Recommended Daily Allowance of Carnage

Man, what a busy week. It’s the end of the busiest season for Amanda and me at our respective day jobs, which sadly are not in the comics industry… but then again, that should be obvious considering that we still have jobs.

But as kicked as our respective asses are, we can finally relax for a single evening, because it is Wednesday, which means that this…

…is the end of our (admittedly meager) broadcast day.

But it’s only an evening of rest, because there’s just too much good shit in there to try to review this week: check out that new story about the unkillable, walking dead: Carnage USA! We also have a zombie story to read!

There’s also a new Battle Scars, a J. H. Williams’ Batwoman, the latest New Avengers, and Palmiotti’s and Gray’s The Ray #1!

All of which means that this is gonna be a busy week trying to review it all… but first we need to read some of it. So see you tomorrow, suckers!

Shaolin Ninja: Geof Darrow’s Wolverine #300 Cover

If you’re not an old school comics fan going back to the 80’s or into more indie stuff, you might not know who Geof Darrow is, since he’s done most of his work for the movies and TV. He started out in animation doing character designs for the Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon, so you know he must smoke pot. Then he did the concept art for Neo’s biopod in The Matrix, so you know he must smoke laced pot.

Comics-wise, he wrote and drew Shaolin Cowboy, which has been out of print for years.  He drew The Big Guy and Rusty The Robot and Hard Boiled, both written by Frank Miller. And at the 2009 Boston ComicCon, he grabbed my 1990 first print copy of Hard Boiled #2 and used it to give some kid who he was talking to when I shuffled up an impromptu art lesson without my having to ask or buy something or shoot his loved ones in the face.

Jiu-Jitsu Hot Dogs: TMNT: Raphael #1 Review

When I was five years old, I ate a bad hot dog on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day hurling like an inveterate alcoholic on an Antabuse drip instead of playing with my shiny new Maskatron. The experience was so bad that I literally couldn’t even look at a hot dog for about ten years afterwards; the thought of them made me sick, even though I knew that I might like them if I could put the bad memories behind me and try them again.

It was in this spirit that I bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Raphael #1.

Intellectually, I know that TMNT started as a pretty hard-edged satire of Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Ronin, and that any humor in the book came from the inherent absurdity of turtles being involved in a ninja story played completely straight. And that I actually liked those early stories. And that there was a reason that those books were so sought-after in the middle, late 80s. I know this.

But then there was that fucking cartoon.

Same Symbiote, Different Day: Venom #10 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers, such as the fact that Venom rides Captain America’s motorcycle. Which you learned from the cover to your left. Damn covers have no regard for spoiler alerts. However, consider yourself warned. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a guy walks into a Marvel comic, and he gets confronted by Captain America. Cap tells the guy that he’s out of control and he needs to be brought in, so the guy tells Cap that he’s always respected him and that Cap’s been a big influence on him, and then he punches Cap in the temple, steals some of his shit and gets away clean! Ha! Get it?

Oh, you’ve heard that one? Of course you have. It’s been a staple of Marvel Comics at least since Daredevil: Born Again. So much so that Mark Millar and Matt Fraction hooked it for The Punisher during and just after Civil War. And then Mark Waid took it for Daredevil #2 just three or four months ago. Hell, Daniel Way used it in Deadpool this fucking week. And now Rick Remender’s dusted it off for Venom #10. And considering all these characters wind up kicking Captain America’s ass when he shows up, it’s reaching the point where I’m beginning to think that Captain America’s Kryptonite is simple respect; if Baron Zemo had offered to shake Cap’s hand before shooting off that rocket, this book would take place in the Wunder Universum and everyone would be eating schnitzel right now.

This time around, Cap shows up to shut down the government program that hooked Flash Thompson up with the Venom symbiote. Unfortunately, Cap’s timing leaves a little to be desired, since Thompson is being blackmailed to do crimes as Venom by Jack O’Lantern and Crime-Master – because nothing proves you’re a master criminal like telling everyone you’re a master criminal. Ask Keyser Soze. But I digress.

Bitter Old Bastard: Amazing Spider-Man #675 Review

Okay, nobody panic, but recently someone was wrong on the Internet!

A couple days ago, J. Michael Straczynski posted a chart with a horrifying, Killington black diamond descent slope that he found at some undisclosed location on a Facebook page with the comment: “Sales on The Amazing Spider-Man since my departure. Just sayin’. ”

Now, here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, we love us some JMS. We make it a point to hit the Spotlight on JMS panel at SDCC every year, and we’ve even watched Jeremiah because of his involvement, and not to watch the final career destruction and public humiliation of Luke Perry. Well, at least mostly because of JMS.

And there was a time when I would have cheered a post like Joe’s, because there is, in fact, a bright and shimmering line between JMS’s run on The Amazing Spider-Man and what came after. I call it a bright, shimmering line because to me, it resembles a steaming, stinking arc of urine: One More Day.

One More Day was abominable. It was a wretched and cynical move to eliminate Peter Parker’s marriage from continuity without rebooting the whole character… because Marvel doesn’t reboot! Making a deal with the devil to eliminate your past is just a minor course correction! And exposing your genitals to school children is just a form of enthusiastic mime!

And frankly, the early issues of Amazing Spider-Man after One More Enthusiastic Mime were almost as bad. A rotating writing and art staff, with some kind of apparent editorial mandate to chuck a bunch of villains for Spider-Man to fight and a pile of new tail for Peter to chase felt forced. Sometimes almost desperate. I mean seriously: Paper Doll? Who makes people thin and kills them? A little on the nose, dontcha think? What, did Dan DiDio throw a trademark on the name Teabag?

