cenTramblings #1

It's been a while since any of the heads have contributed our comic book know-how to old Al's information superhighway. Things did get a bit busy there for a while, but still, we ought not have let you, our adoring public, go so long without those opinions you crave. I mean, how many days have we ruined by depriving some down on their luck web surfer the opportunity for a little levity and profanity by way of ol' RHD's (semi-)drunken ramblings? Well, times be a changing again and we're bring it back...old school.

For my part, I've got a whole jumble of thoughts rollicking around in this wizened noggin, causing me to almost seize up when confronted with the prospect of writing anything down. Imagine the opposite of an aphasia and that might be about what it's been like. Consequently, I've opted to start a new column in which I can pretty much let loose and write in a less orderly manner than I typically prefer, just so as to get it all out there in something approaching a coherent form. Over the next few weeks I'll work most everything out as I give my thoughts on the last few months of comic-ing that has been so woefully under-covered by everyone's favorite three-headed dog. It's gonna be a wild ride, so hold on as you plunge into the depths of cenTrale's mind. (On a related note: I have yet to come up with a title for this new column. I was thinking maybe “cenTrifugal Force” or “cenTrale's Cranial EsCapades” or something. Suggestions are more than welcome.)

Let's begin in a quasi-alphabetical manner with an obsession near and dear to my thrice-shared heart: Aquaman. By now you should all know that the revamped Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis has been canceled. Or maybe you don't know that and this is the first time you've heard about Aquaman or his comic since, well, I last wrote about it back in June. Given how things have gone since – they got worse – you've probably spared yourself quite a bit of pain. Seriously.

I remain flummoxed, though, at how little folks seem to care about this guy, despite his years of existence and the relatively light use that has been made of him. You've got a character that for all intents and purposes does not share a world with the rest of the DC characters: he's under the sea (cue a singing crab) and they're all mucking about on the surface, wandering into one another's cities and generally pissing each other off with mind-wipes, crises of conscience, and universe threatening events. So, yeah, the stakes may seem to be higher for the wider set of DC heroes, yet there exists a shared continuity that is almost always going to be frustrating and imprecise. Aquaman, meanwhile, by virtue of where he spends the majority of his time and the relatively light use of the character is effectively a carte blanche. Do with him as you will and the odds are good that you won't be treading on too many toes. Seriously, the Green Arrow gets more attention than Aquaman, and that was even while Ollie was dead.

But, you know what? My Aquaman history isn't perfect. I know the detailed facts, but have yet to read all of the comics and therefore can't say for sure what the qualified information is: the kind of interactions that took place, the precise relationship between Aquaman and the other heroes, how well he's been written in the past and how consistent that writing has been. I just don't know. What I do know, however, is the recent history, Sword of Atlantis. And I have to say, as a fan of comics and someone who has always had a soft spot in his heart for Aquaman (and Namor...I don't know why I like these characters but clearly I've got some kind of watery fixation...let's not delve too deeply into this one), the treatment of the revamped Aquaman has been atrocious.

The decision to revamp the series with a new name and protagonist and the decision to end it due to poor sales both came out of the same appropriate thought process: giving the series a shot. It's been clear for some time that folks don't really give a crap about this character and the fact that he appears in pop culture as a joke doesn't really help his case any. So, take the concept, tweak it a bit, and allow the book to (forgive me for saying this) sink or swim on its own. Again, there isn't much I disagree with here. Personally, I'd have had no problem had they simply kept things the same with the old Aquaman working to restore the peace and prosperity of the undersea kingdoms in the wake of Atlantis' destruction, but I was also fine with following this new kid as he worked to do the same, but with pretty much no idea of how things were before and what to expect around the next reef or at the end of a current. On top of all that Busiek and Guice were absolutely nailing it, providing a strong narrative and anchoring the characters in Aqua-history while leaving things free and clear to develop in new directions. What they started could, had the numbers held up, have led to easily 60 issues of story before they really needed to adjust things again, maybe reestablish Atlantis or shake up the status quo in some new manner. But the numbers didn't hold up and it became necessary to kill the book. Again, this all follows from the initial premise. The problem is that the lagging numbers had, as far as I'm concerned, little to do with the core concepts behind the book and everything in the world to do with the change in creative team. Maybe the book would have failed anyway, but it sure as hell would not have pissed me off quite so much by the end had Tad Williams and Shawn McManus not graced its pages.

I'll start with McManus because I at least respect him and, in truth, what happened was really nowhere near as much his fault as it was Williams'. It was quite startling to flip through Absolute Sandman Vol. 2 and discover that the artist for the “A Game of You” arc was McManus. Hell, he even drew “Three Septembers and a January” one of my favorite issues in the entire run. The art was perfect throughout and perfectly fit the stories being told. So I say I was startled because I hate (def.: pure, blind, seething rage aroused by the site of the artist's work in a specific context) his work on Aquaman. Everyone just looks deformed. I mentioned in a previous review the elongated jaws and how annoying they are and, well, they remained annoying. Towards the end I still hated the art but could tolerate it enough that I stopped trying to gouge out my eyes upon opening the book. Maybe I got used to it or maybe Tad Williams' scripts broke me. I dunno. Some blame obviously needs to be placed on the colorist as there is no difference between the underwater scenarios and those on dry land, but hey, I've only got so much vitriol to expend. So, yeah, the art sucked and that certainly hurt the book. On the other hand, nothing could have saved it from Tad Williams, so no harm no foul Shawn.

Tad, on the other hand, much like Lucy has some 'splainin' to do. I can only assume he was brought in because of his fantasy/sci-fi credentials. Surely he'd have a good idea of how to keep the sword-and-sorcery vibe going, right? Er, no, not really. Within an issue or two all that was done and over with. In fact, we spent the last couple issues dealing with a conspiracy to destroy much of the world via some pseudo-scientific attack on fault lines that would result in a displaced Atlantean taking control of the population that survived on in the water (a mutagen was going to be introduced to change people and give them a chance at surviving underwater...or something) while none other than Vandal Savage took over the dry land. That's right: Vandal Savage. Just how many plots does this guy have going at once? Could we use some other crazed villain that looks like a caveman instead? It's just that I feel like the character is best when underutilized and he's already been in JSA recently and...I hate you Tad Williams.

But there was a sorcery edge to all of it with a scary conspiracy and the return of Tempest in a much reduced and weakened form that, given the series cancellation, will NOT BE ANSWERED ANYTIME SOON!!! Yeah, that leaves a really good taste in the mouth. Let's alter course so drastically that from one issue to another the whole damn series is all but unrecognizable and then, just for the hell of it, let's throw in a bunch of cameos by the other members of the JLA just so we can have them in a couple of panels not knowing what to make of the dead Aquaman (Oh, I forgot to mention didn't I? They offed the Dweller (the original Aquaman) within two issues.) and just look goofy underwater (not that they looked any different than had they been drawn on land I suppose). Not to mention the fact that the series seemed to be taking aim at removing the surface world from the equation for a while just so as to firmly establish that whole “underwater-epic” thing. Guess Tad didn't get the memo. Back to the action though and now we have Cyborg thrown into the mix along with the Human Flying Fish (a character from back in the day) but let's make sure he's extra goofy so that ridiculous name and premise has no shot of being taken at all seriously, even by the other characters. Finally, we'll use some horrendous dialogue that had to be written deliberately to sound hip though there's no way no one could think that it even got beat up in the same neighborhood by “hip” just so all the readers walk away from each and every issue unable to even hope things could get better. Yeah, let's do that. I almost wonder if Tad didn't deliberately aim at that ice berg...and we're talking Titanic, not that cruise liner down in Antarctica.

