Review of Some Robots, Part 3, By Johnathan

Hey there, robot fans! John Review here, fresh from a weekend of debauchery and recovery from the same, with another look at some of those wacky anthropomorphic elements from the pages of Metal Men comics. I was kind of thinking of reviewing the Gas Gang today but don't really have the mental stamina required to stay on one topic for so long. So: random robots it is!

First up is Potassium, who starts off strong but doesn't really stand up to heavy scrutiny. Let's watch:

Okay, so the good points of this little tableau are as follows: Potassium's a pretty sharp-looking guy. I think that he might be wearing a blazer, and he's definitely rocking one of the best Metal Men hats that I've seen thusfar. Plus, he's into gardening, so that's a plus. Wait, though... did he just interrupt Romeo and Juliet to brag about his fertilizing abilities? Yeesh, Potassium, I gotta say: that's a bit intrusive. Did you just dash in to name-drop yourself the once or hang out there all night?

ROMEO: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

POTASSIUM: Potassium carbonate, or potash, is used in glass manufacturing!

ROMEO: It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

POTASSIUM: Soybeans are a good source of dietary potassium!

ROMEO: Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

POTASSIUM: Potassium chloride is used in executions by lethal injection!

ROMEO: Who is already sick and pale with grief

POTASSIUM: Research has indicated that diets high in potassium can reduce the risk of hypertension!

ROMEO: That thou her maid are far more fair than she.

POTASSIUM: ... Potassium is the seventh most abundant element in the earth's crust!

If I were Romeo I'd've kicked him off of the ladder.

NOT APPROVED.

Potassium also has a sister:

I don't know. She seems cool, and she can use her dandruff to grow flowers with faces, but I don't trust her. I'm pretty sure that if you put her in a room with Hamlet she'd be telling him about the important part that potassium had played in the manufacture of his bare bodkin.

In contrast to the super-useful Potassium Twins comes this sorry bunch, who as of 1967 had nothing to offer mankind:

Aw. Look at the sad, unemployed elements. Not only are they not enriching the lives of everyday Joes like you and me, they can't even get the respect necessary for that security guard to get their names right. Seriously: Farancium? Rubibium? You're not making it any easier for the poor schmoes, security man.

Depending on your level of empathy for fictional robots, you might be happy to know that - according to my minimal research - the line has shrunk in the last forty years. Now it's just Berkelium, Francium and Protactinium standing out there, trying to impress each other with stories about their half-lives and tales of researchers whom they've irradiated. Sometimes Francium cries at night.

The Robot Unemployment Line is JOHN APPROVED!

This one's my favourite:

Old Uncle Technetium telling the tots about being the very first artificially synthesized element. Man, do I love his suit. And his cigar. And the fact that he wears a medallion with his name on it around his neck, which just might make him the Original Gangster, or possibly the Original Old-Timey Senator. I'll bet he can filibuster 'til the (irradiated, sickly) cows come home. Plus, those are the cutest robot kids ever. Plus plus: robot rug!

Thoroughly JOHN APPROVED.

Not quite a robot but still:

There's something about a bald, yellow giant who's punching out what are apparently sentient insects that just gets me right here, you know? Look at how grim they all are: Arsenic doesn't love his job - he just does it. The boss tells him to 'take care of' some troublemakers and WHROOOSH! they're history. That's what I like about this picture: everyone's appropriately solemn in the face of death.

Not at all like here:

That's right, Metal Men. Smile and eat your robotic sandwiches whilst dozens of lives are extinguished directly above you. Why the hell are you sanctioning the sterilization of the local ecosystem? It's not like the mosquitoes are going to bite you, is it? Or are you afraid that a fly will devour one of your metal sandwiches? Seriously, guys. Just because you're hanging around with an animate can of bug spray doesn't mean that you have to have it spray every bug you see. At least wait until Doc Magnus is being carried away by fire ants or something.

Such environmental irresponsibility is NOT APPROVED.

Supplemental Review of Birthday Celebrations, By Johnathan

Went well.

We Opened the bar and though we did not close it we spent a solid eight hours there.

Sampled all of the beers that they had on tap (50-some).

Ate food.

Attendance: the Three Drunken Idiots were there, with Master Shartacus, our d'Artagnan. Kelly Shartacus was present along with Roomie Kyla. Monique, Indomitable Casey and the Irate Canadian Lass put in appearances. We went through three waitresses and a metric assload of peanuts. Found Paul Review on the way home, so he kind of came.

JOHN APPROVED (happy birthday to me... I sleep now)

Speculative Review of Post-Birthday Celebrations, By Johnathan

This is just a guess, but tomorrow when we head on down to local watering hole Maxwell's Plum to sample all sixty of their beers-on-tap in a hedonistic tribute to both my birthday and that of Master Shartacus. It could very well end up with someone getting extremely sick or with all of us getting kicked out or something but nonetheless it's

JOHN APPROVED

This Week's Haul: In Fabulous 3D!

