Down And Outside The 616 – X-Factor #229 Review

Ed. Note: Look, I’m just going to warn you up front that there’s spoilers in this. Starting immediately. Merry fucking Christmas!

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
-T. Heads

Madrox, The Multiple Man, is dead. Long live Madrox, The Multiple Man.

And, if you’re Madrox, you may find yourself in a parallel universe. With a beautiful rented tux. And a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here”? Especially if said wife is dead and you seem to be standing over your own corpse as well. Cue “MY GOD!…WHAT HAVE I DONE?”

More on what Madrox did or didn’t do after the jump. Also, there’s water at the bottom of the ocean.

Where’s Waldo: Amazing Spider-Man #676 Review

Dear Dan Slott: when I spend four dollars on an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, I have only one expectation. It’s not that the art is always exemplary, or that it end on the finest of pants-shitting cliffhangers, or that it even showcase a member of the supporting cast in an entertaining fashion… which is a good thing since this book contains none of those things.

No Dan; I’m a reasonable man. All I want from an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man is that somewhere, somewhere in the issue there is at least one appearance of The Amazing Fucking Spider-Man.

That’s right – the only appearance of Spider-Man in this issue is on the cover. The only places the word  “Spider-Man” appears are on the cover, the letter column and the in house ad for next month’s Daredevil… where Spider-Man apparently appears more often than he does in this issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Instead of a Spider-Man story, what we have here is a battle between the Sinister Six – which I’m sure was a bitchin’ name back in 1964, but which in 2011 sounds like a moniker you adopt when you find out that someone’s already trademarked “Democracy of Douchebags” – and the Intelligencia (The name you grab when you discover even “Sinister Six” has been sponged off the bottom of the barrel).

Brain Bleach – In Which Captain America Speaks German Edition

Bleeding Cool is speculating as to whether The Hindustan Times has spoiled a surprise cameo in the new Avengers movie:

Casting is apparently underway for actors to dub the dialogue in The Avengers into Hindi for release against the English language version in India next April. The Hindustan Times (via CBM) have built a story out of this, specifically noting that sometime celebrity couple Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone have been offered a pair of key roles.

But which roles?

The Iron Man couple…Iron Man and his love interest Pepper.

 
Gwyneth Paltrow has publicly denied that she will be in the upcoming Avengers movie. Gwyneth Paltrow also likes to name her children after fruit. And thinks it’s possibly to “detoxify” the human body through Broccoli and Arugula Soup, among other things. It’s like she hasn’t even heard of that organ called a “liver”. Or, if so, certainly not my liver – which is probably the strongest muscle in my body. It’s godlike, I tell you. If she’s living on a diet of Broccoli and Arugula Soup, she’s probably light headed all the time and likely to say any damn thing, like “No, I’m not in The Avengers movie” or “Yes, Chris Martin, I will marry you despite your wuss rock” or “Yes, I should totally be in the Glee concert movie!”

You see? Completely batshit out of her head.

Oh, and I promised you Captain America speaking German. It’s after the jump.

Seriously. It’s after the jump.

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!

Basic Cable: Avengers: X-Sanction #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And one last very quick review before the comic store open… and one that contains spoilers to boot. You are warned.

Okay, let’s start with the fact that The Falcon isn’t an active member of The Avengers. Not active, not honorary, not a Secret Avenger, not a West Coast Avengers… nope, not an Avenger. Which means that there is no reason for Cable to think that he would make an appearance in battle with The Avengers. Which means that the first step of his “master plan” against The Avengers is based purely on wishful thinking and the needs of Jeph Loeb’s plot.

But let’s assume that Falcon was a member of the Avengers, and that Cable’s plan therefore makes some sense on it’s face. Cable takes Falcon out with a sniper rifle during a battle that includes not only Falcon, but Captain America, Iron Man, the Red Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine, but which proves that Cable’s master, time-spanning plan was based on every science fiction movie ever made.

SSDDR: New Avengers #19 Review

I had a moment reading The New Avengers #19 where I just about completely and totally checked out. I just suddenly had had enough of Norman Osborn and the Dark Avengers and different made up villains in Avengers costumes and doing the mental clean and jerk required to buy into a story where a man who is known to have killed a woman in cold blood in broad daylight follows a master plan of winning over public opinion to prove he leadership material when in reality we demonize leaders for taking pictures of their junk.

That moment was at the end of the book, when Norman and his Dark Avengers are standing in front of a crowd and announcing that they were here to make the world a better place, and I realized it was the same Goddamned moment as when he introduced the Dark Avengers back in Dark Reign. And my enthusiasm for this story, as precarious as it was to begin with, just vanished.

