All About The Pussy: Catwoman #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers… although it would be hard to ruin it any worse than it already is.

When I was in high school, in those dark days before even the first Tim Burton Batman movie was released, it was hard to be a Batman fan. Based upon the fact that Batman lived with a prepubescent boy, I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time, time that I could have spent attempting to convince girls that reading Batman didn’t make me unfuckable,  instead defending the character as a heterosexual gynephile, based purely on implied attraction between Batman and Catwoman, including sidelong glances, near kisses, and vague double entendre.

You damn spoiled rotten kids today, what with your Anne Hathaway, and your slashfic, and your Catwoman #1.

Seriously: check this shit out:

Blind Ambition: Daredevil #4 Review

I like to make the occasional joke about Frank Miller, as I am known to do about anyone who seems to be taking seriously their own bullshit, but the fact of the matter is that the man is one the most lauded comic creators of the 1980s for a reason. Just look at the resume: The Dark Knight Returns. Batman: Year One. Ronin. the Wolverine miniseries with Chris Claremont.

And then there’s Daredevil. Say what you want about Miller’s 21st century penchant for drawing two detailed red dirigibles crashing into each other and then sketching a woman’s nose and eyes above them, but Frank Miller changed the face of Daredevil from a second-tier Spider-Man knockoff into a classic of noir storytelling, which cast a long shadow over the way the character was written and drawn for 25 years.

So when I heard that Mark Waid was going to take over the character with a renumbered #1 issue (But Marvel doesn’t do reboots! Also, their poop smells like ROSES!) and make the character lighter and less tortured, I considered dropping my subscription… but considering I was already considering dropping the book thanks to the disappointing Shadowland event (Daredevil’s a ninja! A possessed ninja! Who raises the dead! Hey, where you going?), I decided to give it a day in court (Lawyer pun not intended).

And I’m glad I did, because it turns out that Waid’s Daredevil is one hell of a book. And issue #4 is the best one yet.

Steve Niles Wants To Show You His Thing. For Free!

You might have heard that there’s a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing, coming out in theaters next month, that takes place in Norway about three days before the events of the classic original flick. But you might not know that Steve Niles has written a comic book that’s a prequel to the prequel that takes place about 1,000 years before the events of the prequel.

Sound interesting to you? Well, you can check out the first issue here with pencils by Patric Reynolds (Who did the art on the Serenity one-shot by Patton Oswalt), for free, in its entirety, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.

We’ve given it a quick skim (And might review it later this week), and it looks like it’s basically The Thing Vs. Vikings. And if the comic and the movie are hits, I’m guessing we can look forward to all kinds of battles, like The Thing Vs. Pirates! Or The Thing Vs. Ninjas! Or if they can get Greg Horn on art, they can do the groundbreaking The Thing Vs. Porn Stars!

Actually, The Thing Vs. Porn Stars isn’t all that groundbreaking… it’s basically the plot to every porn movie ever made.

The Thing movie comes out October 14th.

No “Holy Sh*t” Jokes Until The Book Drops, Please

Newsarama has an exclusive, three-page preview of Frank Miller’s upcoming Legendary Comics graphic novel Holy Terror, where an “original” superhero named The Fixer hunts and kills Al Qaeda terrorists. Check it out here and come on back.

I put the word “original” in quotes because the book was originally announced as Holy Terror, Batman! at WonderCon more than five years ago. Apparently somewhere between then and now either Miller or DC Comics decided that they didn’t like the idea of a story where Batman might stomp the testicles off of gentlemen of Middle Eastern descent before showing them to him. Or maybe people just started questioning where the phrase “Don’t forget to dip the batarangs in pig’s blood, Robin,” might fit into continuity even after the New 52 reboot.

Either way, somewhere along the line Miller took the white-out to Batman’s ears and finally put the finishing touches on the book. And checking out the preview, all I can say is, MAN… I am REALLY looking forward to Sin City 2.

Holy Terror comes out next Wednesday, September 28th.

Fairness Doctrine

And as always, it is Wednesday, and this…

…signals the conclusion of our broadcast day. For the past couple weeks we’ve featured the week’s New 52 releases – and yes, all 13 of this week’s are in that pile – but it seemed like a good time to take a step back and prove that those aren’t all that we read (I also read hardcore pornography! For the articles! Like when she screams “Aa!”).