I kinda have to stop there or my head might explode and then we wouldn't be much of a Cerberus, now would we? All that said, and I think it's pretty clear that there was no way sales would pick up, especially when someone like me – hooked on the series with the Busiek re-launch – gave deep thought to just dropping it all together before they made the decision for me. It's so annoying more because the series had great potential and in the space of 8 issues it was ruined. Here's hoping there'll be a re-re-launch that involves a tidal wave taking out a bookstore during a Tad Williams event...and no one investigating the cause.

So that's it for round one of the cenTramblings. Yeah, I decided on a name. Your contributions are of course still welcome. I just won't consider them. 'Til next time, I remain yours,

cenTrale

sinister monday #14 (Mighty Avengers #5)

How's this for something out of the ordinary. One might even describe it as extraordinary. For this week's Sinister Monday column I am going to do what i haven't done in months. Give you, the reader, a full length single comic book review. The image used above should tip you off as to which title I will be reviewing. Also, I never secured any permission to use it so if anyone from Marvel reads this and it gets their panties in a bunch I'll happily remove it--but the way I see it I am providing free advertisement for both your products and website so... yeah, don't be a dick about it.

Mighty Avengers #5
"Storytellers": BENDIS! and Frank Cho (yeah, you read that right, storytellers)
Coloring: Jason Kieth

Well, this issue has been a long time coming. Feels like several months. Moving quickly to the point, and not to put all my cards on the table so soon or anything, but why is it that nearly every comic that is significantly delayed sucks balls? Seriously, this happened a few months back with Kirkman's Walking Dead too. An ocean of time between books and then some haphazard POS with dialogue severely in need of editing and art that looked at best rushed and at worst incomplete. You'd think with all that time they had you'd at least given it a couple of read-throughs. or something. What was truly frustrating about the WD was that a week later another issue followed that was stunning, and then a fortnight or so later yet another which was equally as good. Three issues in a month. It was almost as if the people in charge of creative control were struggling to fix the many problems on the delayed issue and just focused on the stories ahead to the point where Captain Delay finally had to be kicked out the door sucking and screaming before his brothers Above-Averagey and Pretty Damn Finey could be sent on their way too.

Before I go into the specifics of Mighty's many flaws this month, allow me to pick at some "political" douchebaggery that crops up before we even get panel number 1 (and yes I should probably be giving Jon Stewart royalties for using the term "political douchebaggery"). On the opening page featuring the back-story and the equivalent of the Mighty Avengers theme song there is something fishy going on with credits. Now I don't have the first few issues of Mighty to look at as a means of comparison, but here we find no writer or artist singular, merely "Storytellers": BENDIS! and Frank Cho. It's almost like BENDIS! is trying to protect his dear friend's rep, seeing as Cho has a notoriously slow hand and is almost certainly the primary reason behind the delay. When an artist and writer are listed separately then one can single a fella out and bludgeon them to death, if necessary. But when both artist and writer are "storytellers," well, then its much harder to lay the blame *cough cough CHO cough*. Because seriously, BENDIS! writes like a zillion things and meets deadlines with uncanny reliability (I'm looking at you, Ultimate Spider-Man). So it's not his fault. Perhaps part of the blame belongs on the rest of the Marvel U, seeing as New Avengers at one point felt like it was miles behind its Mighty brethren. And then there was the whole Secret Invasion reveal. Maybe Mighty just needed to have its alignment fixed, moving it back on track. But I just don't by it. Because now it feels as if it is the one miles behind that other Avengers title.

Of course, Cho might have been helped out of BENDIS! had actually written any dialogue for this issue. For long stretches of page, sometimes pages, writing takes a back-seat to art. All told there is very little verbiage, especially if you discount the oppressively frequent 'Password Override' warnings that infest the latter pages of the issue like so many of Pym's bees. Yet there is space enough for a few thought bubbles. I've commented favorably on them in the past, but there use here is pure excess. Sometimes the character simply repeats what they have just 'thought' in their dialogue bubble two centimeters away. It's almost like BENDIS! was aware of his extensive use in previous chapters and felt obliged to continue on here. It's needlessly distracting.

Now there are other problems with what might be described as the 'writing' of this issue (if such an individual task exists in this "storytelling" tag-team adventure), like schizophrenic pacing and unclear setting (it's very difficult to locate where specific actions are taking place in both time and space) but much of what is most irritating occurs in the artwork. And for that I'm going to need begin another paragraph. A very very large paragraph.

Cho is quite obviously a master among his peers. His attention to detail is commendable, especially when concerned with the human anatomy. I swear the dude rips out his Gray's Anatomy and thumbs over to the 'Muscle' chapter and painstakingly reproduces every last twitch on his heroes and heroines. I have no problem with this. Nor do i have a problem with his tendency to zoom in on T & A. My problem, initially, is with the inking. No individual inker is listed in the credits so by default I am going to have to level the blame, yet again, on Mr. Cho. There is far too much Chris Ware-ian Power-Puff Girls style thick outlining going on. Everything has a clunky black frame. And this only serves to make delineations on the interior of objects and people darker than they need to be. This all spirals down to the point where strands of hair, on Ares shoulders and back, say, or anywhere really, get much much to thick. I never thought I would say this but i would love to see this issue redrawn by Leinil Yu. Ares, for one, would be a great benefactor from Yu's raw frenzy. Instead Ares just looks like a really hairy suped up version of Jimmy Corrigan. And like Corrigan, I'm now very depressed.

Another huge batch of unpleasantness lay with the coloring. A single colorist is sited here, so Mr. Jason Kieth? It's time for a paddling. The colors are flat and most times too dark. Either one is a bad thing. Combined, each exacerbates the other. Add these defects to the cookie-cutter bold lines of Cho's ink the effect is multiplied further. As a result there is very little depth to anything (save rippling muscle shadows here and there, less here and mostly there on the Sentry's preposterously toned gluts.). The only character this combination of artistic choices seems to work for is Carol Danvers whose already vibrant mix of dark and electric colors isn't hindered any by this issue's failings. Her hair still looks like the additive plastic top a little girl would affix to her genderless lego being in order to designate 'Girl', but I'll let that slide in the face of so much terribleness elsewhere.

Quite simply, female mega-babe-supposed-to-be the-body-of-the-Wasp-but-quite-clearly-isn't Ultron exemplifies everything that is wrong about this comic's visual idiosyncrasies. Ultron is never drawn the same way twice. In the beginning she is fleshy looking, then when battle breaks out she is sheathed in a liquid platinum unitard which conveniently covers up the naughty bits. As the Sentry pounds away on her, Ultron's face is often misshapen, which would be fine, but again those thick black outlines make her look less malleable and more like some sort of zeppelin or amoeba. All surface and no interior (from Cho, go figure) you can practically hear Ultron hissing back to 'full' after being hit and deflated. She's also preposterously muscular and huge, two things that I'm fairly certain Wasp isn't. Janet is a lot of things, a glamour girl, a busty heiress, a victim of the most infamous case of domestic violence in the history of Marvel comics, but she ain't a body builder. If Ultron were truly trying to take the shape it's creator favors most (again, Janet, at least at one time) then why the Flo-Jo legs? Or is this some sort of unholy mix of both the Wasp and Iron Man? We know Tony is in there somewhere (allegedly deceased. riiiiight...) but we are never told anything physical of Tony remains, other than him being some sort of fleshy conduit for Ultron. Again, frustratingly unclear.

