Tree Pulp: Swamp Thing #16 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last quick review of the comics of 1/9/2013 before the comic stores open with this week’s new books…

I’m not gonna lie to you: the Rotworld crossover between Swamp Thing and Animal Man hasn’t really been grabbing me in the way that I’d originally hoped. I’ve found it to be relatively engaging, but at this point, it feels like it’s been going on damn near forever, with one overriding problem that’s been tickling me through the whole thing: where’s the rest of the DC Universe while all of this is going on? We’ve seen the world in ruins, and Superman, Batman and other ancillary superheroes afflicted by the Rot in these titles, and yet over in Detective Comics last week, Batman was happily battling Joker gangs while a new Penguin sets up shop.

So being isolated, the stakes of Rotworld have felt smaller than they should… but I really don’t want to hold that against Rotworld, because I really do want to see more isolated storylines, regardless of a publisher’s greater continuity, if only so I can stop hearing so many sighs from my co-editor Amanda when we walk into our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop announcing, “Attention, patrons! In a moment, I will be giving myself an event… and then I will become fatigued!”

So on its own, Rotworld has been entertaining, if dragged out a little longer than it probably needed to be… and taken on its own, Swamp Thing #16 is the biggest, pulpiest, most fun piece of it so far.

When Raccoons Fly: Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy Liveblog

Here’s the problem with having been six years old when Star Wars was released in theaters: I’ve never really given that much of a damn about Guardians of The Galaxy. Yeah sure, Guardians of The Galaxy debuted in 1969, but that was before my time, and by the time Marvel really started to whip them up was in Marvel Presents right around the origina Star Wars release, and if you’re six, who’re you gonna pay attention to? The guy with the full color lightsaber? Or the talking raccoon with a gun (and before you ask, no, even at six or seven, I didn’t buy into Jaxxon, either)?

But regardless, Marvel Studios in its infinite wisdom has decided to make Guardians of The Galaxy into their next big tentpole property, which means that Marvel is releasing a new book starring the team, written by Brian Michael Bendis with pencils by Steve McNiven. And Marvel just hosted a liveblog with those guys to talk about what they have planned for the property. And I tried to get myself excited about the prospect, even though it features a guy who calls himself Starlord without a whiff of irony, and a creature that calls itself Rocket Raccoon, which is roughly analogous to me calling myself Lumbering Whiteguy.

And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like they have some cool stuff planned for the project.

XX-Men: Marvel Gives Details on Wood’s and Coipel’s All-Female Book

Y’know, for a guy that had his DC exclusive contract politely allowed to expire about a month before the New 52 relaunch (and after DC announced, and then unannounced, that he would be the writer on the Supergirl relaunch in September, 2011), Brian Wood has had one hell of a busy – and big – year. Between the launches of Mara for Image, Conan and The Massive for Dark Horse – not to mention the big success of Star Wars for that publisher just last week –  the guy has a lot going on… including that new book for Marvel that they teased last week with a one-word poster reading only “XX”.

These’s been a lot of speculation about what “XX” means, from the idea Amanda floated to me that it was an X-Treme X-Men relaunch, to the one I insisted upon to my bartender that it was about Dos Equis. Actually, I was just ordering a Dos Equis, but that’s not important right now.

What is important is that Marvel has revealed what it’s all about. It’s an X-Men book. Titled X-Men. With no, you know, men in it.

Friendly Fired: DC Makes Last-Minute Writer Changes To Constantine, Birds of Prey

What the fuck is going on over at DC Editorial?

Back in November, when Vertigo announced they were cancelling Hellblazer, they tried to lessen the blow by hyping up the new DC Universe-based book Constantine, with Robert Venditti as the announced writer. Just a few weeks later, when they announced that Duane Swierczynski would no longer be writing Birds of Prey, they made a big deal of the fact that they had brought in Skullkickers writer Jim Zub to take over, trotting the poor bastard out to do interviews where he espoused how excited he was to have the opportunity, and talked about all the ideas he couldn’t wait to bring to the book.

That, however, was then. Today, DC released their April solicitations, and yeah: neither of those guys are going to be writing those books.

