The Alternative Publishers Review – Part 5 of 5 of The Week of March 13 in Review

To round out the week we will close with my remarks on the alternative publishers’ offerings. Damn Joe Casey got in my head as I used to just call this category other. It is funny but a large portion of the alternative offerings are still either licensed deals or super hero in some form or another. Comic books tend to lend themselves to the more fantastic and allow one to produce stories with an unlimited budget (in that doing the stuff the artists draws on paper is cheaper then getting it on the screen).

The best book of the week has to be Todd The Ugliest Kid on Earth #3 (of 4) by Ken Kristensen and MK Perker. Seriously I read pages to my wife and forced her to read a few pages as I was laughing so much as I was reading it. I probably impacted her relentless focus on her iphone. This is Mad Magazine at its best on steroids and a book that sees social taboos as things to leave in the rear view mirror. It starts with the police detective trying to ignore any evidence that Todd is not the killer and moves onto scary scenes of running out of toilet paper in a killer’s house. It has Todd’s parents in stalker mode and being easy mode. Todd learning the ropes in prison has to be the best scene of all. Last and far from least we are provided with a wonderful glossary to jail terms. This book is flat out my favorite book of the year and one of the funniest damn comic produced in ages.

Where is Jake Ellis #3 (of 5) is just a good damn comic. Nathan Edmondson is becoming known to me as the spy / covert operations type of writer and his work is very engaging. Tonci Zonic art is out of the Mike Mignola type of school but with a fluid feel to it. The adventure of Jon remaining on the run from some sort of government agency and his bizarre mind partnership with Jake Ellis has been a good one. This is the second mini-series in I don’t know how many, but I do know I want the 10 issue hardcover to read the story over in one sitting. It is a fun ride with plenty of twist and turns. It is one of the better books on the shelf.

Marvel Now – Image Later? – The Marvel Books Part 4 of 5 – The Week of March 13 in Review

It is time to get into the Marvel books and my commentary on Marvel. My biggest gripe with Marvel at this point is the insane publishing schedule. Due to their aggressive publishing of issues of books week after week, at times, I have been compelled to drop some smaller titles. I guess it is a good thing as anything marginal is getting the ax a little quicker.

Age of Ultron #2 by Brian Bendis, Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary literally came out last week. What the hell is this all about? I know one thing Marvel has decided that the event books are great money and Avengers vs X-Men showed them to push it out the door ASAP. As a fan I’m happier to see the story faster, as a consumer it is annoying as the dollar outlay is fast and furious and I often barely have a chance to make an assessment of whether I’m all in or not (with add on books and such stuff). At this point I have to assume this is an alternative future story and like the DC Rotworld story everything will be re-set but we will get some sort of change that will be a revelation that will rival the invention of the wheel and sliced bread. Unlike Rotworld it is 10 issues and not 40 and it should be over in about 4 months as opposed to 18, so I can forgive it more then I can Rotworld. Finally the art is great as Hitch and Neary are the successors to the Adams/Giordano school of super hero art. One thing is odd is that this appears to be Peter Parker Spider-Man and not Potto Parker, but it is not important in an alternative future book.

Alpha #2 (of 5) by Joshua Fialkov and Nuno Plati is a fun filled piece of fluff. It has an indie feel to the book and I’m not fond of the character, but I’m a fan of Joshua Fialkov so I’m giving him a chance to win me over. So far it is a good story of a high school student who has super powers but has no clue how to be a hero.

The Week of March 13 in Review – DC I Read Some DC – Part 3 of 5

So outside of my rant on the kid heroes I have decided this week to go old school and just spew out some commentary on all that I have read at this point. I actually managed to read most of everything this week. Just to keep the posts to a reasonable size I have decided to break out the books into my basic categories of DC, Marvel and Alternative.

Threshold #3 by Keith Giffen, Tom Raney, Phil Winslade and Scott Kolins is an amusing book. I have no clue how much longer this book can last. It is $4, it has no character that anyone outside of 40 plus years old would recognize and even I don’t recognize the new iterations of the characters. We have Captain Carrot, Tommy Tomorrow, Star Hawkins, Space Cabbie and the Star Rovers. All of these and other characters are running around as updated renditions with many jokes that I only sometimes get because I did not follow all of these characters. I would buy a hardcover collection of this material. DC has a wealth of stuff that would appears goofy by today’s standards but was a lot of fun to read back when I was a kid. We still have to add Space Ranger and Ultra The Multi-Alien and how can’t wait to see Adam Strange again. Hell if the amusement for me is marginal I can only imagine what other fans think. The over sales on this book must be abysmal.

