Howdy!
I wrote a list of my top 10 DCU characters of all time for MONDOmagazine. You can check it out here:
Oh snap! Not bad, Veronica. Not bad.
Also in this issue, we find the answer to this equation:
Any questions?
Tonight Alan Moore is on The Simpsons!
As if this week didn't rule enough already!
So I, like many comic fans, have some...concerns...about the upcoming film based on The Spirit, being made by Frank Miller. Basically: I think it is going to suck.
Every time I see or hear anything about it, I get cranky. But this quote, from a Newsarama article, is the most bothersome thing I've read yet:
Miller later directs a scene from near the film’s finale in which the Spirit delivers a powerful right cross to the chin of The Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson. “From the start, I wanted Sam Jackson to play The Octopus because I’ve always wanted to work with Sam Jackson,” Miller says. “It seems to me he’s always had a part like this inside waiting to get out.”
The villain, who famously never showed his face in Eisner’s comics, will be slightly less mysterious in the film. “I knew I couldn’t get away with two hours of a guy whose face you never see,” Miller said.
WHAT?! The Octopus has existed as a character for almost seven decades. In all that time his face has never been revealed. Now Frank Miller gets to decide what he looks like? And it's Samuel L Jackson?!
Actually, scratch that. It doesn't matter who it is. The point is that Miller has the audacity to feel that, for some reason, he is allowed reveal a mystery that, clearly, Will Eisner never wanted revealed.
“I knew I couldn’t get away with two hours of a guy whose face you never see,” Miller said.
Two hours?! Try seventy years, assface! It worked pretty well in the comics. If you can't tell a good story without Samuel L Jackson's face, that's your problem.
A while back I did a mass-review of all of the Showcase Presents books that I had purchased. Well, I just keep on buying those things - due to my overpowering weakness for the Silver Age - and so it's time for more of that.
Showcase Presents: Adam Strange
All of the old stories about Adam Strange getting zapped to Rann via Zeta Beam so that he can kick alien ass and score with alien ladies (well, lady). I'm pretty fond of the little pre-adventure that Adam always gets into whilst getting his ass to the site of the incoming beam. Also fun: the sheer amount of trouble that the Rannians get themselves into ("Adam Strange! In the month that you were away we were conquered by robots! Again!"). Finally, a true statement: Adam Strange has the best helmet in comics.
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: The Atom
Good fun. Ray Palmer gets into all sorts of scraps as a tiny man. Like Green Lantern, this comic made an attempt to pass itself off as hard science fiction, with plenty of super-scientific explanations for stuff like shrinking physicists, but readily flew off on crazy tangential plotlines to keep things interesting. The three basic plots of a Silver Age Atom story: 1) Ray Palmer shrinks in order to help his main squeeze Jean "will be evil someday" Loring solve a case so that she can become a successful lawyer and prove herself and then quit the law and marry Ray. 2) Ray Palmer encounters something weird whilst going about his daily business; shrinks. 3) Ray Palmer shrinks and travels into the past via his scientist pal's Time Hole. While in the past he fights injustice with a passion that makes lovers of causality cringe. Take that, historical figures! Take that, history!
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: Batman, Volume 2
Rachelle gave me this one for my birthday, whilst simultaneously foiling my plot to borrow Volume 1 from her by lending it to every other person in Halifax (this is a lie. It was just lent to Tiina [the Tea Devil]). I don't know if the first volume was a great as this, but I hope so. Featured were both the first appearance of the original Blockbuster, with his hatred for Batman yet love for Bruce Wayne, and the crazy-great saga of the Outsider. The Outsider, for those of you who have avoided 30 or 40 years of spoilers, was actually Batman's butler Alfred, who everyone thought was dead but who was only mostly dead and who was turned into a lumpy psychic monster by a well-meaning scientist. Ever since I read about this fantastic mishmash in Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Supervillains I wanted very much to read it, what with Robin getting turned into a coffin and all, so thanks again, Rachelle!
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: The Flash
Good solid Silver Age tomfoolery. Nothing other that the extremely unlikely origin of Kid Flash really sticks out in my memory, but rest assured that it's full of crazy crimes and stupid plots and all of the rest of the good stuff. I grew up with Wally West as the Flash, but i gotta say that Barry Allen was a helluva character.
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: Green Arrow
A lot of the comics that are collected in this one are actually from the late 50s, so they have a really neat feel to them, like the Batman comics of the same era. You can almost see the Comics Code symbol hovering over every character's shoulder, watching; judging. Anyway, Green Arrow and Speedy fight the crime and drive around in a great car (it launches them with catapults!) and meet at least two clowns who use wacky clown arrows to make folks laugh and then to fight crime in a crazy clown fashion. Plus, remember the Batmen of All Nations? Green Arrow has some too! Dudes from all over the world show up for a convention in his honour and bring their lava arrows and so forth - it's a hoot!
