You Bust It Out. You Light A Match: Superman And Wonder Woman On Match.com

You might have heard that, starting in Justice League #12, writer Geoff Johns and artist Jim Lee will be starting a storyline where Superman and Wonder Woman take their relationship, shall we say, to the next level. They go from friends, to friends with benefits, provided my “benefits” you mean “The Kryptonian Armpit Gank.”

We didn’t jump on this story here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives because, after nearly 40 years of reading comics, this isn’t our first rodeo – we’ve seen these two crazy kids bump overidealized comic book uglies in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and saw it intimated in Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come, plus if you can spell the words “comic” and “slash” and find the enter key on your laptop, you can get all the super sucky-fucky you can shake your stick at. Besides, these things come and go in the comics – remember when Batman almost chucked the Bat Meat to Zatanna? These things never last, and we figured we’d address it in our review of the issue.

That is, until DC decided to hype the story by setting up profiles for Superman and Wonder Woman on Match.com.

Attention Fanboys/girls: This Goes To 11 – Fantastic Fan Trailer Of Justice League Movie

Are you just now coming off the awesome high that was seeing The Avengers movie three times straight, possibly in back to back viewings? Do you perhaps find yourself approaching the debut of The Amazing Spider-Man with cautious enthusiasm, nay, excitement? Have you already staked out sidewalk space in front of your local megaplex in anticipation of scoring the first midnight screening tickets to The Dark Knight Rises? Well then, friends, this fan made trailer for Justice League is for you.

This trailer was created by YouTube user SouperboyX, in advance of Warner Brothers finally beginning to make mumble noises of “Oh, perhaps we could make a team movie after all. What’s that super group we have called? Superfriends? Ask Rick’s boy in accounting. He knows that nerd shit.” He describes it:

Here we basically have a ‘Suicide Squad/VRA/Brainiac Invasion’ type thing going on here. Probably what would be the three main acts of a film. Since everything has to be pretty big. I can’t really show you guys how I would mesh together those storylines in a two and a half minute trailer, but you guys can leave that to your imagination I suppose!

Which is about right, if you think about it. The suits at the studio would probably throw in notes to the writers demanding that more villains be shoe horned into the movie, distracting from the plot. Spider-Man 3, I’m looking in your direction.

SouperboyX seems to have sourced his trailer from a variety of footage, including Smallville, the Wonder Woman pilot, Green Lantern, and The Dark Knight Rises. I have to admit I got a kick out of seeing Justin Hartley back as Green Arrow. I’m still bummed he’s not going to be in the new Green Arrow series.

Check out the trailer (and a HELL of a trailer it is, too!), after the jump.

Jim Lee – Stepping Down From Justice League Already?

It’s not even a year yet, but Bleeding Cool is running an article that reports DC is “making a number of approaches to what could only be described as the A-List of modern comics to sign up for a twelve issue run on Justice League, to replace Jim Lee.” While Geoff Johns will remain on the book as the writer, apparently DC is looking to lock down art talent for the next few years – including as yet unnamed individuals who are currently working for Marvel. Oooo! The plot thickens!

Just who could or would step into Jim Lee’s shoes? Could it be frequent Johns’s collaborator, Ivan Reis? Would DC steal Marc Silvestri back from whatever projects he’s engaged in, assuming he’s done icing his shoulder after penciling those couple Incredible Hulk books last fall and that variant cover of The Walking Dead #100 for Robert Kirkman over at Image? Would DC lure Greg Land away from Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men to turn his pornbox light on for Wonder Woman?

Comic Book Covers: Justice League #7 Review

Justice League #7 is a weird fucking book. On one hand, it gives us a classic superhero team book… one might say that it’s so classic you’ve been reading it for years. And on the other hand, it gives a reimagined and modernized take on a classic hero, updating him by way of making you want to see him die screaming under a city bus. And on both hands, writer Geoff Johns shows us that superheroes are just like us: dicks. Selfish, irritating dicks.

Let’s start with the opening story, which opens with the Justice League in combat with with Isz. Seriously – on the very first page, we’re presented with what looks exactly like a black Isz from The Maxx if Sam Kieth had days upon end to ink them. Which is, in certain ways, a decent enough choice; God knows if I turned a corner and saw a bunch of those bastards swarming, I’d shit my pants. However, this is a comic book, and any comics fan older than 22 is probably gonna open this book and say, “Huh. That’s an Isz,” which started the book on it’s back foot for me right out of the gate.

In short order, we are reintroduced to Colonel Steve Trevor: manly-man soldier and leader of A.R.G.U.S., the Advanced Research Group Uniting Superhumans. This organization appears to be some kind of combination Government-sponsored supervillain armed response agency and liason to the DCU’s superhero community. And Trevor himself is portrayed as an ultra-competent yet cranky former soldier who has learned to kick ass and navigate Congressional committees without compromise. This kind of character is relatively new to the DC Universe, and would be an exciting development if it weren’t an eyepatch and the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson away from a crippling plagiarism lawsuit. Really, guys? Colonel Trevor, Agent of A.R.G.U.S.? What’s his next exciting adventure gonna be, pulling Uncle Sam from the Freedom Fighters out of a fucking iceburg?