Seriously, I know what I said last month, but I don’t think I have it in me to climb back on board the Norman Osborn PR gladhanding and the Dick Avengers train again. I stuck with it for what felt like forever in Dark Reign and I just don’t care anymore. This doesn’t feel like anything interesting or new or that I didn’t read a dozen times over in the earlier story, which I didn’t like the first time around. The whole thing was like watching your uncle use his AA chip to crack open a Bud before Thanksgiving dinner: you know what’s coming, you’ve seen it before, and you know it’s not gonna be fun.

Assuming you don’t have an innate and visceral weariness and mistrust of Dark Reign and it’s ilk, on an individual issue level, there’s nothing wrong with this comic book. Bendis continues to write excellent dialogue and character moments. Seeing Daredevil wandering by Avengers Mansion and being hit on by Squirrel Girl – while being overwhelmed by the stench of baby shit and squirrel funk – is a nice little moment showing that sometimes superpowers aren’t all they’re all cracked up to be… while knowing all the while that yeah: he’s gonna hit that. Daredevil’s already fucked every woman that’s walked, moved or crawled; why wouldn’t he add “skittered up a tree?”

Sometimes A Cigar Is Just A Cigar And Sometimes The Scarlet Witch, Well, You Decide.

Bleeding Cool wants to know: Did Frank Cho realize when he drew the Avengers vs. X-Men 0 cover that Hope Summers appears to be, well, flying out of the Scarlet Witch’s special lady place…or at least a cape, gently waving in the breeze of the Phoenix Force or something, that’s shaped like a vagina?

Yes. These are the questions that need to be answered.

Here’s Frank Cho’s response:

“It never occurred to me that I was drawing a giant vagina when I drew this cover. I could kind of see it now in its final colored form. It’s funny how people project their fears, concerns and fantasies into other people’s art.

“Okay. Rebuttal.

“Like Georgia O’Keefe, I love vaginas. What’s wrong with vaginas? ;-)”

You decide, after the jump.

Burning Ringpiece Of Fire

Since there’s a better than average chance that The Dark Knight Rises prologue we posted will be gone any second, even though it is of quality so shitty you will question whether you are seeing Commissioner James Gordon, Gordon Lightfoot, or perhaps the anthropomorphization of the voice in your head that tell you to burn things (…just me? Really? Okay.), we thought that it was only fair to provide you with a suitable back-up. DC isn’t the only comics company releasing a movie in 2012 after all; Marvel has a dog in this fight, so we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are proud to present the newest, high-definition trailer for Marvel’s much anticipated… Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, starring Nicolas Cage!

…Ghost Rider? Really?

Huh. Really. Okay.

Seriously?

C’mon! That could be Nic Cage on any given Saturday night! Frankly, that could be me on any given Saturday night! Jesus, the big comics Web sites get crystal-clear Avengers shit, and we get Ghost Rider? (Rob: Just write the copy and put the video after the jump. We can feel bad about our place in the comics world later. -Amanda)

*sigh* Fine.

Don’t Mind Stepping Into The Twilight Zone: Carnage USA #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Because I’m a bad man! And I keep thinking bad thoughts! But since I live nowhere near a cornfield, all I can say is that you have been warned.

People talk about the Spider-Man Clone Saga as if it was the low point of comics in the 90s… and those people are arguably right. But the problem with designating something as the worst thing ever is it makes it easy to forget, and sometimes wrongfully forgive, other things that were also awful, just not quite as bad. After all, it’s hard to bitch about a stubbed toe when it happens on the way back from a botched colonoscopy.

The Clone Saga was the worst. That doesn’t mean that Carnage wasn’t also truly, truly horrible.

A knockoff of Venom introduced at the height of Silence Of The Lambs mania who was probably created at an old-school Marvel Summit (Two guys in a Manhattan nightclub men’s room saying, “Hannibal Lecter as a Venom whatchacallit!” “Genius! Let’s gack up another rail!”), Carnage was unoriginal on his face.  And he became so prevalent and irritating that it only took Brian Michael Bendis two issues of New Avengers to have Sentry not only drag Carnage into outer fucking space, but also tear him apart. For a writer of slow, decompressed, all-foreplay comics like Bendis, that was the equivalent of hatefucking Carnage and wiping his dick on his knee on the way out. It was awesome.

Recommended Daily Allowance of Carnage

Man, what a busy week. It’s the end of the busiest season for Amanda and me at our respective day jobs, which sadly are not in the comics industry… but then again, that should be obvious considering that we still have jobs.

But as kicked as our respective asses are, we can finally relax for a single evening, because it is Wednesday, which means that this…

…is the end of our (admittedly meager) broadcast day.

But it’s only an evening of rest, because there’s just too much good shit in there to try to review this week: check out that new story about the unkillable, walking dead: Carnage USA! We also have a zombie story to read!

There’s also a new Battle Scars, a J. H. Williams’ Batwoman, the latest New Avengers, and Palmiotti’s and Gray’s The Ray #1!

All of which means that this is gonna be a busy week trying to review it all… but first we need to read some of it. So see you tomorrow, suckers!