Episode 32: Whistle Pig

It is the middle of Labor Day weekend, which means that things are slow in the world of comics news, and fast in the world of drinking whiskey to forget you still have a job to go to on Tuesday.

So Amanda and I use this lull to idly speculate who might be a good casting choice for Doctor Strange in the upcoming Phase 3 Marvel movie. And not only that, but we got ourselves out to see the currently-in-theaters Sin City: A Dame To Kill For adaptation of Frank Miller’s hard boiled crime comics… and we had remarkably different reactions to the flick. Specifically regarding Eva Green’s casting as Ava Lord, Eva Green’s ability to portray Ava Lord, and Eva Green’s qualifications as an actress beyond the ability of some of her bodily appendages to defy constant gravitational forces. We also talk about the other parts of the movie.

We also discuss:

• All-Star Western #34, written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, with art by Darwyn Cooke, and
• Silver Surfer #5, written by Dan Slott with pencils by Mike Allred!

And now the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape. While this might mean a somewhat looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means anything can happen. Like discussions about new supervillain Whistle Pig.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings before spilling secrets, be on notice that spoilers can happen at any time.
• Amanda and I use explicit, adult language, and therefore this show is not safe for work. Before listening without headphones, please see the earlier note about the discussion vis a vis Eva Green’s bodily appendages. Get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:06 — 60.6MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

Working With Vertigo: All-Star Western #26 Review

Editor’s Note: None a’ this is real. It is a twisted spoiler.

I have always had a soft spot for westerns, which is why I’ve always read Jimmy Palmiotti’s and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex stories. Back in the pre New 52 days, Jonah Hex was a solid, straight-ahead western in the Sergio Leone vein, with real scumbag villains out on the frontier and plenty of gunfire to keep things interesting. There were no supervillains, monsters or alien invaders, and dammit, I liked it that way.

Because I always thought that the worst thing that ever happened to the character was when, back in the 80s, they took away Hex’s Colt, replaced it with a laser pistol, and had him fight space aliens or some Goddamned thing. As a guy who likes westerns, it was an abominable idea on its face, like dropping The Man With No Name onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. It might sound like a good idea, but it’s all fun and games until poor Mr. Sulu is left confusedly looking back and forth from his fencing foil to the giant hole in his chest.

So I should be going apeshit nuts over the recent direction of All-Star Western, which has dropped Hex into the modern DC Universe. And I should be going particularly apeshit over All-Star Western #26, which gives us Jonah Hex, relentless bounty hunter and former Confederate soldier, interacting with Swamp Thing, alien plant life, The House of Mystery and a superhero just to round out the trifecta (Quadrifecta? I don’t know a lot about horse racing. I’m not allowed back at the racetrack since I asked the nice lady at the betting window for a quart of fresh glue).

I should be going apeshit. But Goddamn if this issue isn’t one hell of a lot of fun.

You’re Trapped In Here With Me: All-Star Western #22 Review

When I reviewed the first issue of All-Star Western almost two years ago now, I was semi-enthusiastic, but bemoaned the fact that the creative team of writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, and artist Moritat, had taken Jonah Hex off of the western frontier and dumped him into Gotham City. As I recall, I referred to the book as “Crocodile Dundee with dead hookers,” because dropping Hex into an urban setting, even in the late 1800s, felt like a well-trod fish-out-of-water story.

So you would think that All-Star Western #22, which features Hex being stuck in modern, 21st century Gotham City, would drive me absolutely fucking apeshit. Because on paper, if All-Star Western #1 was Crocodile Dundee, All-Star Western #22 should be Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles. Seriously, this book has all the elements that should drive me up the Goddamned wall: Hex baffled by a radio? Yup! Hex shocked and offended by the forward nature of modern conversation? Uh-huh! Hex amazed by an automobile? Hell, yes! If you go down the list of the classic fish-out-of-water stories, the only thing that’s missing is Hex trying to take a shit in a phone booth!

So case closed, right? I wasn’t thrilled with Hex in old Gotham, so I must hate Hex in modern Gotham, correct? Well, you’d think so… but it’s really the opposite. I enjoyed the hell out of this issue, not in spite of the fact that it was a fish-out-of-water story, but because of it. Because All-Star Western #22 isn’t a fish-out-of-water comedy; after all, Jonah Hex isn’t funny. He is a very dangerous man… and other than Batman and one or two other guys and girls, there are very few truly dangerous people in Gotham City.

You know… other than Jonah Hex.

Mad In Gotham – Review Of All-Star Western #21

Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have put Jonah Hex through a lot in All-Star Western in the last 20 issues. He’s dealt with everything from early Crime Bible disciples to Vandal Savage to Mr. Hyde (yes, as in “Dr. Jekyll and…”. Really.). At the same time, Gray and Palmiotti have created an intricate backdrop that has unfolded from an early Gotham City and spiraled out across post-Civil War America. They’ve populated it with a menagerie of colorful characters, ranging from the familiar, like Amadeus Arkham, to new ones, like The Barbary Ghost. However, starting with issue #19, the writing team has begun to focus on a character with definite ties to the DCnU present, if not the future, time traveling hero: Booster Gold. Does this signal an end to Gray and Palmiotti’s exploration of historical Gotham and its characters?

