Zombiebusters: The Mocking Dead #1 Review

Mahatma Gandhi once said about fighting The Man: ” First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” And that’s a fine addage to remember when you’re being hosed down with pepper spray by some armored riot cop due to your belief that everyone should eat tofurkey or something, but it doesn’t really apply to big genre trends. In fact, the opposite is true: first some nifty geek thing takes the world by storm (hi, Twilight!). Then people start actively complaining that they’re sick of hearing about that trend. Then come the parodies, and finally the thing goes back underground, never to be mentioned again except on obscure fan and slashfic sites.

And I can hear what you’re saying: “Rob,” you’re saying, “How dare you sully the good name of Mahatma Gandhi by mentioning it on this Web site? You’re not fit to carry this great man’s diaper!” Well, I’ll concede that you have a point, or at least I will if it gets me out of carrying a giant diaper, but I do have a point. And that point is that zombies have been front and center of the geek consciousness arguably since Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later was released in 2002, penetrating into movies, comic books and television like few recent monsters that don’t sparkle. And for the past couple of years, more and more people have been grumbling that they’re sick of zombie stories – not me; I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of seeing people being eaten while society crumbles around them, but a lot of people.

And now come the parodies, specifically, this week’s The Mocking Dead, by writer of a bunch of the Marvel Zombies miniseries Fred Van Lente and artist Max Dunbar, which not only pokes fun at the public’s zombie apocalypse fascination, but at the people who are fascinated by zombies. And if this is, in fact, a sign that zombies are that far along on the Reverse-Gandhi Geek Continuum (Trademark me! I own that phrase, and al the subsidiary rights!), well, Robert Kirkman better open a savings account and hose off his diaper bucket.

Cleansing The Palate Of A Disappointing Climax: Forever Evil #1 Review

Editor’s Note: Today is the second anniversary of the launch of Crisis On Infinite Midlives, and as such, I am going to give myself the gift of one review where I don’t try to be clever and / or funny to warn you that spoilers will follow. Plus, cocks.

It is the roughly second anniversary of the launch of DC’s New 52, and DC is celebrating by releasing the first issue of their crossover Forever Evil, also known as the seventh issue of their crossover The Trinity War. And DC is celebrating the complete and utter dismissal of their entire 1986 through 2011 continuity and the subsequent triumphant relaunch of the Justice League by bringing back a part of that 1986 through 2011 continuity and implying that the triumphantly relaunched Justice League is dead.

Well, that’s one way of celebrating your anniversary, I guess. Some of us like champagne and… well, champagne. Other people like leather, rails of drugs and savage whippings. This story features the Crime Syndicate. So I’m gonna let you guess which column this one falls into.

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you: I wasn’t particularly psyched to see this issue when I walked into my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop offering to show the paying clientele “something else that’s Forever Evil, and also in 3D, and it’ll only cost you three bucks!” The whole way that The Trinity War ended by not ending, implying that the readers of that series would need to tune back in this week to see what seemed to be the inevitable Justice League / Crime Syndicate battle that should have concluded that miniseries, was really a bummer for me to read, and it shaded my anticipation of Forever Evil. It’s hard to get excited about an event when the last one really had no climax. An anniversary with no climax is nothing but a champagne drunk. And is usually followed by divorce proceedings. Or at least an angry, furtive yank in the morning.

Well, we don’t get that fight in Forever Evil #1. We don’t find out what really happened after the last panel of The Trinity War beyond the word of a pack of degenerate liars. But what we do get in its stead is a pretty decent little mystery of what exactly happened to the Justice League after the Crime Syndicate broke through Pandora’s Box, the implication that a couple of members of the Secret Society are gonna wind up being unpredictable flies in the ointment, the foreshadowing of involvement by the Teen Titans and Amanda Waller… and one fuck of a bad day for Nightwing.

Gardner & Dex-Starr: Red Lanterns #23 Review

I had stopped following Red Lanterns all that closely because, well, it wasn’t ever all that good.

