A Drop Of The Creature: Venom #7 Review

Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers about Spider-Island. It has spiders. Also, some other stuff. You have been warned.

Now if you insist upon using a comic story as a parable about a serious issue, Venom #7 is a much better way of doing it. But we’ll get to that.

This issue is a crossover issue to Marvel’s Spider-Island event that I initially picked up for only one reason: issue 7 of any book Rick Remender writes is the point where it stands a solid chance of going gloriously and disastrously off the rails.

Think about his 2008 run on Punisher, which he started in the middle of the Dark Reign event when Norman Osborne had managed to use public opinion and political intrigue to wrest control of SHIELD from Tony Stark even though he was woefully unqualified and The Green Fucking Goblin. While the X-Men remained neutral and the Avengers wrestled with ways to turn the tide of public sentiment away from Osborne even while it turned against themselves, Remender had The Punisher come up with an ingenious and crafty plan to turn Osborne’s fortunes by shooting him in the face.

That was issue 1. By issue 7, Remender had the straight-ahead, no-nonsense Punisher fighting zombies. And thus began a long, slow train wreck that culminated in the Punisher being killed and resurrected as Frankenstein. Reading Remender’s Punisher was like watching a Kardashian try to redefine pi in a room full of cocaine and NBA players: a hot mess I couldn’t take my eyes off of.

So when I saw Venom had reached the critical seventh issue, I wanted in on the ground floor of the implosion… so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a damn good book, and arguably the best part of the Spider-Island event so far.

We Were Geeks Once, and Young

You know, I reread some of my reviews on this site where I complain that the writing on some comic book sucks, or that the plotting is hamfisted, or that the writer’s betrayed the characters and sometimes I forget that there was a time in my life when, if you’d told me that someday I’d be able to get thirty comic books a week, or that I’d be able to have a place where I could spend all my time just talking about comics, well… I’d have shrieked “Stranger danger!” and run like hell. Seriously: have you looked at yourself? You must have a van.

But seriously: it’s easy to forget how much this stuff has meant to me over the years, or how seriously some of it has affected me. Partially because I’ve simply gotten older, partially because I’ve reached legal drinking age, and partially because I’ve decided that if they diagnose me with cirrhosis while I’m in a blackout, it doesn’t count.

But sometimes I see something that reminds me why I love this shit so much, and why it hooked me from when I was a kid. Something like this video of a four-year-old boy discovering the horrible truth behind the parentage of Luke Skywalker for the first time:

Maintain Radio Silence

Due to continuing illness and other circumstances beyond our control, we are still working on this week’s podcast. We’re hoping to have it ready for later this evening or tomorrow.

If you normally spend your Monday lunch hour tuning in, we apologize for the inconvenience. If you absolutely can’t wait for the show, it is possible to simulate the experience of this week’s show by loudly snorting back snot and repeating “Scott Lobdell may be insane” in a nasal voice for 30 to 45 minutes.

Sorry for the delay.

Paradox On Infinite Crises

So as of last Wednesday, DC had finally released all of their New 52 books. The release had gone generally smoothly, and while there had been some admittedly bad books and a little bit of controversy here and there, the deed was done, and now fans of the DC Universe could relax in the knowledge that the biggest and most disturbing changes were over.

Sorry – what’s that, Dan?

Okay… um… QUIET INTERNET LET ME THINK!

No Nukes: The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1 Review

The one thing I’ll give the first issue of Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver’s first issue of The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men is that it compelled me to go on an all-day hunt for the 1978 first issue of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man.

I called my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me not to come in to the store until my sinus infection passes and I stop dribbling green snot on the copies of Obama The Barbarian (or at least until I start pretending that I’m not doing it on purpose), but as good as he and his store is, he didn’t have what amounts to an obscure back issue just lying around. Or maybe he had ten of them, but allow me to refer you back to the whole snot-dribbling thing.

I had reached the point where I was willing to purchase it as my first digital comic from Comixology, who has the issue available for less than a buck… right up until I reached the point in my registration process when I discovered that they don’t take my credit card and worse: that I don’t own an iPad, so I couldn’t read their comics even if I wanted to. Sure, they have a Web reader, but if I’m going to blind myself I’m going to do it the old fashioned way: frantic masturbating. But I digress.

The new Firestorm made me want to find the old 1978 origin issue, which I haven’t read since I was seven or eight years old, because I have vague memories that Gerry Conway wrote the relationship between Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein as an examination of the generation gap. And why is that something so important that it made me spend a drinking day hunting for a 33-year-old comic that’s nobody’s idea of a classic and when at the time I liked Nova better anyway?

Because if that element to the characters were, in fact, there, then I can extrapolate that Simone and Van Sciver made high school race relations a cornerstone of Firestorm in an attempt to modernize Conway’s original character intentions. If it isn’t, then this book just is a ham-fisted racial parable that’s a sparkly vampire away from being Twilight with nukes. Which is, actually, a book I would line up to buy. The new Firestorm? Not so much.

Neither, Nor: All-Star Western #1 Review

I really wanted to like All-Star Western #1 because I was a big fan of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex, and if you were too, great to meet you! I was wondering who the other one was!

If you were a western fan the way I am – by which I mean you think “western” means “starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone” – then Jonah Hex was about the perfect comic. The stories were solid shoot-’em-ups, set in the wilderness and the boomtowns of the still-unsettled west, filled with saloons, crooked lawmen, morally-questionable entrepreneurs, and filthy, gunslinging outlaws. They were stories where then Men were Men and the Women were Whores with Hearts of Gold and Groins of Chlamydia.

