Spider-Clones: Marvel’s Recent Moves

It’s been a weird month or so at Marvel, what with a bunch of layoffs, the cancellation of several ongoing books (Including Jason Aaron’s Punisher MAX, Crisis on Infinite Midlives favorite Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, and X-23 and Ghost Rider – Marvel’s only two books with female leads), and a couple of books (Destroyers and Victor Von Doom) that haven’t even come out yet. The word is that Marvel has been particularly nutcutting because of budgetary concerns, which means Marvel may be the first company that requires people with the job title of “Architect” to bring their own fucking toilet paper to work.

Any detailed analysis of what Marvel is doing and why would require more knowledge of the comics industry than a guy who just likes comics has, and, you know… math and shit, which means I’m not the one to do it. Kiel Phegley at Comic Book Resources runs down what’s happening and possibly why from an informed prospective, which you should go read. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

You’re back? What? you want to know what I think? Didn’t I just tell you that I’m not the one to ask? But then again, it’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means that we’re all doomed to listen to some drunkard spouting off in an authoritative manner about things they know nothing whatsoever about. Okay, fine; fill your glass, pull up a chair, and listen to your Uncle Rob run his mouth about something he knows nothing whatsoever about.

The Unchanging Man: The Shade #2 Review

For all the excitement that DC Comics has been trying to generate with the New 52, and their loud and public protestations that everything is all-new and all-different, this appears to be the week that they’re playing to old readers’ nostalgia… if not every reader’s nostalgia, then mine in particular. Going through this week’s DC take is like being 25 years old again, except I no longer have to choose between comics and food that isn’t ramen noodles, my joints crack whenever I do anything more strenuous than turning a page, and those cracking joints are the only ones I currently have hidden in the house.

James Robinson’s Starman was one of the bright spots of comics in the 1990s, a decade that brought us chromium variant covers, Spider-Clones and the ability for Rob Liefeld to make a living that didn’t involve grocery bagging or glory holes. Starman was a book that was as much about world-building as it was the title character, making its Opal City art deco setting and its residents as much a key character as Jack Knight himself. Robinson retired Jack Knight as Starman – permanently, so far – in 2001, and supposedly has a deal with DC where they can’t use the character without his permission, making Robinson the first comic creator I’ve been tempted to torture for the good of comics who didn’t draw Captain America with tits.

So, no Starman for you. However, Robinson’s giving us The Shade miniseries, which is still pretty Goddamned good.

Dark History: Justice League Dark #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: On initial publication of this review, I missed Ryan Sook’s cover credit and attributed the cover work to interior artist Mikel Janin. Mikel was good enough to check into the comments and point out my error. The review has been updated with more accurate credits.

I am probably not the best person to objectively review this book, for a few reasons, even though I studied journalism in college. But I figure once you’ve publshed a review that contains the sentence, “This ending is so Goddamned shameful I can barely even find the fucking words,” I can pretty much chuck any pretense of journalistic objectivity out the window, at least when it comes to the Comic Book Reviews category.

With that said, let’s talk about Justice League Dark #3: I liked this book… and I shouldn’t have, by every standard I’ve set for comics in every review I have written to date.

It’s decompressed. It contains almost no action. It barely explains what happened before, assumes the reader has knowledge of comics that were canceled fifteen years ago and were long out of print, and has a cover that writes checks the comic itself doesn’t cash. I mean, at no time in this book does Zatanna ride a Batcycle, and if you’re gonna bait and switch me like that, the least artist Mikel Janin Ryan Sook could have done was put her in her fishnets for a little free-of-charge fanboy boner (Fanboy-ner? Hey, no Google results! Fanboy-ner! Trademark /copyright 2011 Crisis On Infinite Midlives!). And John Constantine does not shoot fire from his hands, Mikel Ryan. The only way his hand should look like that would immediately after fingerblasting Veneria, the Harpy Queen of Tertiary Chlamydia.

So I shouldn’t like this book. But it has four things going for it: Shade, The, Changing and Man.

Flaming: Fantastic Four #600 Review

I have decided that when I die, I want someone at Marvel to write my obituary. Because that will mean that I won’t be dead for very fucking long.

Yeah, The Human Torch is alive again, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

I haven’t reviewed any of the issues in Jonathan Hickman’s run of Fantastic Four before because honestly? It just hasn’t hooked me in. I’ve given it a try because the book has been part of my pulls since Mark Waid’s and Mike Wieringo’s run, so I’ve sort of been getting it by default. And I read it every month, but there’s something about ir that just doesn’t stick to my brain. I’ll grant that alcohol might be a factor, but considering not ten seconds ago I was asked, and able, to recall the Libby’s jingle from the 1970’s, I doubt booze is just attacking my memories of Hickman on FF. Hopefully.

I’ve certainly given Hickman’s writing an honest chance. On top of Fantastic Four, I’ve been reading his book Red Wing by Image, and I’ve picked up trades of his miniseries Red Mass for Mars and Pax Humana. All of which are big idea comics, with intricate clockwork plots that pull together seamlessly… and to a one populated with characters that feel to me like ciphers that exist purely to further those plots. They are impeccable works of engineering, yet oddly bloodless, like a high-end silicone fuck doll: there are people who swear by them, but I was born a blow-up doll man, and I’ll die a blow-up doll man. And lonely. But I digress.

The Bird Is The Word

It is Wednesday evening, and as you regular readers of Crisis On Infinite Midlives know…

…New Comics Day means that this is the end of our broadcast day.

