Super: EGOs #1 Review

I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to start a review of EGOs, the new creator-owned comic by Stuart Moore and Gus Storms, because it’s hard to figure out how to even describe the thing.

It has a lot of science fiction elements, with the intimation that a lot of world building of a galaxy with years of history, including wars, colonization, disasters and technology all considered… but that’s not quite it. It also has superheroes, including an old superhero team, a new one, and a few fringe players who might wind up being heroes, villains, spoilers, or even disinterested observers… but it isn’t really a superhero story. There are signs of a future dystopian kinda tale, with intimations of friction between different parts of the galaxy, spoiled worlds and a main government that might just not give a damn about any of its subjects… but that doesn’t really make the nut, either.

So clearly there’s a hell of a lot going on in EGOs #1, and it might sound like a book that’s trying hard to figure out an identity in a short 24 pages, running the risk of being a mish-mash. Like when Grant Morrison gets some of the good mescaline, or when Alan Moore tries to carry on a conversation longer than three minutes that doesn’t reference his own genius. But that’s really not the case. Instead, it’s a story about a few deeply flawed characters with questionable motivations and backstories in a universe that is filled in enough to give the whole thing a feeling of being a part of a long-running epic sci-fi space opera.

This isn’t the simplest, most forgiving read of the week, but it’s pretty damn intriguing.

Brain Bleach: Twerking Stormtroopers

There’s not much to say here other than for your viewing pleasure…twerking Stormtroopers.

Horrifying. Mesmerizing. Twerking. Stormtroopers.

Via Geeks Are Sexy.

New Teasers And Clips From Upcoming DC Justice League And Batman Projects

For those of you bummed about the decision to delay the upcoming Superman/Batman sequel until 2016, Warner Brothers has released a new clip today from the upcoming Justice League: War animated film. Bonus – this film has a fully fleshed out Wonder Woman with no weird, forced Kryptonian origins, so that’s nice. Take a moment a be grateful that Zach Snyder and company may be taking this opportunity to actually get their shit together, and enjoy this animated clip.

Via io9.

Faster Than A Speeding Coma: Batman Vs. Superman Delayed Until 2016

Warner Bros. has been pinning a lot of hopes on the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie (which won’t be it’s real name. They’re still working on the actual title. If I had to guess? Given how director Zack Snyder used a Frank Miller quote to announce the movie at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I’m putting my money on: “Man of Steel: The Dark Knight Returns.” Jesus, I’ve already lost the plot here) being a big enough event movie to take a dent of of Marvel Studios and its billion or so dollar stranglehold on superhero movies. And with the announcement that not only has Snyder cast Batman, but a Wonder Woman (with maybe another one or two heroes to be thrown in for good measure), people were getting pretty excited for the movie’s July 17, 2015 release date.

Yeah, except it’s not coming out on that day. It’s been mildly delayed.

For about a year.

Kimota! – With A Word, The Value Of Your Back Issues Tumble: Review Of Miracleman #1

This week, Marvel comics began selling reprints of Miracleman. Miracleman #1 includes the eleven page prologue story “The Invaders From The Future”, originally published in 1985, along with “A Dream Of Flying”, parts 1 and 2, which were originally published in 1982 by Warrior magazine. Miracleman creator, Mick Anglo, wrote the prologue. Alan Moore, who chose to have his name stripped from this reprint, wrote “A Dream Of Flying”. Indeed, if you look at the inside cover where the author typically is listed, it instead says “The Original Writer”. It’s like Moore has never heard of Alan Smithee.

I’ve never read any of the Miracleman books before. My only exposure to them was watching Rob one night in a drunken Ebay war to track down the fabled 15th issue, where I gather one of the good guys goes bad and does something truly heinous to the city of London and it’s received more poorly than when Superman and Zod do the same thing in Man Of Steel. However, having read much of Moore’s other work, I can see the appeal the Miracleman story must have had for him: Golden Age hero whose story he re imagines in the early 80s, when the apple cheeked Boy Scout heroes of the 50s could be more thoroughly examined for their dark undersides. It is a theme Moore has visited often since, in Watchmen and as recently as the Image Comics, originally as Awesome Comics, reboot of Supreme.

The Beginning Of The End: The Superior Spider-Man #25 Review

Editor’s Note: Ah, but my dear Spider-Woman… I so want to spoil you. And I can no longer think of a reason not to.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’ve been pretty vocal recently that, while I’m generally enjoying Dan Slott’s tale of Doc Ock as Spider-Man in The Superior Spider-Man, it’s felt like it’s been dragging along for a while to me. With the foregone conclusion that Peter Parker would eventually be returning as Spider-Man – a foregone conclusion that has been bourne out by recent news (spoilers at that link, by the way) – I had passed the point where I was fully engaged in seeing how Doc Ock would operate as Spider-Man and had reached the point where I wanted to see how things turned out to put Peter back into the suit. Picture it like sex: foreplay is fun and all, but as a wise man once said, eventually you gotta go into the trenches and bump uglies. So to speak.

Well, we are now on the 25th issue of The Superior Spider-Man – an impressive feat, considering the first issue was only a year ago – and now we’ve got some solid rising action moving toward a denouement of this whole Otto situation. Writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage take a solid step in this issue toward yanking the rug out from under Otto, showing cracks in his public image, suspicion from Spider-Man’s allies, and some real opposition from someone who can actually get to the bottom of this whole Ock / Spider-Man situation.