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: Martian Manhunter
Haven't finished this one yet, but I'll tell you what my favourite thing about it is: that J'onn J'onzz isn't really a super-hero in his first batch of adventures, he's just a detective who happens to be an alien and have all kinds of crazy powers. I really wish that someone nowadays would write some comics focusing on that aspect of the Manhunter's personality. It seems like all of the J'onzz character development lately has had the effect of making him really alienated (ha!) from humanity, while in those early stories he had a whole lot of charm. I don't know. I just want a comic about a hard-boiled private eye who can turn invisible and is scared of fire and sometimes has a hound dog to hang out with. Oh! Also, his brother T'omm J'onzz shows up at one point!
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: Shazam!
This one's a lot of fun. They got C.C. Beck, the original artist for the character, to draw the DC comics revival, so everything looks fantastic. The stories are a bit child-oriented and entirely insane - my favourite character was Sunny Sparkle, the Nicest Kid in the World, who has it really tough because everyone loves him so much at first sight that they give him ridiculous and extravagant presents (and apparently name ponies after him). He just keeps donating the stuff to charity and declaring that he'll become a hermit when he grows up. I think that Sunny Sparkle Come Down Off the Mountain, with a tangled beard and a crazed look in his eyes and hordes of glassy-eyed, gift-bearing acolytes, is number 3 on my list of "characters that I wish would make an appearance in DC continuity", right after Carbon Monoxide Gangster and Parade Hater Horace. As for Shazam!, it's pretty great but it peters out at the end as the series hits hard times, but not before Dr Sivana goes on a crazy crime-spree road trip and Billy Batson and Uncle Dudley have to hop in their camper van and chase him all over the country. Whee!
JOHN APPROVED
Showcase Presents: World's Finest
I just got this one today, so I haven't read much of it, but what I have taken in is fantastic. Silver Age Batman and his pal Superman were each at least as concerned with keeping their secret identities safe as they were with, say, fighting crime, so when they got together all bets were off. Rachelle did a pretty great post about one of the messed-up adventures that resulted from this here. It's all Batman dressing up like Superman and then pretending to be Clark Kent while Superman's dressed up like Batman and also being Clark Kent and all to mess with Lois Lane's head... it's almost Shakespearian at times. Plus Superman and Batman are one of the most fun BFF pairs in comics, even without considering the subtextual homoeroticism - that's the icing on the cake!
JOHN APPROVED
I totally asked for many more of these things for Christmas, so there's certainly going to be more of these reviews, yay.
Every now and again, comic shops will experience a perfect storm of awesomeness all arriving on the same day. This Wednesday was one of those days. So many amazing comics that fans had been waiting forever for. I am, of course, talking about Gene Simmons' Zipper, Simon Dark #2, and the hardcover collection of Jodi Picoult's run on Wonder Woman.
I can't possibly write about everything good that came out this week. Obviously Scott Pilgrim was awesome. So were lots of things. It was a great week, people. Thursday should have been an international holiday to allow us to read all of these great comics.
Superman/Batman #42
Ok, before we get to the good comics, I need to talk about this. I'm not going to lie to you, of all the comics I brought home this week, this was the one I read first. I just couldn't wait for the latest installment of this porntastic trainwreck. It's really too insane to be believed.
So, just to summarize to this point, Batman meets Orion's wife, Bekka. She has a power that makes men uncontrollaby attracted to her, and she is uncontrollably attracted to them. The less love a man has had in his life, the stronger the connection. So with Batman, it's pretty strong. Even though Batman really, really wants to do her, he tells himself it's wrong and he can't. She's married, they are on a mission, etc. She gets herself killed in the last issue. Frozen to death, to be exact. Good riddance, I say. Unfortunately, that's not what Batman says.
In this issue, Batman is so upset that Bekka died before he could hit that ass, he decides to bring her back to life by stripping her naked and putting her in a steaming hot bath (it's ok...he's a scientist). It works, but while he's waiting we get THE GREATEST TWO PAGES IN COMIC HISTORY:
OH. MYGOD. WHAT THE HELL?! I was reading this alone and actually yelling at it. I would read two panels, throw the comic down and yell "SHUT UP! YOU ARE KIDDING ME!" I think that Alan Burnett has borrowed liberally from fanfic here. I am sure I have read those two pages before. Especially that first one. Holy hell.
You know, some other stuff happened in this comic too, but who cares? Here's some more porny goodness:
Wait for him for what?!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Please read the following page aloud:
Outstanding.
All-Star Superman #9
I went to see Final Fantasy play tonight. When I see him perform I get the same feeling that I do when I read an issue of this series: the amount of talent is disgusting. How can anyone be that good? It's simply terrifying.
The best thing about this issue is I had no idea what it was going to be about. It turns out, it was about AWESOME. The beauty of this series is that Grant Morrison doesn't need to come up with crazy new ideas for Superman stories. He is telling us stories we have heard before...he's just telling them better. But, of course, Frank Quitely deserves an equal amount of praise. His art really makes a lot of the jokes very funny.
