Comic Book Pick Of The Week 7-29-09

San Diego Comic-Con 09

London Calling

Wednesday Comic Barf 6-10-09

What a load of crap this week (with a few diamonds in the rough) anyway,

SPOILER ALERT for anyone that cares, this is comic talk and I don't think anyone that reads my blog reads comics, so whatever...

anyway...


New Avengers: The Reunion #4

What a bunch of crap! Marvel got me again, I like the character of Hawkeye, but I realized that I like him as the dark and broken Ronin, not West Coast Avengers' Hawkeye.

This comic was written by someone who has either:

1. Never had a female in his life.
or
2. Is dating a bitch.

The way newly resurrected Mockingbird and Ronin interacted was so weird and off and not the way a couple acts or talks to one another. And I know, one could argue that being stuck on the Skull mothership has given Mockingbird issues, but none more than the average girl, aliens or not.

I kept picking it up because it was a four issue mini-series and I was already into it 2 issues so I thought I would ride it out to the end. What a mistake. Thumbs down.




War of Kings #4

This issue had a twist ending that I already know is not going to stick or even happen, but so far the space epic has been interesting and entertaining and although more expensive than regular Marvel books, pretty good overall.

Alot of characters and things are going on in this title so I'm not even going to try and explain what is happening, I barely know myself, but sci-fi comics are pretty awesome.





CRAP OF THE WEEK!
Amazing Spider-man #595-596


I was going to write a long critique of Spiderman comics in the last year, but it pretty much all comes down to the panel below:

A fist-bump??? Are you telling me that there is not a single superhero that did NOT vote for Obama? This is getting so ooooooooold.

Politics DO NOT belong in comics, or if they do, it is in thinly veiled metaphor at the very least, not straight up saying, "We support Obama, we hate Bush."

I get it, I get it. Everyone hated Bush, but beyond being biased and taking the fun out of comics, it is just lazy bad writing. Instead of focusing on Spiderman, this writer is out of ideas, so he just goes to the 'well of easy agreement.' It's like picking on the kid that everyone picks on; Easy target, Easy laugh, but in the end, spineless and tacky.

Hey writers, try and create great memorable stories like the comic writers before you. Don't tell me how GREEN the goddamn X-mansion is, or that Wolverine recycles, or that SPIDERMAN LOVES OBAMA!!!

I don't care, nobody cares, learn to WRITE!!!


PICK OF THE WEEK!
Batman and Robin #1


Speaking of writing, this is what you should aspire to writers! The new Batman and Robin is the pick of the week and an example of a creative and good writer. Grant Morrison does not try to tell me the political views of Robin because he is more worried about writing a good Batman story and being creepy and weird and great.

I didn't really know what to expect, and truth be told, I thought that this was going to be like All-Star Superman (which is fantastic btw), but apparently, this is in continuity and it isn't even Bruce Wayne as Batman. Which got me interested and I am curious where this is going to go.

And you can't go wrong with Frank Quitely, in my opinion,



Dead Irons #4


A great ending to a great mini-series with cool art. Dead Irons #4 was the finale to the story, but also the best issue of the bunch. I really did love this series. Creepy Monster Westerns are now A-OK by me!

See ya!

Wednesday Comic Barf

Wednesday Comic Barf 6-3-09

So here are the books that I read this past week. Some real phenomenal stuff, really. So away we go!

Pick of the Week!

Wolverine #72

This was not really a tough choice for my pick of the week. Holy Cow! The "Old Man Logan" story has just been fantastic. Awesome dystopian future darkness with tons of easter eggs for Marvel fans.

Written by Mike Millar, who is, for me, a little hit and miss generally, but this story has been so solid and clever. This is Part 7 of the storyline and every issue has had a great cliffhanger, but this one has a cliffhanger but with some serious satisfaction.

Steve McNiven is just such a rad artist, I first noticed him from Civil War, the panels where Captain America escapes from the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. Such a great detailed artist.