I’m sure original writer Peter Milligan had some kind of message he wanted to convey about the destructive nature of hate, and a little something about violence toward women maybe, but I always felt like whatever he was trying to say was being gently masked by ugly monsters puking blood on each other while Bleez shook her ass at people while simultaneously denigrating them. And while I’m sure that description just lit up someone’s hidden and deeply shameful fetish buttons – you know who your are, pervert who found us by Googling “chemotherapy submissive S&M porn” – it really never did a lot for me, and I categorically deny that I’m just saying that as an excuse to click-whore for that lucrative chemotherapy submissive S&M porn dollar.

But I decided to give Red Lanterns #23, written by Charles Soule with art by Alessandro Vitti and Jim Calafiore, a try mostly based on this cover, which, after a couple of beers, seemed to me to depict Atrocitus losing a Declared Thumb War with some kind of energy demon, despite that demon’s obvious distraction from being skullfucked by Dexstarr.

(And before you ask, yes, I take my comics seriously. But after a week that brought us an event without an ending and a stack of comics so generally weak I felt the need to praise Scott Lobdell for writing a nearly actionless teenaged soap opera because it might be friendly to new readers, I think I might be suffering from a bit of disappointment hysteria).

So I cracked the book expecting more of the same weird action and musing about rage and tits… and make no mistake, some of that stuff is still here. But Soule has wrapped the whole thing up in a pretty believable and relatable tale about an undercover cop who’s in too deep and losing his moral compass fast.

Granted, it is a pretty believable and relatable tale that includes a talking cat, but what the hell.

Entry Level: Teen Titans #23 Review

I’ve had a lot of fun at Scott Lobdell’s expense over the past couple of years, mostly due to his tendency to turn any comic book he puts his hands on into an adolescent soap opera. After all, one doesn’t turn Starfire into a takes-all-comers fuckpot with the memory and morals of a goldfish because he likes writing tales of adult sexuality. He does it because nobody reads Penthouse Forum anymore. Jesus Christ, I’m three sentences in and I’m already getting off point here.

The one title Lobdell has been working on that I still read and enjoy on a semi-regular basis is Teen Titans, and I think it’s because it’s right in Lobdell’s wheelhouse: it’s supposed to be an adolescent soap opera. There’s nothing remarkable about a bunch of good-looking teenagers trying like hell to bone each other and treating every little misstep like it’s the biggest dramatic affront in the world; that’s just high school. So Teen Titans has been a particular place where Lobdell’s weaknesses have actually been a virtue… but still, it’s not been for everybody. As a soap opera, it has a ton of characters, it has featured longer-term stories, and it has, almost more than any other New 52 title, embraced the fact that all the characters are different than they’ve ever been. So we’ve got a book with new and unfamiliar versions of old characters, with constantly-shifting and volatile relationships, and that doesn’t really equal a title that’s friendly to new readers jumping in at any random point.

Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news, at least for potential new readers, is that Teen Titans #23 is a perfect entry point for new readers, specifically and carefully introducing every character, their relationships with each other, and, as befits a long-running team book like Teen Titans, even features a fairly significant personnel change.

The bad news, at least for long-time readers, is that not a hell of a lot actually happens in this issue.

The Neverending Story: Justice League #23 Review

Editor’s Note: But evil hasn’t been imprisoned, Pandora, only spoiled!

So here we are: with Justice League #23, and the final chapter of The Trinity War. Now, let’s take a minute and look back at how we got here.

Two years ago next week, DC Comic released the final issue of Flashpoint, which closed out the DC Universe as it had been since Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1986, and ushering in the New 52 era. And in both books – and in every new first issue that DC released in September, 2011 – DC Editorial made sure that we were shown the mysterious hooded woman (who was eventually identified as Pandora), with the implication being that she had some major part in the implosion of the pre-rebooted (Pre-booted? The Old 52? Pre-52? Post-Crisis Trapped In The Body Of A – ah, fuck it) DC Universe, and that her story would give us the real skinny behind the whole shakeup.