Somewhere along the line, someone between DC Editor In Chief Bob Harras and the individual titles’ editors decided to replace those writers with pretty much no notice (at least to the reading public) until the solicitations dropped today, with those solicitations indicating that Constantine will be written by Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes (who was originally to replace Gail Simone after she was fired from Batgirl… you know, before she was rehired), and Birds of Prey to be taken over by Amethyst writer Christy Marx. Apparently. At least for now. At this point, my co-editor Amanda is frantically hitting F5 on her email, checking to see if perhaps she is the next writer of Birds of Prey.

Between these moves and the aborted firing of Gail Simone, I can’t personally remember a case where, at the editorial level, a bunch of last-minute creator changes were made on books where the replaced creators were reasonably well-publicized, and all before their first issues even came out. Sure, you see it with artists sometimes, but normally only after deadlines start to become an issue (hi, Mark Silvestri!). So what the hell is going on at 1700 Broadway, guys? Did Robert Venditti nail the wrong guy’s wife? Did Jim Zub leave an Upper Decker in the Editorial Department men’s room? Or the ladies’ room? Or maybe Geoff Johns’s Aquaman cap?

Well, Harras and DC Editorial Director Bobbie Chase did an interview with Comic Book Resources to try to explain some of the reasoning behind the sudden moves. So… what the hell, guys?

Brain Bleach – Gary Busey Says “Pray For The Best. Prepare For The Worst. Here Come The Hobbits.”

Gary Busey has put the word out: he is interested in anyone who may have “had past life regressions and been a hobbit in a past life” to let him know, because he would like to discuss Hobbitism ^TM with you. He is under the impression that the males and females can’t tell each other apart…until they get a chance to hook up and do a package check, “which must make it exciting for them!”. Also, hobbits really enjoy using dead cockroaches for all game playing, jewelry, and hair accessory needs. I had no idea.

Check out Gary’s other deep, hobbit-y musings, after the jump.

A Couple of Major League Yobbos: The Secret Service #5 Review

Editor’s Note: Spoilers Galore? I must be dreaming.

When I reviewed Mark Millar’s and Dave Gibbon’s The Secret Service #1 back in April, well, let’s say that I wasn’t impressed. I was unimpressed enough to put the issue, and the series, on my list of biggest comics disappointments of last year. And that first issue was even more disappointing in retrospect; in a year where Sam Mendes made Skyfall, which wasn’t just a good James Bond movie, but was simply a good movie, Millar’s snark-filled, ultra-violent re-envisioning of James Bond as some kind of dickish football hooligan with a mad-on for the chavs or twats or poofs or whatever the hell the English call douchebags became not only unnecessary, but also obviously small-minded and petty.

But hey: that first issue was nine months ago. And I suppose my initial impressions might have been a mistake; after all, I can think of at least one other mistake I could have made nine months ago that I would not only be regretting today, but doing my level best to pretend never happened and if it did, pretending that it in no way applied to me.

So while I did read The Secret Service #2, #3 and #4 and saw nothing there that would make me change my initial impression of the book, I figured I’d check in with the fifth and penultimate issue to really look to see if enough had turned around to recommend it in time for you to get up to speed for the big finale in a couple of months.

Short answer? Nah. While Millar seems to have veered away from the overt lifting his protagonist Gary from Grant Morrison’s character of Dane in The Invisibles, The Secret Service #5 is still a combination of the most adolescent of revenge fantasies, combined with what seems to be a scathing indictment of genre fans and their priorities in life. And when I say “genre fans,” well, if you’re reading a comics Web site and therefore probably have a stack of longboxes in your home? That’s you and me, chief.

You Don’t Understand! They’re Already Here!: Human Bomb #1 Review

DC’s Human Bomb miniseries, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray with art by Jerry Ordway, is one of those books that just sort of showed up at my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop asking the paying customers if they want to see – or smell – why they call me The Human Bomb, without a lot of fanfare. Kinda like Phantom Lady and Doll Man by the same writing team a few months ago, and their pre-New 52 Freedom Fighters before it, Human Bomb seemed like another low-publicity, low-stakes attempt on the part of Palmiotti and Gray to make someone , somewhere, give a damn about the Freedom Fighters.