Pick up Wolverine: Old Man Logan or die!



Green Lantern #41

A very close second for pick of the week was the Green Lantern.

Green Lantern has been maybe my favorite comic book now for going on 2 years. Geoff Johns just knows how to write comics ( I suppose that's why he is such a superstar). Issue after issue is so good and surprising and entertaining, and this issue is no exception, in fact he pushes the envelope once again with a shock ending.

Lately it seems that GL has had some revolving artists for different story lines. The "Agent Orange" story arc was pencilled by a group of pencillers and inkers, and if it wasn't for Geoff Johns' great writing, it would be annoying as most "too many cooks in the kitchen" comics tend to be.

Stoked for "Blackest Night" like every other comic fan on Earth.



Hulk #12

Hulk #12 was another good old fashioned comic.

Jeph Loeb has just taken this comic and had as much fun as possible. Really silver-aged feel, which I'm sure is no accident. Since Loeb wrote "Teen Wolf" he can basically do no wrong in my eyes, and on the Hulk he has found a good outlet to have a fun comic that are a breath of fresh air from how dark writers try to go now-a-days in their titles.

Ed McGuiness was born to draw the Hulk. Some people complain that his art is too cartoony and marshmellowy, but this is the perfect character to be cartoony on. I really love the art and writing and lots of people hate on this run of the Hulk, but I have really enjoyed it.



War of Kings #1-3

I finally sat down and read the first three issues of War of Kings. I had read the first one when it came out, but had procrastinated the next two for some reason.

This is a cosmic story and all the action takes place in space and on different alien worlds. As someone steeped in X-men comics as a child, this almost feels like an X-men comic, because if you remember, the X-men spent a good portion of the 70's and the 80's in space. Not to mention half of the characters from this story are from X-comics originally.

That being said, I am enjoying this story for the most part. It's kind of Star Warsy and if you like space epics, then you should like this. The creative team are Abnett and Lanning, which sound like a comedy duo from the 40's. But the story hase been pretty solid, albeit, cliche' at times (specifically the Gladiator aspect of the story, who didn't see that coming???) But I have always liked Black Bolt and I dig space comics. Who doesn't dream about outer space?

Overall worth picking up (but just barely, with that damned 3.99 price point)





Aliens #1

Speaking of space sci-fi stories, this week I picked up Aliens #1. Now for a little info about me. As a kid, Aliens was my favorite movie. I loved it, and I still absolutely adore it. The Ridley Scott original is fantastic, but my heart lies with the James Cameron Sequel. Even as an 8 year old kid, I remember seeing the movie poster at the cinema with the great tag line that thrilled my little kid soul:

"This Time It's War."

Holy cow! What a great tagline!

Anyway, when I started collecting comics at the age of 11 it was just a couple of years before Dark Horse Comics got the license and started (regrettably at times) churning out the Aliens comics. I have a bunch of them, and some are great and some are... um.... not so great. But basically, if you looked through my collection as a 14 year old, it would be X-men and all X-related comics and Aliens and Predator comics.

So when I found out Dark Horse was rebooting the Aliens comic franchise, well obviously I would be checking it out. And her is what I found;

Strange and intriguing story, with a really weird twist in the middle of the issue that I am still wondering where the hell they are going with this. But over-all off to a good start, I will be picking up the second issue. The writer/artist team are John Arcudi and Zach Howard respectively, with Zach Howard and Mark Irwin on Inking.

Great presentation, great art, solid writing. Hopefully this will live up to my childhood dreams, but that will be pretty damn tough, lol.





Usagi Yojimbo #120

And finally Usagi Yojimbo. When I was in San Fran last February, we went to the cartoon art museum and there was a display on Stan Sakai and art from his character Usagi Yojimbo. It was pretty cool and I vowed to check out his comic book. It has so many of the elements that I love. First off, the art looks like Groo artist Sergio Aragones, one of my absolute childhood heroes. Next it is set in fuedal Japan, another one of my passions, I have visited Japan twice and love the culture. And third, the characters are anthropomorphic animals that act like humans, but are rabbits and dogs and such. How can you go wrong?