I'm going to leave off with some questions and a final verdict i was once sad to hear, and am now strangely happy. One, will this series ever be in sync with New Avengers? If Spider-Woman hauled off Skrullectra to Tony, when does this happen? Before or after he is gender bent? And that whole Symbiote plague... are we ever going to get to that? Okay, questions over. Happy/sad verdict? Cho's out. I wonder if this will be enough to salvage this series. In more ways than one, bring on the New.

Rating: Starscream

sinister monday #14

Had some time to slowly starve, emaciate and kill while I was downtown t'other day and lo! A comic book shop raises its hoary head. Now, I have my pull-list set up at the LCS in my own hood, so it wasn't like I could just buy everything up and be set for the week's end. No, I could not do that to the store that has been very good to me, the store that helped me acquire the entire Fables run. But I could sink some money into various properties I don't have on my pull list. Like a pair of number 1s released this week from Image.

Suburban Glamour #1 was all like fancy and shit. and full of bright colors and I thought it looked pretty and wanted it and coveted it and it was shiny and it made me think in run-on sentences. The cover alone was a nifty pink and black number with an appropriately fashionable punk-ish young lady enveloped in what appears to be a fine mixture of pixie dust and bizarre hybrid beasties which look like a cross between the men's room symbol and those creepy-ass bears radiohead sometimes uses on their website.

Plot wise there was a lot of angst. A lot of boredom. Seriously, when i was a young man, I wasn't half as bored throughout the entirety of my teens as much as some fictional young men and women appear to be in many contemporary sitcoms, novels, blogs, and hundreds of comic books. In fact, if i had some down time... I'd have spent it reading fucking comic books! Not sitting on a couch with other androgynous dark clothes'd whiny ass bitches. Oh, the slings and arrows of youth! Not old enough to be trusted with any responsibilities but old enough to have all the desires of an adult. blah blah blah. You know how you circumvent that kind of crushing ennui? Do a ton of blow and have a few abortions. Or just grow a pair, wait it out, play a few hours of Halo and get a job.

Sword #1 has a lot more going for it and I'm not just talking about the Luna Brothers. It had some real menace, some real character development (aside-- now that i think about it, SG wasn't so bad after all, just my rejection of the themes... story wise, construction wise, it was strong, almost elegant... one more reason it pisses me off) and some villains that would make you wet your pants. You know, the kind that dispense needless violence and appear to like it. I don't want to discuss the plot very much, suffice it to say a hero is born, er, armed (and re-legged).

I have very mixed feelings about the art work tho. The lines are crisp, it certainly has its own style, but the flat colors make things very Chris Ware-ian, sorta Dan Clowes-ian, and just the connotation of those guys gets a man feeling kinda low. Yet the writing more than makes up for this, and I am looking forward to the next chapter.

Closing out Sinister Monday is this head-scratchingly ridiculous piece of dumbfuckery by the House of Ideas. Okay, here's the deal. You have this mini-series comprising the back pages most of your X-titles. It is supposed to be the lead in to your mega-crossover Messiah Complex. You call it "Endangered Species" and it kinda sucks. How do you ice this kind of crap-cake? Well I'll tell you.

Last week, X-factor #24 contained the 15th chapter of Dr McCoy's uninteresting quest, made all the more uninteresting by the vaguely Heroes-ish but still mega-fucking cool conclusion of Peter David's "isolationist" story thread in the main pages of X-factor. Anyhow, the final page of Endangered Species chapter 15 instructs the reader to check back for the next installment in New X-men #43. Only one problem-- New X-men isn't slated to ship until Halloween. You know what is scheduled to ship one week earlier? X-men #204 with the final chapter 17.

Obviously the Marvel brain-trust will correct this, most likely with pushing back X-men #204, but in either case, way to fucking go. If this has any effect on delaying "Messiah Complex" I'm'a gonna start seeing Scott Summers style red. you know, assuming he's not asphyxiated and floating out in deep space.

Okay, vitriol.... expended. see ya next week.

TGIC #6

It's been a while and I gotta say...it's grrrreat to be back!!! Seriously, I'm so jazzed right now that I can't tell if it's 'cause I'm back annunciating growls here on ye olde worlde wide webe or from all of the caffeine I've added to my diet ever since the siren cut out about half of my calories. Apparently there are starving children in Africa and the goal is for me to lose the equivalent of one off of my central quarters. The key is to only consume souls that have committed carnal sins, and not snacking on those besmirched by the less serious but higher in fatty acid sins of omission. It's gonna be weird, though, with beer-bellied RHD and lithely gaunt LeftD on either side, my protrudings kinda balanced the whole houndish bod out...Oh well.

I must say that I really am super-pumped to be back here laying my thang down and rapping about whatever comic-booky goodness comes to mind in a vernacular so crusty that after this next phrase, I'm'a have no choice but to drop it like it is, well, hot. Anyways, on to the comics!!!

Lots has been afoot since I last checked in and yet not a whole lot has changed. I mean, sure, Spider-Man apparently has only got “One More Day,” some mutant has got a “Messiah Complex,” New Gods are dropping left and right, Green Lanterns are getting their collective Corps keister handed to them, and the Phalanx are rewriting the cosmic code of the Marvel Universe. Yet, you know what they say: the more things change, the greater the quantity of damage Tad Williams does to old cenTrale's already fragile psyche. It's not like the problems that plagued the Big Two back when I was still semi-regularly enlightening your dark and beleaguered lives have gone away: Morrison is still writing super-awkward Batman stories that kinda leave ya scratching your head with your front paw; Countdown marches inexorably onwards to an event that had better be damned good if it wants to have any hope of redeeming itself; zombies pop up at random and not at all appropriate moments (and, yes, there is a time and place and, therefore, an appropriate moment for the appearance of zombies); and did I mention that Aquaman continues to really, really, really suck?

There is a bright side to a hold-the-line, maintain-the-status-quo approach, and that is the high quality we continue to see in several series. Casanova remains bizarre but wonderful (and dare I say a review may be on the horizon?). Criminal is just a ridiculously solid comic with wonderfully solid storytelling and art that – very, very quietly – keeps the reader coming back for more and more. X-Factor reminds us each and every month that Peter David really is that good and every event has far more material worthy of mining and exploration than ever sees the light of day. So many others come to mind (Scalped, DMZ, Fables, Nova, etc.), but the two that continually rock my world are The Spirit and Immortal Iron Fist. I mean, sweet Orpheus, how can you not have either of these two titles on your pull list. Brubaker and Fraction are simply laying it down (any martial arts fight that ends with the winner calling for his victory wenches has me at “wench”) old school and with Cooke pushing The Spirit more fully into the kind of social interrogation for which Eisner's run was so well-loved and respected? Whoa, Nelly.

I'm'a leave it at that and I will be back next week for a little more of that something something that keeps you sane on Friday. 'Til then, howl on...and we'll get RHD back soon.