Still and all, that’s a damn good take for the Wednesday before a long American holiday weekend! There’s a new Kick-Ass by Mark Millar, a new Warren Ellis Secret Avengers, a book from Image’s Pilot Season, a new Justice League Dark (Which had better have some fucking Shade: The Changing Man in it! You hear me, Milligan!?), and a new Hawkman, which I only bought to support an American Thanksgiving “We have a bird” joke!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, due to the holiday weekend, posting for the next four days may be a bit more sporadic than usual. But please stick with us; we will do our best to post new news items and reviews… but to do that, we need tonight to start reading the new books.

See you somewhere during or after the tryptophan coma, suckers!

Gold Standard: SyFy Pilots Booster Gold

I thought I was free of that Goddamned channel.

First they let Battlestar Galactica go – and end on a “Be nice to robots” note. Fuck you. If my Aibo won’t learn to fetch me beers on command, he gets a kicking, just like any other real dog or child.

Then they made have to watch Stan Lee bestow the title of “superhero” on some sasquatch calling herself “Fat Momma” (Well, she was still better than Fin Fang Foom… actually, looking again, she might have been Fin Fang Foom, or at least have shopped in the same Lane Bryant), they cancelled Eureka, and stole two hours worth of my pink, blank neurons and replaced them with something called Mansquito.

I was shut of you, SyFy Channel… and then you had to go and do this:

Syfy is looking to bring Booster Gold to life on the small screen.

Okay… don’t make eye contact with the empty SyFy development suit and give away that Booster Gold isn’t a WWE wrestler and let’s see what’s up.

Will It Be Like Chocolate Meeting Peanut Butter? – Anthony Bourdain’s “Get Jiro!”

I was always one of those people who, in high school, kept very separate groups of friends. I had one group for theater geek activities, one group for all things jock related, and another one for the things that neither of the either groups needed to see. It was a very well planned orchestration that I kept meticulously cordoned off, like one of those plates that lets you keep all your food from touching lest the squash touch the potatoes and all mayhem break loose.

These days, I feel much the same about my hobbies. Comics, Club-A-Wino-To-Death Night, and foodie pursuits all hold very meaningful places in my life, but they’ve been there as spaces for me to move in and out of. My fenced off little refuges have not come into contact with each other…until now.

Enter Get Jiro!, which will be written by television personality/chef/author, Anthony Bourdain and author Joel Rose with art by Langdon Foss, whose work has previously been seen in Heavy Metal.

Should I be getting excited or scurry back into the shadows in trepidation?

Rehab Start: Catwoman #3 Review

Catwoman #3 is better than the first issue, but don’t get too excited about it, at least not yet. Better is, after all, a relative word; losing your job is better than, say, losing your foot, but that doesn’t make it good.

I’m gonna start with the positive things I found in this issue, because unfortunately there’s still plenty that’s disappointing, but we’re 48 hours from a long weekend in the United States, and only 24 hours from the biggest bar night of the year, so I’m feeling charitable.

As opposed to the first issue, which felt like a bunch of plot points strung together to fill enough pages to justify Catwoman fucking Batman, there is an actual story going on here, and it’s reasonable compelling. This comic is a revenge story, plain and simple, and although it is part of a larger story arc that started in the abysmal first issue, it has the feel of a one-and-done that’s refreshing.

We open with Catwoman captured and one of her closest confidants killed,and proceed at a rapid and exciting pace through her escape, hunting of the killer and taking revenge upon him, all in 20-something pages. It feels complete, which is all-too-rare in the New 52 books so far, and it ends with a cliffhanger vastly more satisfying than the first issue, where the only thing we were left wondering was how you get semen out of kevlar.

Avenge Me: Marvel’s February Solicitations

Last week, DC Comics announced their solicitations for their upcoming releases for February, and there was a… disturbing trend of books with covers that made the heroes’ thighs look like something that would make Johnny Wadd Holmes weep with bitter, envious frustration.

But surely the repeating nature of DC’s offerings was just a coincidence. One would think that Marvel, who just released their own February solicitations, would never fall into the trap of repeating themselves in the space of a single month!

So let’s take a look at what is sure to be the widely varied and diverse offerings that Marvel has for us in February! (Rob: Tone down the pissy sarcasm and show the nice people the books. -Amanda)

What’s In A Name? – Review Of Wolverine: The Best There Is #11

Wolverine is a Marvel character that appears in more books than the Duggars have children. As all children are special and unique, like snowflakes, so it is that each of Wolverine’s titles are all a bit different from one another. In the Wolverine family, Wolverine: The Best There Is, written by Charlie Huston, with art by Juan Jose Ryp is the pretty one that’s also a little slow, but really likes to hear itself talk and thinks it’s more mature than it actually is.

Note the “Parental Advisory! Not For Kids!” label slapped on the cover. Marvel already has an existing MAX line in which content with explicit themes can be published. So, if Wolverine: The Best There Is is “not for kids”, why not publish this title under the MAX imprint? Could it be that Marvel/Disney doesn’t want to take one of its most popular characters and place it in a book that is actively off limits to kids and teens? Because, if that is the case, the overall muted storytelling, with its emphasis on violent, graphic imagery, stilted exposition and bleeped out swear words reads like a network television broadcast edit on an “R” rated movie – and a mediocre one at that.

Spoilers, megalomania and wasted potential after the jump.