So I picked up #120 and the story and art was good, a little predictable storywise, but a fun comic and great for kids. If I wasn't such a kid at heart, I would criticize it a bit more, but overall I liked it.



Wow. So there you go. I actually liked every comic I reviewed this week. A good week for comics indeed since I am such a Debby Downer.

See you next wednesday....

Wednesday Comic Review

I've decided that since I pick so many comics up on Wednesdays. That I might as well write a quick review or two about the comics I am enjoying.

Plus if you care about SPOILERS then beware, but then again, who the heck reads my blog and comic books??? So here we go

Wednesday Comic Review:

Generally I am going to write about new comics that just came out, but since this in my inaugural post, then forget it! I do what I want and I say what I want and write about old comics everyday if I want. But I digress....

Uncanny X-Men #510


Why oh why are they changing the artist constantly on this title? Back in the day artists would take over the X-men for years. YEARS! Think Dave Cockram, John Byrne, Marc Silvestri, Jim Lee, of course with the odd one-issue guest-artist. But now they change the artist every 3 or 4 issues. What is the deal? Can't afford to hold on to an artist? Oh yeah, you're only MARVEL COMICS!!!

Anyway, this issue is pencilled by Greg Land, whom apparently alot of people hate, he sort of reminds me of Marc Silvestri when he was doing two X-men books a month, so in that vein, I sort of like him. Greg from Blackcat Comics says that Mr. Land uses pornography as photo reference, but there are worse crimes in the comic world than that (Rob Liefeld).

Matt Fraction has been writing the Uncanny X-men for around a year and it's not that he isn't a good writer, he just isn't a good X-men writer. He does not understand the team and the characters AT ALL. The first maybe 8 issues he wrote were terrible. The last few have gotten considerably better, but better generally, not X-men standard. So that aside, this issue they reveal what the Sisterhood have been after since they started pestering the X-men a few issues ago.

SPOILER!

a strand of Jean Grey's hair that Wolverine had in his room... Seriously? They are going to go there? Talk about beating the ultimate dead horse. Matt Fraction is actually going to go back over the absolute most tread ground in X-men story history. Another endless resurrection of Jean Grey, and more endless turmoil of Cyclops.

Done, done, done to DEATH.

I will see where this story goes, but I am not very excited about it.




Invincible #62


Another awesome solid issue of Invincible. Robert Kirkman is easily one of the best writers in comics and every single month (Utah's own!) Ryan Ottley seems to get better and more dynamic. If you like superhero comics and you are not reading Invincible, then you are retarded.

The Conquest story continues in this issue and he shows why he is the baddest Viltrumite in the Universe. Dark times for Invincible seem to be on the horizon. This issue he basically gets his butt kicked for 22 pages by Conquest. Brutal and awesome.




I Am Legion #1-3


I was behind on this comic, and hadn't read past issue 1 since it came out, but kept picking it up because I liked the concept and love WWII stories. So this past week I reread issue 1 and read 2 and 3.

The art is by John Cassaday who did the amazing art on the first 24 issues of the Joss Whedon penned Astonishing X-men which will go down as one of the greatest X-men story arcs of all time, mark my words. Anyway, he has a clean style that I really like and since reading Astonishing X-men and loving it, was the reason I picked up the book in the first place.

The concept is a WWII story with supernatural satanic elements. So Hellboy without all the monsters, basically. The story is very complex and the only complaint I have is that there are lots of characters and I would get confused who was who at times, but it is very interesting and the night I read these 3 comics, that same night, I had nightmares based on the premise. Satanic Nazis! As if Nazis had to be made more evil.


And finally...