3. Sentence. Howls. (October 10, 2007)

Captain America #30
Writer: Brubs
Pencils: Epting and Perkins

I've always enjoyed the art on Cap with the following proviso--it reminds me two much of Lark, and thus Maleev. The gritty photo-realistic stuff is fine and I really shouldn't have a problem with it other than the derivativeness but there it is anyway. Having said that the pencils/inking/coloring of Natasha (Black Widow) is outstanding and if comic book crushes existed... *sigh*.
Rating: Gimli

New X-men #42
Writer: Yost and Kyle (a.k.a. the sadistic child torturers)
Pencils: Young and Perkins (yes, same dude as Cap)

This series is consistently entertaining. The kids are alright (after a trip to Hell no less). Its also nice to see them messing around with the more established characters because seriously, I'm pretty sure every possible interaction between Beast/Logan/Cyke/Colossus/etc has already been done, and the only way you are going see honest to goodness growth from the old guard is give them something new to try and deal with/take care of/fail to protect and allow to get horribly maimed.
Rating: Snake-eyes

World War Hulk #4
Writer: Pak
Pencils: Romita Jr.

Lest i forget let me lead this by saying there is nothing wrong with the art, in fact it is so good that in places it masks just how sorry and weak the plot has become. I hatehatehate reviewers who whine about how in issue 'x' "nothing happens." having said that I hated it when in WWH #4, nothing fucking happened.
Rating: Starscream

Avengers: the Initiative #6
Writer: Dan Slott
Art (yes all of it): Steve Uy

I must say I really like Marvel's younger set, from Runaways to the above referenced X-kiddies to these here grunts in the Initiative. The 'surprise' ending here kinda falls flat and can be guessed in advance by anyone paying moderate attention) kinda drags this chapter down but the artwork in its anime-esque simplicity is underwhelmingly good. Good enough to make me want to search for more work of Uy, if that is an real last name (yes, i'm an ugly american and like my last names vanilla, like, um, er... brubaker, BENDIS!, and kirkman).
Rating: Gimli

X-men #203
Writer: Whorebag McCarey
Artists: Ramos and (big fucking surprise) Perkins.

More. Of. The Same.
Rating: Lando

Countdown(s) #31-29
Writers: DC's JV team
Artists: various and sundry

Well, the writing isn't nearly as bad as most reviews would suggest. What we get doesn't seem very important, or crucial, or sometimes even interesting, but it doesn't appear to be the writers fault as I'm sure they have an outline that tells them what has to be accomplished by when and where. Its not their fault Countdown has become something, okay, everything of an afterthought but i still soldier on, relentlessly flushing money down the crapper in hopes that finally, some week, something will make all this drudgery worthwhile. *not holding breath*
Rating: Lando

52 v3 (TP)
Writers: DC's Varsity squad
Artists: too many to mention.

I flat-out love this series and am kinda bummed i missed out on reading them in real time. So odd, so well written, often funny, never dull, all good things, no? And I still get another volume in November... yeah!
Rating: Voltron

Sinister Monday #13

From the adjacent hall you can hear a broom sweeping. The smell of disinfectant and moth-balls hangs in the air. Sheets have been slipped from various pieces of furniture and the lights have been turned on. Nice to be back at the Ole Cerberus stomping grounds. Sinister Monday is back up and running after a long, unplanned holiday. I'd like to say that much has changed in comics over the past few months but I can't. You know how comic-book time works. A few months equals a few days, a few weeks if things are really motoring, a few hours if you are, say, the Mighty Avengers.

Examples? Well, aside from that disparaging throwaway line about Carol and the Initiative's Republican Guard...

In Kirkman's Walking Dead we are zombie-shambling forward to the big battle between Home Sweet Prison and the boys from Woodbury. There's already been some fatalities, but please, this is Kirkman we're talking about here. I'm surprised people don't die doing their laundry or clipping their nails.

Scene: Alice (or Ashley, or A-Something, some anonymous girlname, I really can't tell them apart which is sometimes the point in WD, i.e. these people are just regular people, not heroes, just faces in a crowd... that faces an even bigger crowd of ravenous undead) is standing in front of a sink, nail-clipper poised ominously in one hand. Inexplicable light gleams off the cutting edge. She holds up her fingers before her face and wiggles them.

"Been a long time...," she mumbles. And with the first clip she breaks the skin. Blood starts gushing out, EvilDead style, spraying the walls, soaking her orange jumpsuit.

"I'm starting to feel faint... no, hey, that's odd, every cell of my body hurts ridiculously bad. Its like I'm dying or something. or perhaps changing into something other than dead or alive..." 'A' says, dropping the clippers, blood stoppering up to a trickle. Her eyes go cloudy, she begins to gag and groan. She stumbles out of the bathroom.
And cut.

Seriously, i'm really excited about the next few issues of WD. I think the avenues this holy war will open up will significantly enhance the story-line. Specifically if the Prison is breached in such a way that prevents it from being adequately repaired, and our boys and girls need to hit the road once more.

In New Avengers we had alot more "well let's try and prove a couple more times that each of us is not a Skrull." Yet this led to a really neat sequence where Doc Strange's enchantment shows that Echo very much wants to Daredevil, Clint Barton truly is Captain America (or at least a version of Cap), Luke Cage shoulda never swapped out his afro and Spidey is just plain miserable.

Speaking of Peter... One More Day is challenging Back in Black for slowest plot-line in the Marvel U. Aunt May is dying. Peter has no money. MJ is being alienated. Everyone is out to get Spider-Man. All of this serious drama and yet... no drama. All we get is a Kingpin beatdown (which I'll admit, was cool as hell) and alot of whiny woe-is-me, look-what-I-hath-cast-down-upon-my-loved-ones! bs. With great power comes great... ah put a cork in it. Save that for Tobey Macguire.

Beast's quest in "Endangered Species" limps forward. Its, um, supposed to be hopeless, right? Is that why it moves so slow? To show us how little ground we're making up? In this corner, Dark Beast. He's like Beast only with no moral compass. And in this corner there's the real McCoy (hehe, couldn't resist). And boy should the sparks fly having them working together. Sparks? hello, sparks? anyone seen any sparks?

I have a slew of further comics that I haven't read that I will be catching up on this week. Among them World War Hulk, Uncanny X-man, The Justice League, Cap, etc. If you are looking for a less Marvel-centric point of view, well, wake up my sleeping brothers, RHD and El CenTrale. I was at the LCS the other day with them and boy howdy, do they have Indies and DCs and Skekzies to spare. Thats all for now...

leftD

perty pic-a-ture.

doesn't this just make you go all squishy inside (in a good way)?
James GENIUS.