So yes, there was a time I would have been on JMS’s side with his post, despite it being so passive aggressive it makes a Jewish grandmother look like John Rambo. There were several months where I kept The Amazing Spider-Man on my pull list on a week-by-week basis. However, these days the book is exclusively written by Dan Slott. It’s gotten over it’s weird need to come up with new villains no one gives a shit about, and, recent only-okay Spider-Island event aside, it has been a source of damn fun comics stories. And Amazing Spider-Man #675 is no exception.

Getting Some Strange: The Defenders #1 Review

In a sentence, The Defenders is Matt Fraction trying to write Warren Ellis’s Nextwave.  Nextwave was some of the biggest, purest, dumbest comics fun I’ve see in years before or since, so there are worse things to aspire to.

Does Fraction succeed? Kinda. And for now, “kinda” is good enough.

For those not familiar, The Defenders was born as a team book back in the 70s, and they were the very definition of Nobody’s Favorite – a bunch of second-stringers, to the point they were led for a while by Marvel’s knockoff pastiche of Batman (Yes, there is another one besides Moon Knight). The book consistently came in behind Marvel’s big hitter team books, Avengers and X-Men, and died mostly unmourned in the early 80s. To give you an idea how a lot of people felt about it, one of the most recent revivals was helmed by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire – the guys behind Justice League in the 80s, which was another team of inveterate second stringers – and, as they eventually did with Justice League, they played the Defenders mostly for laughs.

The original Defenders series was only notable for being a place where more experimental writers like Steve Gerber could run wild – they teamed up with Howard The Duck once, for Christ’s sake. And it seems to be in this spirit that Fraction is trying to ground his new Defenders.

The lineup is just about the same as it ever was – Dr. Strange, The Silver Surfer, and Namor, with Red She-Hulk thrown in instead of The Hulk, probably because Ike Perlmutter will be damned if he pays four people to draw The Hulk on a monthly basis. Fraction also throws Iron Fist into the mix; an optimist might say it’s because Fraction made his Marvel bones writing Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker… a pessimist might say it’s because he’s developed a taste for giving comics fans the fist. But I digress.

Five Guys On One: Marvel Announces Avengers Vs. X-Men

Yesterday Marvel announced that their big crossover event for 2012 will be: Civil War! Wait – I mean: Avengers Vs. X-Men!

In a streaming press conference with Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso, SVP of Publishing Tom Brevoort, Senior Editor Nick Lowe, and Marvel’s Architect writers Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Jason Aaron, Ed Brubaker and Jonathan Hickman, they gave the gist of what we’re in store for: about 300 clams to read the whole story! Wait, that’s not right…

…the seeds for this story have been growing for a while. When [the 2007 X-Men event] “Messiah CompleX” introduced the so-called “Mutant Messiah,” a little girl with green eyes and red hair named Hope, it raised the obvious question, “Who is she?” and, of course, the specter of the Phoenix.

So if I had to hazard a guess, the Phoenix Force is returning to Earth, probably to infect the little girl who looks just like Jean Grey, if Jean Grey were redrawn by commission for loathsome perverts. The X-Men will want to protect their messiah, The Avengers will want to stop a potential extinction-level threat to Earth, stuff will explode, and dudes will get kicked.

Heroes In A Half-Pint (Bourbon Power!)

It is Wednesday, and after a week of day job crises, enforced workplace holiday jocularity (A fucking cash bar, Goddammit? Thanks for the drink tickets, but as far as I’m concerned, those are what should be given to me after being pulled over driving home drunk from the open bar company party! Cheap pricks…), and a death in the extended Crisis On Infinite Midlives family (Not me, despite all wagers to the contrary, which means I win the over!), it means that we’re psyched to finally get to New Comics Day! So yes: we did blow another podcast deadline, but we’re going for a fresh start, because this…

…means not only that we survived the week, but that it’s the end of our broadcast day.

But a new week means a new start, which includes (unlike last week) a bunch of DC New 52 books, a new The Boys, David Lapham Crossed, and a Crisis On Infinite Midlives favorite: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode! And given the week we’ve had, there’s even a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles buried in there for some much-needed nostalgia and whimsy.

So hopefully this week will be a little less… eventful… than the last so we can review them, but even if it is, first we gotta read them.

So… see you tomorrow, suckers!

Stalking Horse: Dark Horse’s Digital Pricing Controversy

It is the twenty-first century, and it has been a week, so that must mean that someone tried to do something tricky about digital comics that pissed almost everybody off.

Earlier this week, Dark Horse Comics announced that, like DC and Marvel’s Ultimate line, they were going to make their books available digitally on the same day as the print copies. The problem is that they didn’t specify any details about their pricing model, which, for older books that they’ve made available digitally to date, is generally a buck ninety-nine, compared to the normally $2.99 print editions.

And then the comics Internet shit its tubes.

Metropolis 90210

Smallville ended it’s eleven-year run earlier this year, although if you’re anything like we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are, it ended for you a couple or three years earlier when you realized that you could no longer watch any of the episodes that weren’t the one a year written by Geoff Johns if you were even remotely sober. I mean seriously: Doomsday is a paramedic who makes a pass at Chloe Sullivan, who was originally supposed to be Lois Lane before Lois Lane showed up and who became super-intelligent after being kidnapped by Brainiac who looked like Spike from Buffy, and just typing that made me want a double Jack Daniels.

The point is: Smallville is over. I tuned in to watch it finally roll over and die. So I win, right?

Right?