The Sword TPB 1 and 2, and Girls TPB 1 and 2,



This will be the one and only time I will say it;

"TPB = Trade Paper Back= a book bound collection of usually 6 or more comics"

The Sword and Girls are two comic series by the Luna Brothers, whom I basically know nothing about, besides that they are probably brothers and that one writes and one does art. The art in both comics is the same, kind of animated cartoony with ultra-violent moments.

And of course I love both comics. I have not read the end to either of the series yet, so maybe I will hate them eventually, but in terms of intrigue and great story, the Luna Brothers have hit a homerun with both series.

The Sword is about a girl who's family is murdered in front of her eyes because of a sword that she didn't know existed, and has strange powers. She is the only survivor and finds the magic sword and violence ensues. It is awesome. The dialog is kind of lame at times, but the over-all story is fantastic.

Even better is Girls, a small town is infested with strange multiplying nude girls that have sex with all males and kill all females that they run across. Strange and weird and awesome. Intriguing and violent as The Sword and maybe more-so.



So there you have it, my Wednesday Comic Review.



not that you care.



See you next wednesday...

Racist Comics

My friend Justin turned me on to maybe the greatest panel in comic book history.
It is as follows:


There are so many awesome things going on at the same time in this panel. First off, somebody talking smack to Dr. Doom is pretty awesome (strictly from the comic universe standpoint) but even more awesome is how amazingly racist this is. This panel is taken from the early seventies 'Luke Cage: Hero for Hire.'

Now basically the whole blaxsploitaion thing had exploded in America with 'Shaft' and 'Foxy Brown' being made to target the urban black audience and being successful at it. So obviously Marvel Comics wanted to jump on board and get that money.

Comics, if you think about it, are targeted traditionally for white kids. Just think about how many comic icons are white ( Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Wolverine, etc etc) and now think about how many you can name that are black (??? maybe Storm) Those question marks represent just your every day citizen, to a comic nerd like me, I can name a few more ( Green Lantern John Stewart, Black Panther ((who is sort of also a blaxploitation character from the 70's)) Black Lightning, Steel, Blade, Bishop, Cloak)

But what about the young black target market? What an untapped demographic goldmine. Business model-wise, it was a great idea. In execution, a little more awkward.

My point being, that when Marvel introduced Luke Cage, I firmly believe that the comic was written by a white middle-aged Jewish man trying to target the teenaged urban black kid, so obviously you end up with hilarious out-of-touch unintentionally racist panels like the one above.

"Give me my money, honey."

???

Luke Cage is talking to megalomaniac Dr. Doom like a pimp, for God's sake.

Check out this gem:

These alien warriors are straight talking trash on Luke Cage (in English for some reason) and his reaction is to think "Yo, Mama, Sucker!"

Holy Crap!

Did this actually work? Did urban black kids actually idolize Luke Cage? Maybe I am wrong about this being so off the mark. Maybe there are a whole generation of black comic fans in their forties that completely love comics because of Luke Cage. I really don't know.

Either way, it is amazing. I have been trying to collect these comics, but as of yet, have failed to track one down.

Awesome Band -- 'Two Hours Traffic'

"Two Hours Traffic" is a band that I stumbled upon and checked out because they sort of reminded me of "Vampire Weekend".

And over the last two months, I have become obsessed with them.

They are totally awesome.

All these videos are off the album "Little Jabs."

I Don't Know What To Say About This.

WTF?

I can't decide if this is the awesomest thing ever, or totally retarded (in a bad way). Marvel Comics is releasing a Punisher/EMINEM crossover.

You read that right, not Punisher and, say.... Spiderman.


Or even a lesser known character like Iron Fist or someone like that.

No.

Freaking Em-in-em!

Even the rare and ridiculous Punisher/ARCHIE crossover (which sounds awesome!) is for some reason less gimicky and silly as Punisher and Eminem working together to, I assume, kill someone.

I think we can all agree that Eminem is such a D-Bag.


But as I said this may be GOLD! I am so conflicted!!!