52 Things I've Enjoyed Reading in the First 3 Trades of DC's Infamous Weekly Comics Series

52. The Emerald Head of Ekron.
51. a DC comic where Batman doesn't play a major or even significant subsidiary role.
50. J. G. Jones's covers. Absolutely stunning.
49. Kathy Kane-- nothing like an inexplicably hot red-head lesbian dark knight.
48. The fact that unlike Countdown, there is a collection of tight stories following several different heroes/groups that you can count on moving along steadily every issue or so and that you are invested in because (unlike Countdown) they are like, um, well-written and stuff.
47. Pretty much every scene on Oolong Island (hello, mad-scientists from around the world, collected and given an infinite checking account?)
46. The just plain weird shit that consistently happens. I'm looking at you Grant Morrison.
45. The roller-coaster ride that is following Booster Gold.
44. The depth of knowledge this series has given me about the DC Universe. Seriously, the writers must have read every issue ever on every character ever written ever.
43. Egg Fu. hehe.
42. The fact that I have listed 10 things before even referring to Black Adam in the slightest.
41. the fact that Black Adam is one bad mother.
40. Watching Black Adam finally fall in love and start a family (this is going to work out so well! Um, right the Hulk?)
39. Those gruesome and totally awesome (sorry for unleashing my inner fan-boy) depictions of the latter 3 Four Horsemen. They would give my nightmares nightmares.
38. Pretty much every scene Animal Man is in.
37. Speaking of, the fact that there is that whole rad space opera story-line with Animal Man, Adam Strange, Lobo, and Starfire.
36. the title "Rain of the Supermen"
35. the fact that even though there is no Joker, we still get an honest to goodness Big Bad in Luthor and his...
34. Infinity, Inc. Yeah, just Luthor being totally altruistic. right. sure. nothing evil about it.
33. The bad-ass noir stylings of the Question.
32. the fact that i can go 20 items deep before even mentioning the plight of Elongated Man.
31. Speaking of Dibny, that one moment where he's defiantly busting up what he thinks is a hoax resurrection of his wife and he realizes it would have worked.
30. More floating heads, i.e. the helmet of Dr Fate as Dibny's personal guide.
29. Sobek. a talking, sheepish giant crocodile.
28. the group of Chinese superheroes whose complicated and drawn-out names I cannot remember but who are all freaking great.
27. The sheer number of characters in the cast and the fact that it never feels overwhelming or cheap (ahem, unlike Countdown). the reader understands when a character is a side character and doesn't feel worried when his/her part is limited, likewise readers are encouraged to read ferociously close to anything having to do with the bigguns.
26. Black Adam totally rips a guy in half in the third issue.
25. Not really big on the John Henry Irons/Natasha plot-line but the family-esque drama is definitely needed a) to off-set some of the bigger, global and galactic story-lines...
24. b) to run parallel (and echo) to the family-esque drama of the Black Adam Family. You see, evil and good are really the same, silly folks and their pride...
23. Aquaman cameo! bearded, lost, left for dead!
22. Lobo's new 'faith.'
21. the return of the metal men!
20. the whole conception of Skeets and his HAL-like uber-evilness.
19. Rip Hunter.
18. Renee Montoya's very gritty, not quite 'realistic' story-line (this is a comic book after all) but a less cape-y plot that grounds all the silliness transpiring elsewhere.
17. Adam Strange's crinkly empty eye-sockets.
16. the (unlike Marvel) complete gender balancing act. There are so many important women involved in this series, very refreshing.
15. the everyman program being a subtle and very funny (if unintentional) giant fuck you to Marvel's paranoid registration and concurrent civil war. Marvel: hey, the people of our world fear and hate strange capes and tights, let's make them all into paid goons and have the really cool characters fight this law and go underground. DC: we understand that everyone in our world thinks that superheroes are totally fucking awesome and that everyone would want to be one if possible.
14. no Superman, no Wonder Woman, no Bat. And this was supposed to be a bad thing?
13. the fact i'm still a full quarter left in the tank and I'm this happy.
12. World War 3 right around the corner.
11. that (unlike Countdown) this series doesn't force connections with every other DC property operating at the same time. (or if it did, that the story's in this collection function totally on their own and stand up just fine).
10. the truly epic, globe trotting feel of several stories. You really get a sense of the DC globe and all of the many strange places, e.g. Nanda Parbat, Atlantis, etc.
09. All the things going on 'off camera.' name-dropping, letting the reader fill in gaps, all of it works.
08. Osiris's brief but poignant relationship with the Teen Titans.
07. The sheer love and broken-ness of Elongated Man's struggle.
06. The Specter's cameo in said struggle.
05. The whole mystery and reveal of Supernova's identity.
04. all the cool 'easter eggs' in Rip Hunter's lab detailing all of the neat things cooking in DC's future, now, present.
03. so. much. evil. seriously. makes heroes really feel like people up against an impossible task.
02. Good guy's who are good guys. fuck that batman noise. yeah, they are well rounded and sometimes do bad things and get confused, etc, but these guys (Animal Man, Elongated Man, etc) are heroes through and through, you want to root for them forever.
01. that (unlike Countdown) its not Countdown.

Why I Hate Warren Ellis

Ok, so here's the deal. I loved Desolation Jones and would gladly give up my left ball to have a new issue any time soon. The problem with that, besides the fact I'm attached to my left ball, is that Warren Ellis is a fucking douche bag.

Maybe I should back up a little.

About six months ago I picked up the latest issue of Desolation Jones from the comic book store. This issue was the beginning of a second arc and I was eager to purchase it. A month passes and I'm back at my crack house/comic shop and all I see for sale is the month old issue I've already purchased. Not one to overreact I just assume that the series puts out new issues every other month. That's fine. It's a good comic and Ellis is a busy guy what with that whole paying the bills and writing everything under the sun thing he has going on.

So I wait. Next month I go in and still no Desolation Jones. In an attempt to see if maybe I was early or possibly late in getting the next/last issue I go up to my hallowed comic monger and ask "So is the new Desolation Jones out?"

The rotund comic keeper replies "No, not yet and I don't know when the new one is due out but it should be soon, that issue on the shelves is old."

Agreed. It was old. Two months old now. Not one to lose all hope at the first sign of resistance I have since gone back to my Ye Olde Comic Shoppe once a month to no avail each and every time. At this point they know me. I come in, look at the stacks, pick my prizes, saddle up the register and the first thing I can see is the "I have no idea about Desolation Jones, please stop asking me, give up already" look. I ask anyway and get the aforementioned response.

Maybe the publisher decided to drop the comic because it wasn't getting good reviews. Maybe Ellis is too busy with the big titles he is doing for the big names, the cash cows that pay the rent and buy his weight in caffeine and deep-fried (the two major food groups). Those are the things I told myself.

Well, the first isn't true: the series got great reviews and had a lot of good press from everyone; sales were solid and fans were happy. Now the second I could believe true. In fact, I did believe that to be the case. I feverishly believed that was the case... until last week.

Happily I went to the comic shop, money in hand, dreams in my soulless heart, looking for my fix of four colors. Greedily did I paw through the stacks of pulp papers, dejected once again that Desolation Jones, while still on the shelves, has yet to receive a new issue. That's when IT happened, that definable moment where in my mind IT was solidified. Warren Ellis is a fucking douche bag.

Those wonderful folks at Avatar brought this revelation to me in the form of not one but two new comics by none other that Warren Ellis: Doctor Sleepless and Black Summer.

That mother fucker. All this time he could have been working on Desolation Jones and he's out there being so fucking ADD that he starts two new series. He didn't even have the courtesy of just canceling Desolation Jones. I feel like the wife he has been cheating on over and over again with different women, always expecting him to come back to me and promise never to stray. All I end up getting is a burning sensation when I pee and a wicked case of the clap.

Just in case you didn't get the point of this post Warren Ellis is a fucking douche bag.

Oh, and keep a lookout for my reviews of both Doctor Sleepless and Black Summer.

Sinister Monday #12

Lemme say this before I get to the comix thing. Because people bitch about the weather so damn much this needs to be said and said loudly. I am currently living through the most beautiful Summer I have ever seen. Seriously. Gorgeous. Rarely over 80 degrees. Seldomly lower than 70. Once or twice over 85. Sunny and breezy and not even humid all that much. Top it off with some pretty dazzling Thunderstorms, always in the early/late evening when I've already gotten home and you got yourself one helluva Summer.

There now. Can't say that all I do is bitch about the weather. Moving on.

Picked up some good stuff at the LCS today. Got me some Avengers: Initiative, Avengers: Mighty, Walking Dead, Spidey, etc. Gonna be good. Already tore through the Kirkman and may post later in the week about it in a feature (it's over-due, trust me) so I will stay coy about it now, but dude. it was pretty fine.

Got my solicits for October and may sign up for DC's infinite halloween thingie, sounds like a blast. Thats where all of Arkhum's residents take turns trying to scare each other with stories every year. Got some interesting names penning stories this time around, David Arquette being the oddest and most "hmmm that could be good or really, really bad." Also definitely going to get me some Messiah Complex because apparently I am a complete X-man whore. Seriously. Never knew it before, never thought that this is where I would be, not too long ago I was content with my Dark Knight and my Sandman and my Fables. But now I'm like that one cheerleader from your high-school varsity team who nobody knows how she got on the team because she's not particularly athletic but certianly turns heads and ends up sleeping with the entire football team. The football team this time being Cyclops, Beast, Gambit, Cannonball, Wolverine, Iceman, and Jamie Madrox.

Keep sweeping through the Indies and Undies and never really find anything to shout about. Sure there's your hellboys and WDs and 603 titles penned by Ellis, Ennis, and Carey, but nothing has tickled my fancy in a great while. With the other hounds lording it up over Buffy and the complete Brian Wood comicography, its slim pickens. So yeah, anybody got any recommendations I'm all ears.

So cenTrale's old 7th tier of Hell chum is selling off his comics and I'm interested in taking a gander. Should be some good stuff. I wonder when that day will arrive for me. When I make the inevitable sale that everyone seems to make. When assets are liquidated, comics are sworn off for a year or so, maybe 2, then you walk in on a lark and pick up an issue of your favorite character and you are right back where you started, the cycle is complete. There's no escape, there's a reason we're Hellhounds. Its downright easy to drop by and walk through our gates, we're not guarding the way in, not that persistently that is. But try and get yourself out... good luck to ya.

Next Monday I will be on the road with the Siren so there may be a delay or a lack of something sinister altogether. Well, most of the drive will be through Ohio and Indiana so scratch that, there will be plenty of sinister things but they will be more of the mundane persuasion, like grown men wearing sweatpants outside of the confines of their home and towns small enough to survive solely around a single gas stations that double as a grocery store, movie rental shop, gossip fount, ice cream stand, apothecary, funeral home, and bingo parlor. *shudder*

Laters.

Captain America #28

Captain America #28

Writer: Brubaker
Artists: Epting & Perkins
Colorist: D'Amata


Spoilers Ahead. Please be aware that events in the past 4 issues of Captain America will be discussed below.

It takes a talent to keep a comic series alive and kicking after you've gunned down the titular character. With 'Steve Rogers & Friends' now just '& Friends,' readers could very easily be expected to bail on Captain America. Yet in spite of this, Brubaker's absolute mastery of the spy-thriller/espionage genre leaves me anxious for more each and every issue. And it's not like I'm a huge fan of the Falcon or Bucky or any of the myriad folks so crucial to the life of this story. One can easily forget that Cap's death was just chapter 1 of the story arc "Death of a Dream." Just as that title resonates and begins to suggest far more than the death of just one man (a.k.a 'a dream' instead of 'a hero'), Brubaker allows a very singular and powerful event reverberate down into all of the hollows of the Marvel Universe.

Captain America #28 is a fractured issue composed of an almost bewildering number of these reverberations. Split up into 9 brief mini-stories, the reader is constantly shuffled back and forth between arcs featuring the Winter Soldier, the Falcon, Tony Stark, Sharon Carter, and two antagonists, Doc Faustus and Sin. I suppose my only complaint is a quite purposeful lack of focus as the reader is never satisfied with just a few pages of material on each character. Yet I understand the reasoning behind such a disjointed approach, and for me that nullifies the disorientation. The world, as these characters know it, has been irrevocably shattered. The broken quality of the narrative is exacerbated by the generous amount of 'screen time' given to 'extras.' Brubaker is fond of giving the reader the thoughts of the average joe on the street (or bar stool as the case may be) and on a story arc like this one it's even more important. With Cap's death filtering down to each and every human of the Marvel Universe its easy to forget that there are more than just capes and hoods feeling the effects.

The Falcon/Winter Soldier dichotomy is really starting to pay off. As the latter character presses on toward his ultimate goal of killing off all those responsible for Cap's assassination (which includes, for the time being, Iron Man and the Red Skull), the Falcon is doing what he can to actually prevent the death of Steve Roger's self-proclaimed best friend. These two are going to come to blows soon enough and with Sharon Carter, the woman who delivered the fatal shot to Captain America (under mind control or not) teamed up with the Falcon, who knows what will happen if Bucky ever finds out who pulled the final trigger.

The only mini-story that seems to fall flat (1 outta 9 ain't bad) is the Professor X cameo. I realize that this is the proverbial coffin nail on Crossbones' part of this story but all of the Xavier style interrogation seemed excessive in a storyline as gritty and 'realistic' and 'noirish' as this one. Though it was interesting to see the interpersonal relationship between Tony and Charles, I had almost forgotten that they are both on the Illuminati, and while one can see that the two respect each other's abilities, a real friendship here is notably absent. Here's how the verbal exchange woulda gone down if Chuck and Tony weren't such detached Masters of the Universe:

Tony: "So, ole Crossbones' memory banks are a blank slate, eh?"

Chuck: "Yeah, that sumbitch got tore up inside."

Tony: "Well, you did what you could..."

Chuck: "Say, you wanna go grab a beer?" (says this while 'encouraging' a particular answer)

Tony: "Well I do now!" (Both of them hold their stomachs and laugh gleefully while Crossbones' head lolls back and forth, mentally destroyed)

~end scene~

Back to our regularly scheduled review...
The cover girl, Sin, steals some scenes and gives the dark issue its brief points of comic relief. Maybe I just have a thing for red-heads but it also gives the issue some much needed comicbook kick-ass babery. Nothing like a Jovovich like psychopath in a red-leather corset to, er, spice things up a bit. As the Red Skull's daughter and a woman soon to have a huge target on her freckled head, i foresee some hard times for the girl in the near future, but for now she's shooting first and, well, not really asking any questions so much as slithering into ridiculously tight-fitting uniforms.

The two biggest revelations of the issue involve the hunter and the hunted. We get some more inner-monologue from Bucky and while he isn't halting his quest to put a bullet in Tony, we can finally tell that he actually realizes this whole thing really isn't completely Tony's fault, and begins to try and figure out where the Red Skull fits in behind all this, crime detective style. Meanwhile Tony, after his above referenced meeting with Xavier, gets a rather disturbing letter. It appears Cap isn't through 'acting' in his own series after all. A friend of Matt Murdock's is holding a letter to be delivered to, and only to, Tony Stark in the event of Steve Roger's death. Apparently it was composed during the Civil War while Cap was having rather poignant thoughts of not making it out of that war alive. The whole "Dead Letter Department" min-story is a complete teaser as we never find out what it actually says. All we get is Tony's mumbled "Damn it Steve..." However, the whole letter sequence does arrive just after a purposefully planted segment where Tony is dismissing a S.H.I.E.L.D. soldier who has nominated himself to be Cap's replacement. Does this letter have anything to do with legacy I wonder?

As I said before, just as suspenseful as your Bourne Identity style spy thriller, Captain America leaves me wanting more each and every time. Rating: Snake-eyes, since you really can't be expected to maintain a Voltron each and every issue, especially when the last Voltron happens to be the death of Captain America.

Sinister Monday #11

and just barely. as i write this its 11.12pm. damn close to being a sinister tuesday. Alas.


say it with me brothers...

Three!

(budda budda budda)

Sentence!!

(budda budda budda budda)

Howls!!!
*deafening cheer*


Justice Society of America #7
Johns scribing, Eagleton scratching.
What it means to be family. Legacy. More of the same?
Rating: Gimli


X-Factor #21
Writer: Peter David
Interesting how a guy who can multiply himself at will gets so damn lonely. Enter the Isolationist and host of mo' money, mo' problems (mo' babies?). Layla's acting all freaky too.
Rating: Gimli


World War Hulk #2
Pak and Romita Jr.
Hulk is getting the shaft every which way. If people only came up to him honestly instead of all this disingenuous postering and tricksterism. Maybe Mr Fantastic IS a Skrull.
Rating: Starscream.


New X-men #40
Kyle and Yost (a.k.a. the grim reapers of childrens)
Once again i go in kinda sorta hoping this would suck (okay not really but whatevs) and once again this series comes out, if not quite at the tip-top, then right there near the summit of a healthy buy pile. I think the new x-men must be a blast to write seeing as you can use familiar archetypes, framing, and toys but these still are your own creations and characters are still so malleable... you can kill them or spin them in any which way. The use of Colossus sister is a perfect example--girl's bad news.
rating: Snake-eyes.


Justice League of America #11
Brad Meltzer: writer
Gene Ha: artist
A House of Leaves style comicbook experiment. I've seen things like this go bad in a hurry. Good thing this one shines on and on.
Rating: Voltron (you have to see it to believe it. Also, you'll either love it or hate it, one of those)


The Order #1
Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson
Like the new x-men, here are some brand new toys. Mixed results, though they do get points for 'killing' off so many newbies right in the first issue. Sorta like the balls Lost had when it still thought killing Jack off in the first episode was a good idea.
Rating: Gimli (but unlike Lost, this likely won't get by on charm, hype, good luck, and plain old hot-shit writing)


Madman Atomic Comics #3
Mike Allred. Mike Allred all the time.
This is a comicbook dressed up like philosophy. Never wanted to read Preacher/100 Bullets/the Punisher/Scalped so much in my life. A visual experiment every bit as much adventurous as JLA #11 (perhaps more so) but much less successful--hmmm maybe its because the latter actually had a plot.
rating: Starscream

Three-Sentence Howl: cenTrale #3

Well, good ol' RHD had to go ahead and fix some beefy mixings for LeftD, yours truly, the respective Sirens and assorted other demonic entities. Consequently, it behooved me to fill in on this occasion. Not that y'all mind an excess of cenTraley goodness; we all know it's what you crave. So feast like my fellow heads and I did during the siege of Troy, that "real war" as Ares recently described it in the pages of Mighty Avengers. Hades, everything has seemed so paltry since...

Fantastic Four #547

Writer: Dwayne McDuffie

Artist: Paul Pelletier

I can't help but think, every single time I reflect back on Hank Pym's comment about why everyone hates Reed Richards, that maybe LeftD is right and Pym is the Skrull in the “Infiltration's” cap. Yeah, so Richards is disgustingly smart, Panther gets shit done, Torch acts like a frat boy and Storm is not to be messed with under any circumstances, particularly those that deal with her features. Funny how this actually feels like a family, eh?

Ranking: Snake-eyes 'cause something is up someone's sleeve and I'm sure better is to come.

Nova #4

Writer: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Artist: Sean Chen & Scott Hanna

It really is rather fascinating the difference between Richard Ryder all-powered up and Ryder otherwise: in the latter, his design is kinda straightforward and, in the former, he's got this really weird neck. This is not to say that I dislike either design, it's just that I do find the neck a touch distracting. On the other hand, this whole series and its Galactic ('cause they do deserve the capitalization) counterparts do a phenomenal job of placing the various quandaries facing the post-Civil War Earth in a fascinating context.

Ranking: Snake-eyes as it's good, but I feel like a couple of pieces to the puzzle were lost deliberately.

Runaways #27

Writer: Joss Whedon

Artist: Michael Ryan

Joss knows teenage rebellion via some seriously weird transformations. Joss also knows how to take material he himself did not originate and take it to a different place (i.e., Astonishing X-Men). Somehow, this lil' trip to the past with the Runaways crew has yet to completely convince me that Joss knows the Runaways.

Ranking: Gimli given that Whedon rarely disappoints, even more so when it comes to teenage superheroics.

Sub-Mariner #2

Writer: Matt Cherniss & Peter Johnson

Artist: Phil Briones

Why oh why do people continue to mess with Namor? Seriously, we know he's an Atlantean and, by default, is baseline stronger than we are, not to mention he's an Atlantean mutant, so who the hell knows what he can and cannot do? Oh, and he's an arrogant prick that would not hesitate to rip out the tongue alongside of the offending eye; so why fuck with this man?

Ranking: Gimli as it's only just starting to rev up but has a bit to go before it kicks out of el idle.

X-Factor #21

Writer: Peter David

Artist: Pablo Raimondi

You should be reading this comic. Really. Sooner or later everything important in Marvel will be traceable, in the best sense possible, back to this book.

Ranking: Snake-eyes because I'm really not kidding and this is only going to get better and not in that Aquaman sort of getting better 'cause Peter David ain't leaving anytime soon and if he does we might have a hostage situation on our hands.

Sinister Monday #10

There's good news and then there's bad news. What's that? You want to hear the bad news first? Such a noble little stoic you are. Well... the bad news is that for the first time in almost 2 months, I failed to visit the LCS. So no new comics for me. I was expecting a tidy little haul, too. But the good news is that this week's release will be just as robust, that on Wednesday (or thereabouts) I will drop by and oh the splendor and glory of purchasing 12+ issues at once! It shall be great. It will smell like victory.

In the comic void this past week I stuffed an ocean of music. The pitchfork music festival, a gogol bordello show last night, a brand new Pelican cd... but y'all could give a care, I know. You came here to read about fancy pictures and word-bubbles, about capes and WHAM!s and 'graphic narrative art.' I'll try and oblige.

The last few days I've been re-reading the House of M. Several points to make:

1. Really like Coipel's art. Makes a man think about purchasing Thor, if another more devious and 'Godly' hound didn't beat me to it. But share and share alike I spose. Coipel's art is crisp and functional, not as painstakingly real as a Cassaday or a McNiven (whose Thing + Invisible Woman desktop wallpaper adorns the PC of my new desk at work) but in the process more comicbooky. Vive la France! (er, Coipel's french)

2. BENDIS! loves himself some epics. I know him best through the various Avengers lines and for the upcoming Skrullsploitation saga. But back in the day, (okay, not quite 2 years ago) BENDIS! scribed the House and pretty much set up the foundation of contemporary Marvel U. Sure, the Muties didn't play much of a role in Civil War, but the Avengers did, and House is just as much there story as it is the X-men's.

