EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. But if you were alive on September 11, 2001 and / or you know what the Truther Movement is, you already know how the fucking thing ends.

I’ve started this review about seven times with a variety of screeching hate frenzies about Rick Veitch, who is a creator I have always deeply respected. I have all his 1980’s Swamp Thing stuff. Brat Pack disturbed the hell out of me when I was 19 – in a good way. And Veitch’s live birth issue of Miracleman was one of two comics I went on eBay to get my hands on, after hunting fruitlessly through about a dozen comic stores, because I couldn’t wait any longer to read it.

And while, on the anniversary of September 11, it would be satisfying to blast The Big Lie – Veitch’s new book from Image Comics – for it’s weird politics and Truther point of view, this is a comics Web site – one of the only comics Web sites that is comfortable using the word “cumguzzler”, but a comics site nonetheless. Which means that I feel I need to review the book on its own merits.

Which is a dicey proposition; after all, this IS a comic that distinctly and pointedly implies that the Bush Administration ginned up the September 11th attacks in order to justify attacking Iraq. To review such a book ON September 11th merely on the merits of the story and the art could be uncomfortable on a good day and incendiary on a bad one… with September 11th itself most decidedly being a BAD ONE.

Thankfully, that won’t be an issue here, because this book sucks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: There might be spoilers here. I will try to keep them out, but I am writing this hung over, so I guarantee nothing.

Okay, I will never rule out the possibility that I am a complete moron, but I’ve read Action Comics #1 three times now, and to save my soul, I CANNOT figure out how Superman knew about the bomb on the platform. Oh wait… this book was written by Grant Morrison. That explains everything.

Morrison has a habit going back at least to his JLA run where he seems to like to jump right into a sequence without any explanation as to the events that let up to that sequence. Unlike any other writer I can think of, he seems willing to say, “Look: this is a comic book. Does it really matter how Superman found out about the bomb? Why spend time showing him investigating and wandering around asking questions or seeing clues or any other explanation? You just want to see him try to STOP the bomb, right? RIGHT… okay, maybe I just don’t feel like writing the explanation. Write it, don’t write it, the check cashes just as easy.”

Emo Angel is emo.

I’ve noticed, in the short history that this site has been live, that my posts have been DCnU centric. That’s a shame, because there’s certainly a wealth of other comic book business that is managing to make it out into the world, despite the sucking vacuum of the New 52. Did you know, for example, that a comic book store is launching in Toronto that is intended to be specifically for kids? This is exciting, because I often find myself standing in the middle of a comic store in downtown Toronto pissed that they won’t let me do keg stands because of all the teeming, unwashed masses of children that cling to my ankles like so many fleas. Now I can be surly in public in Toronto in peace.

What? Your comic store doesn’t let you do keg stands? You need a better comic store.

Did you know that Image Comics plans on releasing “Morning Glories” #12, “Screamland” #4 and “Spawn” #211 for sale September 7, 2011? Yes! New Spawn! The one thing in my life that is 1992, every day, all the time.

And, meanwhile, Dark Horse released Angel & Faith #1 last week. Part of the “Season 9” arc of the Buffyverse, “Angel & Faith”, written by Christos Gage with art from Rebekah Isaacs, finds Faith in possession of Rupert Giles’s mysterious journal of mystery. This is because Angel killed Giles at the end of Season 8. BUT! It’s not his fault, you see – he was under the influence of Twilight and, as we all know, Twilight ruins everything.

I was honestly kind of pissed when I first finished Secret Avengers 16; I tossed it on the table and said, “Thanks Warren, but I read it when it was called NextWave.” Then I remembered a few things:

  1. I LOVED NextWave and:
  2. I am a cynical mouthy douchebag prone to bitching prior to thinking, and:
  3. I hate your face. Fuck off.

Secret Avengers isn’t as over the top as NextWave was, I’m guessing because you can get away with being over the top when you’re dealing with characters nobody cares about. After all, it’s okay if Monica Rambeau stomps the testicles off of Forbush Man because even in the ranks of seriously antisocial, Mom’s basement dwelling superfandom, I defy you to find anyone who cares about what damage occurs to those testicles and / or the foot after the kick. Seriously, why not have Machine Man be a shitfaced misanthrope? Before that, he was forgotten. Which would probably make you a shitfaced misanthrope. But as usual, I digress.

So, like any good geek, I have finished reading both Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns. Apparently, I’m not the only one. Justice League #1 is heading into it’s third printing. So, that must mean it’s pretty damn good. Right?

Well, I’ll start with “it’s good because that means fucking Flashpoint is now finally done.”

Flashpoint didn’t do a hell of a lot for me. Between the insane body count and the fact that somehow Kim Kardashian is more competent at pulling off a wedding than Wonder Woman, I just couldn’t get in to it. I really wanted to. I did. But, frankly, I’ve been suffering from massive event fatigue since about the end of Blackest Night so, no offense to Mr. Johns, but he could have created a dimensional rift that allowed the sky to rain vodka and My Little Ponies with power rings and I would have said, “Oh? That’s nice” and rolled over and gone back to sleep. Stick a fork in me.