This is late again, mostly because of the Independence Day delay, but also because I am depressed from going to the dentist yesterday and learning that I have FOUR FRIGGING CAVITIES! Like a PIRATE. I am grossed out by my own mouth. I haven't had a cavity since I was ten. I blame coffee.

On to the comics!

All-Star Superman #8

It's a great week for Superman fans. Not only did another fabulous issue of this come out, but Action Comics totally rocked the house (more on that in a minute).

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely continued their awesome take on Bizarro Earth this week. This included some of the best Bizarro talking I'd ever read:

It probably is the best Bizarro talk I've ever read, actually. I love Superman saying "Look over there!"

Bizarro Justice League!:

Aaahhh!! Bizarro Batman was shot dead by his parents! I love it!

Another fantastic issue. I loved Zibarro, I loved all of it. I can't wait to see what's next, especially since there is no hint of what it will be on the preview page at the end.

Action Comics #851

I hope everyone got the 3D version of this, because it was definitely worth the extra dollar. Not only was it some really impressive 3D artwork, the 3D glasses are super cool-looking. And you get to assemble them yourself. I enjoy getting out my craft scissors from time to time.

It's really too bad that this story can't come out on any kind of schedule, because I really think it is one of the best ongoing Superman stories ever written. I look forward to when it is finally collected. I felt that this issue rivaled All-Star Superman this week. I enjoyed it at least as much. Everything in the Phantom Zone, with Mon-El, was really fun and great-looking. Plus, Mon-El was totally breaking my heart:

And the ending, with Lex Luthor, was awesome. This is the Lex Luthor that I want to see more of:
This story is going to be concluded in an annual that will come out...someday. Man, if this thing had come out on schedule...it would have been one of the most talked-about series of the year. Instead it's more of a "Oh yeah, that thing" kind of series. I don't want to get into it right now, but it's just one example of a really big problem with the comic book industry right now. I don't even know if the publishers understand how bad it is having comics come out on wonky schedules like this. I understand that writers and artists can't always get a book out every month, especially since a lot of them are working on many, many books, but the industry needs to figure something out. It's insane how many customers ask "When does the next issue of [title] come out?" and we have to say "I have no idea. This year, maybe? It was supposed to come out three months ago, but then it got bumped to next month, and now it's been re-solicited for
the fall, but that might change again."

Anyway, I hate going off on that now because I really just want to stress how awesome this comic is.

The All-New Atom #13

I frigging love this comic soooo much.

I really hope everyone is reading this thing by now. Not only is it hilarious, it's one of those books that teaches you about the larger DCU as you read it. Ryan Choi is new to the superhero game, so he's meeting lots of characters, and visiting lots of places, for the first time. This one opens with him riding with Chronos (awesome) and ending up in Sword of the Atom land. This is all part of his journey to find Ray Palmer, who he's never actually met.

I absolutely loved the two warring religious groups: those who believed Ray Palmer to be a God, and those who believed him to be the Devil:

That illustration is amazing.

It ends with Ryan running into Donna, Jason and the Monitor, so it's moving along nicely. If the search for Ray Palmer is going to be one of the most important DCU events of the next year, then I am glad we have such an entertaining guide book.

Countdown Week 43

Guess what I stopped doing this week: buying this comic. I decided that, truly, I will never want to read these issues again, so there is no reason to own them. It's just a real mess and no amount of talented writing is going to fix it. I will continue to read and review it, but I have to say, I am getting really bored of reviewing it week after week because I don't know what's going on in it.

There was a funeral for Bart Allan. It was fine. Typical super hero funeral, of which there were two this week that I had to read. Piper and Trickster showed up, incognito, out of guilt. Then they got scared for their safety and fled, only to get taken out in the parking lot by some other villains:

Ok, please tell me that Piper and Trickster aren't dead. They were the only reason I cared about this thing at all.

Holly is chilling at the Amazon shelter/cult and runs into a popular DC lady:

I guess that's interesting. I dunno.

And some stuff with Forerunner happened.

DROPPED!

Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America - Iron Man

Hot damn this was a beautiful-looking comic. I mean, just look at this:

So pretty.

So, Captain America's funeral. Iron Man attempts a few words, prompting a great reaction from The Thing:

Then Falcon gets up to talk, and shows off his Captain America trivia knowledge:

And a bunch of really well-drawn stuff happens, and Captain America's coffin eventually gets dumped into the Arctic Ocean. Frozen = coming back to life. Just sayin'.

Black Canary #1

Well, this was fun!

It starts off with a very cute flashback to the first time Canary and Green Arrow met (as told to Sin by Dinah):

Hee!