Like this one, where one of Superman's robot's arm falls off after being handed the super-heavy key to the fortress:
Amazing.
Wonder Woman #14
Here's an idea...what if Wonder Woman was a well-written, compelling character with an interesting, fun-to-read series? Now, a lot of people have said lately that certain writers have "ruined" Wonder Woman. This is simply not true. Wonder Woman was NEVER GOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE. Please tell me when exactly the Wonder Woman title was good. The way some people talk, it's like she's the greatest character of all time, and certain recent Wonder Woman events have reduced her to a two-dimensional, boring character who can't stand on her own. People...this is what she has always been like. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's the truth.
So a lot of people have been waiting for Gail Simone to come along and restore Wonder Woman. I've been looking forward to Simone to write the first-ever interesting Wonder Woman comic. I think the Heinberg run was really good, but it just came out so damn slowly. Team Dodson remains on the art, which is awesome, but also means that it could be slow again.
And Simone's writing does not disappoint at all. Already we have Diana fighting gorillas AND Nazis! Plus, the gorillas become her new roommates.
This comic was excellent. It's back on my pull list!
Booster Gold #4
If I hear one more person say that they don't want to read this because they don't like Dan Jurgens, I am going to beat them with the Death of Superman Omnibus. Because, sure, Jurgens has produced some unforgivably bad art, but not on this comic. This comic is fantastic, and if you aren't giving it a chance because you didn't like some other comic, you are only cheating yourself.
For one thing, you are missing out on hung-over Booster Gold:
I liked this issue, but I am really looking forward to the next one, where Booster Gold visits The Killing Joke to stop the Joker from shooting Barbara Gordon. I know they probably won't really do anything, but nothing would make me happier than if they fixed her spine and restored her to her Batgirl glory.
Green Arrow/Black Canary #2
I felt like the Winick was starting to be a little more present in this issue than the last issue. And by that, I mean Mia was making some clunky statements about being HIV positive and a former prostitute.
Actually, the writing was pretty clunky in general in this issue. But the art was FANTASTIC.
Everyone is so good-looking!
I really like that Dealbreaker teaser title for the next issue, because all it implies is that they are going to mention the underwear again.
World War Hulk #5
A very action-packed ending. Finally.
My favourite part, though, was this panel, when Hulk does his impression of a 15-year-old girl:
Leaving Iron Man and Reed Richards to wonder how they ever managed to raise such a disrespectful son.
Black Adam #4
This comic has crossed the line from being surprisingly good to being effing great. Seriously.
It's really violent, but the violence has this great black humour to it that I'm really into. Every issue you see several insane things.
In this issue, Black Adam stumbles into a veterinary hospital to fix up some wounds from a recent fight. It's pretty excellent.
They fix him up, but they aren't happy about it. I really loved this:
It's just a great series. I'll be sorry to see it finish.
Avengers - The Initiative #7
I'm glad that, in a time where The Amazing Spider-Man has been consistently terrible, there is another Marvel title willing to pick up the slack. This was actually some of the best Spidey storytelling I've read in awhile. Plus, a significant plot point happens to Peter Parker in this book, which is good because all we're seeing in his other titles is an agonizingly slow and depressing march toward Aunt May's death while Parker is a wanted criminal. That story is continued in this book, but in a way that is actually interesting and pleasant to read. And it gets resolved somewhat, which was a nice surprise. Also, Peter Parker was being cool again. I liked when he saw the Scarlet Spiders running around:
The identity of those guys gets revealed in this issue, by the way.
The spiders help Peter out by using their shape-shifting abilities to confuse the public. They all turn into Peter Parker and announce that "Spider-Man" is actually just a robotic suit, not a person. It's a pretty significant plot point.
Here's my question though: ever since Peter Parker announced to the world that he was Spider-Man, he's been on the run. But would any random person on the street really see him and say "Hey, that's Peter Parker! He's Spider-Man!" I mean, he just looks like some dude. There's nothing really memorable about his appearance. Sure, Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but who the hell is Peter Parker? If he really wanted to visit Aunt May in the hospital, couldn't he just grow a beard or dye his hair?
The Batman Strikes #39
I don't know how interested kids are going to be in a comic primarily about corporate sabotage and ethical business practices, but I certainly liked it. A lot.
Iron Man and Power Pack #1
All that I want to say about this is: Best. Cover. Ever.
Superman Confidential #9
While we wait patiently for the final issue of the Cooke/Sale run on this comic, we first suffered through two of the most horrible issues of anything ever, and now we have moved on to this wonderful little New Gods story. Seriously, this run, of which this is the second issue, is really great so far. It's telling the story of the first time Superman was introduced to the Fourth World, and it's really entertaining.
Wonder Girl #3
I am so happy that this comic has potentially ended the mourning of Con El by Wonder Girl. I was really getting tired of that shit.
Yay for moving on!
And yay for being done this post!
Living Between Wednesdays is a place for people who love comic books and superheroes.