Over the intervening two years, we learned that Pandora was part of a troika of supernatural beings, including The Question and The Phantom Stranger, and that she was trying to dispose of her box (this is the space where I deleted seven different childish jokes) to eliminate evil. Which led us to The Trinity War, where all the members of the various Justice Leagues (which means basically every hero in the DC Universe minus O.M.A.C.) came together with Pandora as a major player, and the hopes that we might finally get an answer about Pandora’s role in the reboot, once the story ended.

So did we? Nah! Turns out Geoff Johns had a surprise up his sleeve for the ending of The Trinity War! He didn’t write one!

Somewhere, Joss Whedon is thanking God he cast his lot with Marvel Comics.

Old Gods In The Machine, or: Because, MAGIC!: Justice League Dark #23 Review

Comic crossover events are built on a tight timeline. Because of all the various comic titles that are involved in any big event, everything needs to go off like clockwork. Because when it doesn’t, it throws all the other titles involved into a scheduling nightmare, and that could really fuck up their ability to tell a coherent story… not to mention fuck up their ability to get their shit together in time for the next event story that is inevitably hammering down the pike.

So sometimes an issue needs to move a lot of plot and characters around quickly, to make sure everything is in place for the next issue in the story pipeline. And Justice League Dark #23, the penultimate chapter of DC’s Trinity War crossover, is one of those books. Writer Jeff Lemire and artist Mikel Janin have just 24 pages to get characters from the House of Mystery, Washington D. C., New York City and other parts unknown all together to deal with Pandora’s Box and face down whoever the dapper gentleman running the Secret Society happens to be, all so the players and pieces are in place for the finale in next week’s Justice League.

The good news is that they do it with a fair amount of action, pitting heavy hitters against lower-level heroes, with everyone in sight being affected by the corrupting influence of Pandora’s Box. The bad news is that they make a lot of these moves based on forced coincidences, characters popping up from out of nowhere at just the right time, and a serious over-reliance on Zatanna and her backwards Pig Latin magic.

The result is an exciting story, but as befitting a story with magic at its core, one where you can see The Man Behind The Curtain. Characters don’t move in this comic. They are pushed.

Boy’s (Super) Life: Nova #7 Review

There are bigger comic books this week than Nova #7, written by Zeb Wells with art by Paco Medina, but you’re not gonna find too many that are more fun. Not in the sense that there’s a lot of big action or spectacular demolition or exciting team-ups (although we see Nova meet Spider-Man, which was a nice bit of nostalgia for a guy who fondly remembers the original Nova’s first crossover with Spider-Man back in 1977 – to this day, I remember the reveal that the murder victim fingered his killer from beyond the grave by tearing out the last pages of a calendar to spell JASOND), but in the sense that the issue asks the question: if you were a teenager from the sticks who had powers and you wanted to become a superhero… how exactly would you go about it?

I mean, I’m an adult who lives in a major American city, who has been known to drink heavy in questionable bars, and I can count the number of actual crimes I’ve personally witnessed in the last decade on one hand. The last house fire I saw was a rural chimney fire I saw right around when I was reading that 1977 Nova / Spider-Man crossover (despite all of my friends’ predictions that I would eventually see a house fire thanks to years of reckless chain smoking while drinking whiskey), and I see my high-speed police chases on TruTV at 2 a.m., the way God intended. Even if I had the power of Superman, I wouldn’t know where to find a crime to fight if I had to, and I’m someone old enough to know what a Bearcat Scanner is and what it’s for.

So what would you do if you were a 15-year-old from the middle of nowhere, imbued with the power of a cosmic hero, looking to make himself a superhero?

And the answer is: apparently, fuck up all over the place.

Clones… Why Did It Have To Be… Clones: Sibling Rivalry, or Superior Spider-Man #2 and Scarlet Spider #20 Review

Clones. I hate those guys.