A closer look at the events of All-Star Western #21, rife with spoilers, after the jump.

SDCC 2012: DC’s The Edge And The Dark Panel. Oh, and Neil Gaiman’s Returning To Sandman

First of all people of San Diego: it’s a fucking e-cigarette. It emits water vapor. So please stop passive-aggressively giving me shit when I’m using it on a public sidewalk, out of doors and approaching the convention center, by muttering, “Nothing I like better than a faceful of cigarette smoke blowing into my baby’s face…” Let’s clear the air here (ha!): my e-cigarette emits no odor and bothers no one, unlike your little bundle of squalling fecal production. And since my e-cig doesn’t even burn, the San Diego Fire Marshall even considers it less of a fucking fire hazard.

Okay, I feel better now. Now that we’ve got my personal news out of the way, let’s talk about what’s been happening at SDCC 2012 that doesn’t involve self-righteous self-absorbsion.

The actual programming at SDCC started in earnest yesterday, featuring panels on everything from homosexuality in genre fiction to Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II. (Rob: This may be redundant. Consider editing. -Amanda)

Come For The Hex; Stay For The Ghost – Review Of All Star Western #4

When Rob reviewed All Star Western #1 back in October, his summation that the book was neither “all star” nor “western”, beyond the fact that it includes the character of Jonah Hex, was pretty accurate, even despite the entire fifth of Jack Daniels I personally watched him put down his head shortly before he wrote that review. The man is a fucking machine, I tell you. However, what Rob may have overlooked is that All Star Western is not just about the saga of Jonah Hex as some kind of ass kicking fish out of water in an 1800’s Gotham City. The books also have been including an 8 page mini-story in each issue that fleshes out some of the other Western characters in the historical DCU. Issues #1-3 followed a neat little arc centering around El Diablo. Issue #4 begins the story of a newly created character called The Barbary Ghost. More on her later. Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti seem to be using these issues to tell not only Jonah Hex’s story, but to develop a detailed past history for the DCnU. Maybe All Star History Lesson was a less compelling title than All Star Western? Either way, in an interview with Newsarama, both Gray and Palmiotti express their desire to use All Star Western as a platform to explore the past and plant seeds that will have a bearing on DCU’s future – particularly in the Batman titles:

Jimmy Palmiotti: We are always researching and talking to the editors and other writers of the Batman books to see what’s going on and how we can interact and plant seeds in the past to make the whole picture make more sense. Currently, you’ll be seeing things in All-Star that have everything to do with what’s happening in the Batman titles right now.

Justin Gray: The good thing about it is that we’re working with the idea that Gotham existed long before Batman and it has a rich history to be developed and explored. Like Jimmy said, we’ve been working with Mike Marts and Scott on making sure there are elements from the past that tie directly into Batman’s time.

So, now that we’re four issues in, has this direction positively or negatively affected their stories?

Answers, with spoilers, after the jump!

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 4: The Justice of F***ing

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives finally kicked the cold and got healthy! And then we celebrated with cheap liquor and got sick a different way, so once again, here we are, a day late and a dollar… where’s our f***ing dollar!?

In this week’s episode, we drool over the new trailer for the Avengers movie, we thank DC Comics for announcing that they’ll be selling comics on the Amazon Kindle Fire (When we bought a f***ing Barnes & Noble Nook Color six months ago) by speculating which New 52 book will be canceled first (and which should be canceled first), and talk about our sleeper books of the week!

In addition:

• Amanda would like to announce that she was incorrect when she said that Alex Maleev was the creator of Echo! She meant to say it was Jesus!
• Here’s Rob’s review of The Strange Talent of Luther Strode!
• While tomorrow we will be posting a full-on video of the Avengers trailer in family-friendly and buggy Flash video, here’s the Quicktime edition so that Steve Jobs can cockblock you with upgrade warnings from the grave!
• And simply look up and to the left to see happens when you Google “Captain America Liefeld Boobs”! (via Grotesque Anatomy)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:57 — 42.1MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers! And if you don’t, we’ll show you what happens when you Google “Liefeld Mantits No Seriously Just Liefeld’s Mantits”!

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.

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!

Jonah Hex In: A Good Jonah Hex Movie

One of my biggest fears when I heard about DC’s New 52 was that they’d use it as an opportunity to cancel some of their smaller books that never got the attention (or, honestly, the audience) that Batman and Green Lantern got, but that I really enjoyed, like Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex.

I don’t remember why I was so worried… oh yeah – because DC fucking cancelled Jonah Hex.

But I should have known that Jonah Hex is IMPOSSIBLE to kill (If the Goddamned movie couldn’t do it…)! DC’s kept Gray and Palmiotti on to script All-Star Western, which will be starring ALL of DC’s star western characters, including Jonah Hex, and…

Yeah, pretty much Jonah Hex.

This past weekend, DC released a motion comics trailer for the book, which you can see after the jump: