle Storm and Wolverine though, two characters who will be important in their own ways coming up.

The story of this book is that the Red Ghost wants to start a new commie ape society in Africa. There's something about mutant animals, which gets the X-Men interested. BP of course gets involved too because this is his turf. For those of you unfamiliar with the Red Ghost, he's a communist scientist who can turn intangible and has created super powered apes who talk. There's another scientist guy in the story who can absorb mutant powers.

I'll be honest, the larger story here isn't all that interesting unless you're a huge Red Ghost fan (and I know some people out there are). What is cool about this story is seeing Storm and Black Panther together. Like I said before I don't know much about either character aside from what I've read in this book, so I'm not sure if there were any previous hints of their relationship or if this is the first readers saw of it, but I like how they are around each other, especially considering how adversarial they tend to be towards one another. It's cool to see the beginning of their love story (even if it's not the chronological beginning).

Oh, Dragon Man's in the book too which is pretty cool, but, again, the overall story isn't all that interesting. As far as my collection goes, I'm not all too concerned about adding this one to my collection, unless I can get it on Sequential Swap (a great site to get rid of some of your old trades as well as get some cool new ones). But, don't let that deter you from checking out my future installments of Black Panther Is Awesome, as Part 3 will focus on Bad Mutha, the arc that got me interested in this book in the first place.

Oh, DO go on.