Ever since Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker’s body, started calling himself the Superior Spider-Man and violented himself up, it was only a matter of time before somebody put him face to face with Kaine, the Scarlet Spider – the version of Spider-Man who was already violented up. After all, the comic reading public has since proven that they will pay to see different versions of Spider-Man tuning each other up. It started with The Amazing Spider-Man #149, back in October, 1975, the first time Spider-Man fought a cloned version of himself, and continued, on and on, through the creation of Venom, and then Carnage, and then the return of that original Spider-Clone. And then the Clone Saga.

The Goddamned, everfucking Clone Saga.

Anyway, there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting through this Doc Ock incarnation of Spider-Man without someone spending some time having him knock around, and get knocked around by, Scarlet Spider. And frankly, I wasn’t looking all that forward to it; again, only 15 years ago, Marvel had one Spider-Man punch another, and they spent the next year and a half dragging it out until they all but knocked the title’s dick in the dirt. So in my mind’s eye, I was expecting a multi-issue extravaganza, dragged out over weeks if not months with big fights and constant wondering who the real Spider-Man was at any given time.

So imagine my surprise when the inevitable fight between these two guys was done in just two issues, both available on the same day, with some decent believable interplay between the two, and a common enemy to fight.

Of course, that enemy is The Jackal, who started the whole damn clone business in the first place. Oh: and a bunch of other clones.

Dirty, stinking clones.

The Climax Is Never In Act One: Infinity #1 Review

For years, whenever Marvel kicked off a big event comic, they made a point of swearing before God and everybody that the story could be read on its own, without needing to track down a bunch of other comics to understand what’s going on. It was all bullshit, of course; be it Civil War or Secret Invasion or Avengers Vs. X-Men, the second the event kicked off, it crossed into every title Marvel published. Sure, you didn’t need to read those other comics to understand the whole story, provided you were okay with taking certain things you saw on faith. Things like just assuming that, somewhere in the gutters of the main title, D-Man obtained the Infinity Gauntlet while Batroc The Leaper’s big toes were turned to Mrs. Dash Onion Seasoning.

That, however, was the past. Welcome to Infinity, a book not only with a final page consisting of a diagram telling you what other comic books you should be following to get the whole story, but one which, if you haven’t been reading both Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers and New Avengers since launch day, will be difficult to follow from the first page. Which is fine for people like me who have been getting those books all along, but which isn’t exactly welcoming to any poor schmuck who wanders into a comic store after, say, seeing The Wolverine, and saying to himself, “Ooh! That comic has the dude from the credits of The Avengers movie!”

And that wouldn’t be a bad thing if Infinity #1 was character-driven, and gave you compelling people to follow through this unfamiliar scenario. Unfortunately, this book is all about plot and putting pieces into place to eventually blow some shit up. And the characters are simply pushed through this clockwork, normally almost indistinguishable from each other except for the colors of their costumes.

Hell, one of the main heroes of the story is featured in a four-page sequence where he is asleep, for Christ’s sake.

No One Can Pick A Nonexistent Lock: Detective Comics #23 Review

When it comes to Batman continuity in the post New 25 / Grant Morrison world, DC Comics really needs to get its shit together. Because for an editorial division that seems, based on constant hirings and firings and reports of last-minute story changes, to want to keep their hands on their creators’ throttles (assuming “throttles” is what we’re calling them now), they really don’t seem to know what’s happening in their own books at any given time.

Just last week, Morrison completed his story arc on Batman Incorporated. That series, as you might be able to tell somewhat by its title, is ostensibly about Bruce Wayne’s public financing of not only Batman, but an army of regional Batman around the world. The events of Batman Incorporated are, at least in part, considered canon throughout the DC Universe, given the sheer number of recent issues I’ve read about Batman moping over the death of Damian. The introduction to this series was a scene, written by one of DC’s most popular creators, where Bruce Wayne calls a press conference to announce that he is the man who finances Batman.

Welcome to Detective Comics #23, an issue where a significant plot point hinges on the idea that Bruce Wayne’s financing of Batman’s arsenal isn’t common knowledge. But the good news is that giant continuity flaw is almost enough to mask the other gaping plot holes in the issue.