After months of foreplay, characters are finally starting to bump Editor’s Note: Rob, this metaphor is a dicey pile of shit. Move along. -Amanda

Ahem. Anyway.

“All Hail The King” – Watch One Minute Of This Marvel One Shot

Who is Trevor Slattery? If you saw Iron Man 3, you will recognize that name as the supposed real identity of The Mandarin, at least, in the movie. This clip from “All Hail The King”, a one-shot Marvel short that will be included in the Blu-ray/DVD release of Thor: the Dark Work, sets itself up as a documentary that purports to answer the question. My guess? He’s actually The Mandarin. This whole befuddled actor thing is a ruse, a long game. He intended to get caught but, for what purpose? I suppose it will all bear itself out over the course of Marvel’s Phase 2 and 3 movies.

Or maybe he’s a starving actor who just figured this was the easiest way to score three square meals and a roof over his head. Beats the bus stop men’s room, I guess.

The Blu-ray/DVD of Thor: The Dark World hits stores February 25, 2014.

Via The mary Sue.

A Dream Of Snow And Fireballs And Bourbon

Once upon a time, early in the Year of Our Lord 2001, back when a man could get on an airplane with a Zippo lighter, Marvel Comics was just coming off of bankruptcy, and the only geek and comic subculture crossover into the mainstream happened in niche rooms of progressive Reno brothels, this particular longtime comics stalwart decided it was time to catch up on Alan Moore’s Miracleman.

At that time, it was easier said than done. To accomplish it, I had to visit five different new comic stores – including the store that would eventually become my local comic store, where they now know me by name, but at the time asked me if I understood that licking the back issues would make the Overstreet guide price look like a wino’s desperate compromise – and participate in a drunken Friday night eBay auction (“Click to overbid best current bid by $.01 dollars to a maximum bid of $43,000,000 dollars“) to make it happen.

The process took months, but eventually I wound up with every issue of Eclipse Comics’ Miracleman,, plus all three issues of Miracleman: Apocrypha, and Miracleman 3D, along with the second trade paperback: The Red King Syndrome. That idle decision to real all of Miracleman took about a year and cost me hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

But that was a decision made in 2001. It is now 2014. And if you want to catch up with Miracleman? You just go to my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that I’m a sucker.

Which is to say that Alan Moore’s Miracleman is back in print for the first time in about 20 years, and that this…

…means the end of out broadcast day.

And yes, Miracleman #1 is the big take of the week. But there’s also a new issue of Gravel by Mike Wolper, a new Ed Brubaker / Steve Epting Velvet, the latest Dan Slott The Superior Spider-Man, and a bunch of other cool stuff!

But before we can even consider talking about any of them, we need time to read them. So while I go through the restored Miracleman #1 to see if someone has made it less obvious that some other person whited-out “Marvelman” and hand-wrote “Miracleman” in all the word balloons…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Where’s Waldo: Wally West Returns In Flash Annual #3

I have been to two San Diego Comic-Cons and one Boston Comic Con since DC kicked off their New 52 reboot (and one just before, when most of DC’s plans for the characters after the reboot had become public), and there has been one question asked almost more than any other: “Excuse me, sir? You, the middle aged guy with the ponytail? Where the hell are your pants?”

But that is not the most asked question. It is vastly surpassed by, “If you see a woman in a Batgirl costume, can you give me a quick heads-up? And also pretend to be me, Dan DiDio?”

But even more asked than those everyday questions is: “What happened to Wally West, and are when we going to see him again?” It seems like you can’t swing a dead cat at SDCC without hitting a pissed-off Wally West fan, or being screamed at by outraged furries.

And the answer has always been something along the lines of, “Barry Allen is The Flash now, and that’s that.”  Despite the fact that Wally West was The Flash for just about as long as Barry Allen ever was, and that there were two generations of comic book fans who only knew Barry as Flash if they’d read Crisis On Infinite Earths, it has seemed for about two and a half years that Wally West had been consigned to the quarter bin of history.

Except, yeah: apparently he’s coming back in The Flash Annual #3.

Double Booked: Michael Douglas Cast As Hank Pym In Ant-Man

Okay, so we’ve known for a few weeks that Edgar Wright, who is directing the upcoming Marvel Studios version of Ant-Man, had cast Paul Rudd as, well, Ant-Man. But what we didn’t know what exactly which Ant-Man Rudd would be playing. After all, we’ve got the original Hank Pym (wife-beater with an inferiority and occasional persecution complex), we’ve got Scott Lang (sneak-thief with a daughter complex who died as a C-Lister so that Brian Michael Bendis could put Spider-Man on The Avengers), and Eric O’Grady (goofy, weaselly thief who uses the Ant-Man suit to get himself laid and eventually dies a self-sacrificing hero)… and given that Wright is a comedy director, O’Grady seemed like the most likely choice to me.

So yeah: turns out that years of reading and writing about comics doesn’t mean that I know a Goddamned thing. Because Marvel Studios has announced that Rudd will be playing Scott Lang.

And that Michael Douglas will be playing Hank Pym.

Wait, what?