Tune in throughout the week as we review the best and worst of this week’s new comics… And yes – at the top left you’re seeing the new Marv Wolfman and George Perez retro Teen Titans graphic novel Games. Is the hardcover-only release worth the 25 clams? Shit, we don’t know! Let us sober up, read it and get back to you!

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Just Punching The Clock: Green Lantern #1 Review

And now for one last pre-comic store opening review of last Wednesday’s books…

For most of Green Lantern’s history, the character had a weakness against the color yellow. That, however, was before the DC New 52 reboot. Now it is a whole new world, and Green Lantern apparently has only one weakness: the fucking inker.

Doug Mahnke has been drawing Green Lantern in the main book since 2009; his art is proven on Green Lantern, and was a welcome point of continuity between the pre and post New 52 universes. But then they hired inker Christian Alamy, who is a perfectly competent inker provided you want each panel of the book to look like Steve Dillon was given a case of Jameson to draw green rings on the hands of every character in an old issue of Preacher.

I’m serious – just take a look at this:

Don’t You Forget About Me: New Avengers #16 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. How many spoilers? Well, I’m going to include a scan of 9/10th of the last page of the fucking story. The only way to more effectively ruin a climax involves a Donkey Punch. You are warned.

I would like to start by saying, clearly and unambiguously, that I liked New Avengers #16. The story is excellent, the art is spectacular, and the action is almost unrelenting. This is a good comic book. Are we clear?

Good.

Because now I am going to rank it out for a little while.

The Walking Dead (Not That One)

When it comes to creative teams, DC’s New 52 is turning into Thunderdome: 52 teams enter… one team leaves… and if recent DC history’s any guide, that team will be Grant Morrison, an A-list artist to be named later, and a terrifyingly large pile of mescaline.

Last week it was John Rozum walking away from Static Shock, which was a shame because I had some hope for it; sure, the first issue didn’t grab either Amanda or I enough to review it, but Rozum’s responsible for writing 2002’s terrific and woefully underrated Midnight, Mass. from Vertigo, so I was hoping things would improve.

Instead, he chose to leave the title, absolving pretty much all parties involved of any blame by name, then saying with one breath that he was looking forward to doing more books with DC Comics and with the NEXT saying, “…if you are in the position to give me work, please let me know.” Which only tells me that if you want to know what REALLY happened there, you should attend next month’s New York ComicCon and fill that man with bourbon. And then send us an email. And then fill US with bourbon. But I digress.

Yesterday afternoon brought us another man down: Green Arrow writer J. T. Krul announced that he was leaving the book after the third issue:

Bunker: The Fist of Justice

Over the weekend, the artist on the upcoming DC New 52-renumbered Teen Titans announced that the team will be introducing its first openly gay member in the third issue.

Penciller Brett Booth let the news about new character Bunker, a new character with the power to create brick-shaped force fields that he can form into apparently any shape, slip via the following Twitter exchange with Batgirl writer Gail Simone:

Gail Simone: Tomorrow I am on a panel not listed on the schedule, WHERE ARE THE GAY SUPERHEROES, at 11:00 am, in Mezzanine 1. It’ll be great!

Brett Booth: We got at least one in Teen Titans:)

Gail Simone: Really? Who is the gay superhero in TT? Can you say?

Brett Booth: Bunker is gay (the purple guy, I know, not my first color choice!)

Booth followed up with some more information on his blog, including a character description by Titans writer Scott Lobdell:

His real name is Miguel Jose Barragan.   He was raised in a very small Mexican village called El Chilar.  He was very loved by his family and the village as well — and they were as accepting of his homosexuality as they were to his super powers when they first manifested.   To that end he grew up in an angst-free environment.   He was born out of the closet and so he has a very refreshing outlook on life.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 1: The Sack Of Justice

You didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want to do it. And yet we own microphones and whiskey, so Crisis On Infinite Midlives is proud to present our the first episode of our podcast: The Sack Of Justice!

EDITOR’S NOTE: You might ask what the title means. It means we had whiskey, and sack is a funny word. Don’t overthink this. God knows we didn’t.

This weeks topics include: the first two weeks of DC’s New 52 (Including Batgirl, Deathstroke, Detective Comics, Red Lanterns, Men At War, and Hipster Douchebag Superman – I mean Action Comics), Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales, Williams’ Batwoman and associated Bat Nipples, and Atomic Robo vs. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. vs Hellboy!

Let’s make this a drinking game: every time you hear us slur or misname a creator, drink! Then by the time this is done, you’ll be as drunk as we were when we recorded this!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:52 — 33.8MB)

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