And at the center of it all was Jonah Hex: a bounty hunter with a face like Clint if Clint never bothered to get that thing on his lip looked at. Fast with a gun, implacable, unstoppable. A man of few words and fewer baths.

You know: a fucking western.

Alas, to my disappointment, Jonah Hex was canceled last month to make way for DC’s New 52 and replaced with All-Star Western. All-Star Western stars Jonah Hex. However, All-Star Western is no Jonah Hex.

I’m Batman: Frank Miller’s Holy Terror Review

Wow. My two-day hangover tells me that Red Sox season finish was certainly worth staying up for. Let’s pretend that atrocity didn’t happen, and that even if it did that there was something we could do about it, and move back to comics, where the good guys always win, shall we? After all, if that kind of fantasy’s good enough for Frank Miller, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I’m gonna withhold judgment for just this second as to whether Holy Terror is a good book or not and start with what will be obvious for anyone who reads it: this is a Batman story. It started it’s life as Holy Terror, Batman! when Miller announced it in 2006, and he maintained that it was Batman story until 2008, when he started telling people that it was about a “new hero [he] made up that fights Al Qaeda.”

Sure, Frank. A new hero. You made up. In a cape and a cowl. With a utility belt. And gadgets. And an archenemy who’s a cat burgler. With claws. Who has “nine lives.” And I’m sure it’s purely by coincidence that you technically pulled Batman out of your story about a vigilante who tortures and kills terrorists in 2008, when Warner Brothers was releasing The Dark Knight and making about a bajillion dollars. Sure you made it up, Frank… if by “you” you mean “Legendary Comics’ team of entertainment lawyers.”

So yeah, this is a Batman story. It started its life that way, and Miller clearly left the obvious parallels in there so we’d KNOW it was a Batman story. So let’s just treat it that way – none of the “The Fixer” or “Natalie Stack” or “Detective Dan Donegal” crap Frank ginned up to duck the lawsuit. It’ll just be Batman and Catwoman and Commissioner Gordon for the purposes of this review, partially because I think Miller wants it that way, and partially because I’m too damn lazy to keep flipping back through the book to remember pastiche names.

So anyway – here be spoilery chunks:

I’m Assuming There’s A Point

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated 10/1/2011 with details about the fifth teaser. You can read more after the jump.

Earlier this year, Marvel rolled out the concept of a “Point One” issue of their books – an issue outside a book’s normal 12-issue run that would be written as a one-and-done book that wasn’t heavily tied into ongoing continuity to act as a jumping on point for new readers. Meaning that they’re old-school annuals, for all intents and purposes, but I’m guessing somewhere along the line Marvel realized “.1” is more attractive than “Annual”… or at least it is when you’re paying the printer by the letter.

Apparently the Point One initiative’s been pretty successful, and I tend to agree – we’ll probably be reviewing Black Panther 523.1 later week, and while we didn’t get a chance to review X-Factor #224.1, it was a tight story that was one hell of a way to get into the best X-Book you’re not reading. And it seems it’s been successful enough that earlier this week, Marvel announced a 64-page Point One issue for the entire Marvel Universe, where they’ll be teasing their events for 2012 and “the return of fan-demanded characters.” (But Marvel doesn’t reboot! Because Marvel makes no mistakes! And pay no attention to the fact that Bucky Barnes has been dead twice since 2005 while still co-headlining his own book!)

All week long, Marvel’s been rolling out teaser images for the one-shot, including stuff you’d expect for an event teaser, like Brian Michael Bendis’s and Bryan Hitch’s upcoming Ultron arc in Avengers and Matt Fraction’s already-announced Defenders book with penciller Terry Dodson… but they’ve also teased a return of Nova by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness… and yesterday they teased, well… THIS:

Holy Last Regular Season Game… What’s Your Name Again?

As with every other Wednesday since this site’s launch, we must now end our broadcast day. Not just because of the comics, of which we have plenty…

…but because the Boston Red Sox are battling for a berth in the post-season against the Orioles, who are battling for a berth for being the douchebags who kept the Sox out of the playoffs.

But look at those books: the last of the New 52 including Geoff Johns’ Aquaman, All-Star Western, Superman, and Justice League Dark, which Amanda is just ITCHING for.

Plus, Yep: That’s Frank Miller’s Holy Terror, which we paid 30 dollars American (or for our overseas readers: 927,539 Euros) for what appears to be a Dr. Seuss-length treatise on How To Kick Mohammed’s Chosen In The Taint. And we WILL be reviewing it. Once Ortiz’s at-bat is over.

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Water Sports

Today marks the last drop of DC’s New 52, which includes Aquaman #1, written by Geoff Johns with pencils by Ivan Reis (Who penciled Johns’ scripts on Green Lantern and the Blackest Night event). Which means yesterday Johns was making the rounds of the reputable comics sites (Hello? Is this thing on? It is? Fuck you, then!) trying to drum up hype for the book. Why? Because the book is fucking AQUAMAN. Without Johns’ hype? There would BE NO HYPE. None more hype. Hypeless.

So lay it on us, Geoff: why should we give Aquaman a shot?

…we just talked about [Aquaman] himself and why he does everything, how he feels about it, what he thinks when people crack the Aquaman jokes that are extremely easy to make. It’s all about responsibility and standing tall for what you believe in and not worrying about what other people think. It’s all about being an underdog. I think it’s much more based on stuff we deal with than any old comics.

Ah, yes. Because if I had a nickel for every time I was mocked for my green spandex pants, orange shirt and public affinity for “Sending a telepathic summons to the sperm whale,” well… I would have a nickel, because once would be enough to convince me that suicide was the only viable option.

Okay, all kidding aside, Geoff: what do you have in mind for Aquaman?