And therein has always lain the problem with these books for me: I don’t really care about The Freedom Fighters. Even as a 37-plus year reader of comic books, The Freedom Fighters have always, to me, been that group that got their asses quickly kicked in Crisis On Infinite Earths, and whose members have had a couple of distinguished appearances in James Robinson’s The Golden Age and Starman. Otherwise, The Freedom Fighters was nothing more than the team with Uncle Sam, the girl with the boob shirt who isn’t Power Girl, Other Hawkman, and the dude in the stupid radiation suit.

Well, the dude in the stupid radiation suit was The Human Bomb. And that is really about all I know about The Human Bomb – I didn’t even know the guy’s secret identity until I read The Human Bomb #2 (and, having read the character’s Wikipedia page for background this review, even his identity is something new for the Post New 52 era). And I therefore have no idea if the new origin being presented in this miniseries is historically consistent with the original tale or not. But what I can tell you is that what is here is a pretty interesting, Cold War style story of sci-fi paranoia, fit into the modern New 52 world, with some detailed, damn fine art straight from the guy who inked the character in Crisis On Infinite Earths. It’s Invasion of The Body Snatchers if Dr. Bennell could blow shit up by touching it (and if you could trust the government to pay attention when you started shrieking about Pod People), and it’s actually pretty entertaining.

I Have A Bad Feeling About This: Star Wars #1 Review

Just a few hours ago, in a town, not so far away…. I picked up my copy of Brian Wood’s Star Wars at my local comics shop, where they know me by name and keep begging me not to bring Rob there, ever again.  Getting the issue is apparently no small feat since even our fearless leader Rob couldn’t get his hands on a copy of this mutha.

Wood is tackling an interesting time in the Star Wars timeline. His focus is on the original characters during the several years between the destruction of the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin, and where Empire picks up on Hoth. It truly surprises me that this period is rarely addressed, with the absolute breadth and depth of expanded universe novels, comics, cartoons, and slashfic. There’s an awful lot of un-addressed character development that takes place off-screen between the movies. Luke has gone from whiny farm boy to a confident and able fighter. Han has shed his “only looking out for number one” attitude, and emerged as a real leader within the rebellion.  Leia has transformed from a mouthy princess to… well, a mouthy princess.

Kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe in spoilers…

No One Can Find Weapons of Mass Destruction: White House Denies Death Star Petition

Hey, didja know that, if you’re an American citizen, you can go the the White House Web site and set up a petition to the President of The United States? And if enough people sign it, the White House will issue an official response? What a nice way to make the people feel involved in the process of government, and to make it seem like we, the people, have the ability to request that our government consider the thing we want most.

Important things that could affect every American. Like the construction of a technological terror capable of destroying an entire planet.

You read right: someone started a petition to the President of The United States to begin the construction of a Death Star. And around 25,000 of my fellow Americans signed their names to this pursuit – heroes all! – telling their elected officials that their highest priority is, above health care and deficit control and environmental concerns and the squashing of foreign enemies, the creation of a battle station capable of solving all of these problems by rendering them into a meteor shower, or perhaps some kind of asteroid collision that’s not on any of the charts.

And more importantly? The White House has issued an official response. A taxpayer-funded official response. To a request made by 0.008 percent of the population of the United States.

That we build a fucking Death Star.

Boot To The Head – Will You Be Watching “King Of The Nerds”?

While cruising the internet this afternoon I was reminded by the fine folks over at Comics Alliance that a new program called King Of The Nerds will be debuting next week. Other than giving Booger continued employment opportunities, the premise appears to be sticking a handful of self proclaimed nerds in a house together and then force them various nerd themed challenges for the pleasure of reality TV viewers. Contestants seem to run the gamut of nerd types, from the bookish accountant type to the full on elf ear wearing, orc-ish speaking sorts.

I’m not sure there’s enough whiskey in the world to get me to watch this program, but check out the trailer for yourself after the jump.