I have a big crush on that version of Green Arrow. I love that costume/look. I made Matt dress like that for Halloween last year. Sort of:

Awwwww. (I was Black Canary).

So yeah, anyway, this was a really fun comic. I really loved Merlyn's crazy Green Arrow obsession room:

Especially the action figure (still in the package!).

I have a question about Black Canary. I think I missed something somewhere: is she blonde...all the time now? I can't remember the last time I saw her with her natural brown hair. Maybe I just missed an important part of her timeline.

Runaways #27

Another perfectly good issue of Runaways. Joss Whedon continues to not disappoint. I want to say something more profound, but, unlike the last issue, nothing super exciting happened in this issue. The gang is trapped in 1907, which is fun, but not punching-the-Punisher-in-the-stomach fun.

This was funny:

Aw, Chase. I love you.

Midnighter #9

One of three comics I read this week by Palmiotti and Gray. It's a one-shot issue of one of my favourite comics by one of my favourite writing teams, and they do a great job. The art, by Brian Stelfreeze, was really awesome too.

Once again, Midnighter finds himself in a really terrible place and has to brutally kill a bunch of people. This time it's an orbiting lab that develops viruses for the military. It's a really gross issue.

I laughed out loud at this, because it's after several panels of Midnighter making disgusted, and accurate, observations about the place:

That's it for one-shots for awhile. Keith Giffen takes over next issue and is planning on having Midnighter learn about his past, Wolverine-style. This could be good or bad...

Jonah Hex #21

Jonah Hex, how much do I love you? In this issue he scalps a guy (oddly, not the only scalping I saw in my comics this week). Then he rides into town, sees the saloon full of dead prostitutes and the sleeping guys that killed them. He wakes one of them up just to kick them in the face and knock them out, then burns the saloon to the ground. Any of the guys who run out get shot as soon as they exit. Fantastic.

Oh, and it's all drawn by Jordi Bernet, so it looks BEAUTIFUL:

Detective Comics #834

The second part of a pretty decent two-parter. One of the reasons why I enjoyed it was because it was a fun, crazy Joker story. The Joker doesn't get a lot of action these days, so it was cool. Plus, the detective work was insane. I loved it. Look at what Batman thinks of:

Ridiculous. I love it.

I mean, what else do you want? You have the Joker in disguise, being the showman that he loves to be, murdering his audience. You have Batman escaping from the Joker's trap while the Joker explains his whole diabolical scheme to him. You have Zatanna writing healing spells with blood. You have her turning the Joker's audience into vampire bats, which then attack the Joker. You have Bruce staying up all night at the bedside of his ailing friend. You have the Joker threatening to rip out Zatanna's tongue. You have Batman punching the Joker in the face. If you don't like this stuff, then you don't like comic books.

Plus you have a nice ending where all is forgiven between them. I'm very happy about this.

Alright, that's all I got to say about this week's comics. Oh, except you should buy Batman: Ego and Other Tails, the beautiful hardcover that collects Darwyn Cooke's Gotham stories. At the very least you should go to dccomics.com and download the beautiful promotional wallpaper:

And also Captain America: War & Remembrance was re-released as a trade, and that is definitely worth picking up.

Rachelle Goguen Bonus Material

I wrote a thing for Newsarama and it's on Newsarama right now! I'm a big shot!

I wrote about why I love superhero friendships for their I Heart Comics blog feature. Check it out!

And here's a panel that didn't make the cut:

In other I-am-totally-famous news, the latest issue of Mother Jones features a really good article by Charlie Anders about Supergirl and other women in comics. People quoted in the article are Gail Simone, Kurt Busiek, Brian K Vaughan...and me. They don't mention the name of my blog, but clearly it's because I am a household name.

My Spoiler-Free Mini-Review of Transformers

Much like Hal Jordan, this movie was good-looking and stupid.

Basically, anything that wasn't giant transforming robots was terrible, and that was kind of a lot. Because this movie is looooooong and has WAY too many characters. There were so many characters that got, like, one scene and their stories never got resolved.

But it's pointless to complain about the lazy plot development of a Transformers movie. When you sit in a theatre, and the lights dim, and the first two things on the screen are A Michael Bay Film, Produced by Hasbro Toys...you know you are not going to be seeing some quality cinema.

I did find myself getting way more excited than I expected when the Autobots and Deceptacons were doing their roll calls. And just in general every time they talked or moved or transformed, it was very dope. I thought the robots looked great, and they were very big.

But crazy jerky camera work left me wondering what the hell was going on most of the time, particularly in the battle scenes. It was just really hard to watch, sometimes.

It is a good summer time at the movies, though. It ain't summer until Michael Bay blows something up.

There is one specific point I want to make about the movie, but I'll post it in the comment thread.