Denouement: Justice League #6 Review

Justice League #6 is the most memorable and remarkable of the title’s relaunch for two reasons, the first being that it is packed with the kind of cover-to-cover superhero action that you want from a team comic book. The second is that it contains a splash page depicting Cyborg with a stance and facial expression that, minus any context, looks like he’s taking a savage and angry dump so terrible it might alter his religious beliefs. Which is as good an example of the schizo feeling this book has instilled in me for the past six months.

Let’s start off for a change on a positive note: this is one hell of a superhero fight. Writer Geoff Johns establishes the stakes early, showing a desperate family trying to escape the Armageddon that is occurring as Green Lantern, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Cyborg battle Darkseid in the middle of a city. The battle is visceral, the feeling that the heroes are throwing every Goddamned thing they can think of at Darkseid, who is drawn by Jim Lee as solid, giant and implacable. This is the kind of epic throwdown that I’ve been wanting from Justice League from the word go… which is a damn good thing because many of the characters still act as if they’re recovering from a partial lobotomy.

Johns’s characterizations have been problematic throughout this arc. Yes, I understand this is a reboot, but the youngest character in this book, in terms of creation date, is Cyborg, who has almost a third of a century of previous characterization history behind him. And sometimes we get glimmers of the long-established behaviors of the characters, but other times they act like they were created by Rob Liefeld in a 1990 cocaine twitch. Sometimes within two panels.

Cosplay: Justice League #5 Review

I think I finally have realized the reason behind the vague sense of dissatisfaction, if not downright unease, that I’ve been feeling reading Geoff Johns’s and Jim Lee’s Justice League: these characters don’t act right. At best, they act like versions of the original characters that have suffered an extended and untreated fever, or perhaps some period of natural gas-related asphyxia, or some other unknown cause of mild brain damage.

I get that these are supposed to be the members of the Justice League at the beginning of their careers, and therefore it’s probably to be expected that their personalities are somewhat different than we’re used to. Which, as ideas go, is not a bad way to go, and one that could drive many character-driven stories. Unfortunately, over the course of five issues, it’s become apparent that Johns has decided that the primary difference in character is that five years ago, the World’s Greatest Superheroes were Complete Motherfucking Idiots.

Jesusfall, or: Apocalypse, or: LEONARD BERNSTEIN

The Aztec calendar says that the apocalypse happens next year, but the fact that yet another issue of Catwoman has found it’s way into another week’s new comics take…

…possibly means the premature 2011 end of the world. And if not, it totally means the end of our broadcast day.

But if you gotta go out, there are worse ways. After all, we’ve got the last issue of Butcher Baker Candlestickmaker from The Boys, Justice League #4, a new X-Factor, Ultimate Spider-Man #5, and a bunch of other cool stuff to bring us into the Christmas weekend!

And speaking of the Christmas weekend: both Amanda and I are traveling this week to spend time with either loved ones or people who will give us free shit without hissing, “What have you done with our family name?” Because of that, posting may become sporadic between now and the new year… and what we do post might be reviews of fifteen-year-old trade paperbacks we left in our folks’ houses around our college graduation (Hello, Death Of Superman reviews!).

But if we’re gonna get any reviews of this week’s book in, we need some times to read them. So in case shitty flights, rotten airport wi-fi and / or squinting parents muttering, “Why are you calling Spider-Man ‘Ultimate?’ And a ‘Fucking longwinded douchebag’?” slow our output…

Have a happy holiday, suckers!

The Only Thing We Have to Fear…

It is Wednesday, and while we apologize that recent posting and this week’s scheduled podcast have suffered due to a brand-new chest cold (Amanda: Rob, stop pretending your alcoholism is virally related and fetch me more Robitussin), we must still announce the end of our broadcast day for the following excellent reasons:

Now that is a fucking New Comics Day take! We’ve got the final issue of Marvel’s Fear Itself (And associated books like Invincible Iron Man), a new Neal Adams’ Batman: Odyssey, Batman and Wonder Woman #2, Mark Millar’s Superior, and…

…yeah, we got weak and bought Catwoman #2 and Red Hood and The Outlaws #2. Because we’re considering a new feature called Circling The Glory Hole for books that sucked once, to give them a chance to, well, suck or be sucked.

But on the plus side, there is also a new X-Factor and Atomic Robo. Which, if they are found at any glory hole, it is because they need, demand and deserve a blowjob.

And also, we’ve got Justice League #2, which apparently ships every six or seven weeks, making DC’s New 52 more like the New 51.57, which is the kind of math rounding I like, because that makes my wang seven inches even.

See you tomorrow, suckers!

It All Changes Here! Except For The Stuff That Doesn’t…

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.