Suicide Squad #18 by Adam Glass, Henrik Jonsson and Sandu Florea is losing my interest. I keep thinking back to the Suicide Squad by John Ostrander and Luke Ross for the most part and realize this book is inferior to that work. They had missions and actual objectives. This book is all over the place and the normal DCU problem I have keeps creeping into my enjoyment of the book. I think I know these characters and I don’t. Amanda Waller is not what she was, Harley maybe, Deadshot I have no clue. Regulus who has been built up as a bad guy is back already. We have had the “Death of the Family” interruption to the book. I’m a little lost and also a lot of don’t care. I may go one more issue, but I doubt it.

Random Thoughts The Week of March 13 in Review Part 2 of 5

The headline from Bleeding Cool is: “Apple Bans Sex, Image Tells You Where You Can Find It”. Now I enjoy their play on words, but I have to wonder why is it that blood and guts to the nth degree causes nary a stir, but to show actual sex is still considered just too much. The Puritanical streak that runs through America culture is so odd that we are a rather open society in some ways and are willing to accept all sorts of things. We are moving towards a nationwide legal acceptance of gay marriage which seems to be a society no longer moored to old taboos. We have comics and movies that have destruction on a massive scale and espouse the idea we are a country of free speech, but we draw the line at some strange places.  

So apparently Vibe and Katana did not do well with their opening issues and that could spell the death of both of their books. I have to laugh that after one month and the handwriting is on the wall. It is sad, but often true. Especially with DC, as they pull the plug fast lately. It shows also that Geoff Johns is not an automatic draw anymore and no matter how much the company wants to shove a character down our throats – we will resist. Vibe can’t be made cool over night.

The Kid’s Are Not Alright – Avenger’s Arena #6 – A Commentary – Part 1 of 5 The Week of March 13 in Review

So of course before we jump in I need to give you links. The clean and simple list is at Cosmic Comix and the detailed list is at MidtownComics. The best books this week are all in the Alternative department with Chew, anew series called Five Ghosts, BPRD, Strom Dogs, Saga, Harbinger and Judge Dredd Year One. A quick side note.  I watched the new Dredd movie and it was great. It was a Judge Dredd story translated to the movie screen. I can see why it didn’t do well as I don’t think Judge Dredd has a really broad appeal, but I think they did the character justice.  One more note I have added a Random Thoughts Post as Part 2. I like to get this stuff out there when I can and if I let it sit too long any news items looses its immediacy.

Okay and now onto the Week In Review.

I’m reading Avengers Arena #6 and (SPOILER) Kid Briton gets decapitated at the end. Now this series started with the ending of the story and we know who is alive at the end or do we? The comic book world is full of the twists and turns that guarantee no death has to be real. The entire book, which I worry about, could be a lie. We could be in a matrix type storyline of any other one of a thousand different ways to say the whole thing is a set-up and it only happened in their minds or some such crap. It could be Bobby Ewing stepping out of a shower at the end.

The Week of March 16 in Review Preview – Done in Five Part Harmony

So this week a snippet from each part.

The Kid’s Are Not Alright – Avenger’s Arena #6 – A Commentary – Part 1 of 5 The Week of March 13 in Review

This book made me realize that Marvel has sucked when it comes to making kid characters I care about. I have limited interest in Young Avengers, especially when the core of the book appears to be about a gay romance. I don’t give a whit about them being gay, I just don’t want to read Young Romance and if I do read Young Romance I’d rather read something I can relate to a little more (of course a happy marriage about a guy in his fifties and his wife would probably not sell). The bottom line is that regardless of the story I find it hard to stay with Young Avengers and Avengers Arena. Oddly Kate Bishop in the Hawkeye book appears to no longer be a kid hero and I love her in that book.

Random Thoughts The Week of March 13 in Review Part 2 of 5

The bru-ha-ha caused by Jerry Ordway is all over the place. When I read it I felt Jerry’s pain a little. He was bemoaning the fates that he signed an exclusive and had not worried about asking about guaranteed work. Not sure what the exclusive deal did for him then, but it is common mistake that when dealing with a corporation you forget they have lawyers drawing up this stuff. People trust the person they are dealing with and mistake the person for the company. I tell people all the time a corporation is a soulless entity and will do what ever it needs to do that best serves its goal which is to make money.  There are people in those companies who will treat people fairly, but you can’t depend on that. Jerry was lamenting the changing of the guard that goes on in every walk of life.

Comic Covers Sunday: World's Finest

I try not to use the Comic Covers Sunday's post to make fun of old comics.  There are plenty of bad covers out there and we've all seen them.  I'm not saying it never happens, just that I try not to.  I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about this week until I stumbled upon the end of the World's Finest series.  This was just before the first Crisis series and DC was in a rut.  I was all prepared to make fun of these books... and then I looked at them.  There are some really interesting ones.  Then as it got close to the end and, well, let's just say they deserve to be made fun of.

World's Finest #295, September 1983
Pencils: Ed Hannigan
Inks: Klaus Janson
I know, I said wasn't looking for humor and here I am starting with the Moon Dancers.  It's a silly cover with Batman strapped to the moon.  Silly but lovable.