3. Er, be careful what you wish for? tee hee hee.

4. For once a place for Logan to play protagonist and still be sort of a side character. Odd how that works, and I can't really explain it, but both fun and non-compromising at the same time. And by that I mean sure it adds to wolverine's rabid over-exposure but he's not out of character here.

In addition to this re-tread-ification, I've finished a brilliant collected volume of Brian Wood's called Demo. I owe thanks to el cenTrale for this. He's a Brian Wood fan-boy. can't get enough. loves him. wants to marry him, if, you know, a hell-hound could marry a 'body of writing'. What strange offspring that might produce. Hadean Criticism, perhaps? Don't we already have enough of that floating around these wastes?

In other news, the three hounds recently got together at a local hellmouth, um, watering hole and squared away our own collective pull-lists. Here's what I, LeftD nailed down:

New Avengers
Justice Society of America
the Walking Dead
the Amazing Spider-Man
Mighty Avengers
Daredevil
Captain America (what can I say, I'm a Marvelslut)
X-men
New X-men
Countdown
Madman's Atomic Comics

and others, I think. By the by, Fables, the official comic of Cerberus Reviews, was off the table. We all want to keep buying that'un.

So yeah, big BIG set up for next week. Could be, dare I say, WILL be, huge. like used car saleman commercial huge. and that's freaking fucking huge.

<-----D

Three-Sentence Howl: cenTrale #2

All-Star Superman #8

Writer: Grant Morrison

Pencils: Frank Quitely

Morrison continues to deliver a sci-fi strangeness that magnificently emphasizes the curiosity that is Superman. I mean, while we're used to an alien being representing what is best in humanity, it's not exactly standard storybook fare. My hat is off, then, to Morrison for reminding us of this fact.

Ranking: Snake-eyes 'cause this issue just isn't quite as good as some of the earlier ones (I have to maintain something that approaches consistency, right?).

Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #53

Writer: Tad Williams

Pencils: Shawn McManus

They can keep their incongruous cover art. They can choke on it too. See if I care.

Ranking: Joe Camel (and if anyone wants a Starscream for this one...I swear to God I will go at any time, place of your choosing, over this one.)

Birds of Prey #107

Writer: Gail Simone

Pencils: Nicola Scott

Honestly, this arc has been a kind of fun romp through the fringes of the current DC-verse. That said, word is Simone leaves after next issue. If Tad takes over I might have to self-immolate or just boycott DC altogether...maybe both.

Ranking: Snake-eyes with a hope and a prayer that my reading options won't take a further turn for the worse.

Brave & the Bold #4

Writer: Mark Waid

Pencils: George Perez

Neither terribly exciting nor terribly bad, this particular comic is more of a diversion than anything else. Admittedly, that is all, I believe, it was ever intended to be. Therefore I won't judge it harshly as of yet.

Ranking: Gimli as it is enjoyable enough, but possibly not worth picking up on a consistent basis.

Detective Comics #834

Writer: Paul Dini

Pencils: Don Kramer

First time I've come across a multi-part story and it ain't bad. It isn't exactly fantastic, but it ain't bad either. Nice to see the Joker again in actual panels.

Ranking: Snake-eyes as this is probably the best single issue of any major “cape” in DC in the near and far future.

Battle Pope #12

Story: Robert Kirkman
Art: Tony Moore
Colorist: Val Staples

We all have our dirty little secrets. Maybe it’s the office supplies you can’t help but steal, maybe the constant consumption of grocery store produce before you make it to the register so you don’t have to pay for it, maybe it’s the dead bodies buried beneath your concrete floor in that basement apartment you rent. Its those “victimless crimes” we all do that we don’t let anyone know about for no particular reason other than we know that they are wrong, just not that wrong. That’s what Battle Pope is for me.

That’s not to say that Battle Pope is a bad comic, it’s just not supposed to be anything more than it appears to be. There are no deep hidden meanings to what is written, no larger than life moral lesson being taught here. No, if I had to give anyone advice before reading an issue of Battle Pope it would be to either turn the part of their brain that does the thinking off or get drunk first. Guess which one I prefer. And I’m ok with that lack of substance in a comic. It just reminds me that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and not a big brown smokey cock that people like to suck on. Comics were started to be fun for kids, not huge literary genres that change the way people view the coming zombie apocalypse or the god of dreams, but I’m ok with that too. I just like seeing someone firmly slap readers in the face and yell “STOP THINKING SO GOD DAMNED MUCH!” But that’s only cause I want to do that on a daily bases to everyone I meet.

Speaking of everyone you meet, who knew that the pope was such a horny old goat? At least in this incarnation. Fucks anything with two legs that lacks a Y chromosome. That and he likes to blow stuff up. But I’m getting ahead of myself, some back story is necessary. So one day God gets up and looks at His Daily Planner and sees circled in red “RAPTURE TODAY” and has to get His tired ass out of bed to call up the worthy souls into heaven. Problem is that only about 3 people are worthy. God gets pissed, and not like some-one-took-the-last-beer-from-the-fridge pissed, no, more like stubbed-His-toe-getting-up-from-the-couch-that-some-one-
burnt-cigarettes-into-while-drunk-tripped-over-the-rug-smacks-His-head-
against-a-cabinet-in-the-kitchen-that-was-left-open-only-to-find-that-
someone-drank-the-last-fucking-beer-without-asking-or-replacing-it pissed. Yeah, that pissed. So God throws up His hands and says fuck it I’m done, you are all on your own. That lets the devil and demons from Hell out to run the face of the earth, but they end up being basically just like people: Some are just annoying, some are just a little bad, others are just pricks. But that leaves all of humanity without any real direction and no one cares if demons are ruining everything. So the old Pontiff gets off his sorry ass and gets to fighting crime with his new side kick Jesus, who acts like a kid with down syndrome most of the time, like a hippy with some serious herb, like a frat boy with some serious herb, like a trust fund kid with no interest in earning a living. What I’m getting at is he is basically useless, though funny at times.

Anyway, so this particular issue has the Pope running around like he usually does, with no plan and no real care that he has no plan. Meanwhile Jesus and Santa Claus are trying to pull their weight by fighting crime. Yeah you read that correctly, pick up Battle Pope #11 if you want to find out about the Santa part. Anyway, they suck at it. Fighting just isn’t their thing. When the Pope finds out about their stunt he goes and does his thing to get them out of trouble but ends up being attacked by a small demon with a giant robotic suit who has a grudge against the Pope because he slipped the pickle to a female demon that the short one is jonesing over. The end is great but all I will say is that the Pope made God mad by sleeping with Jesus’ Mom at Christmas. Trouble ensues.

The artwork here is fantastic. All the characters are fleshed out in ink and pencil that makes them seem a lot more believable than most of your spandex wearing capes: The villains seem larger than life, God is awe inspiring, Jesus drools. Backgrounds aren’t ignored to make the main characters seem more life like either, Each one is meticulously drawn and all lend a sense of reality to each panel, from the diner the Pope frequents to the evil lab the short demon uses. Everything drawn is solid and plays nicely with the loose story. Most importantly the artist remembers what he is drawing and that he doesn’t have to take everything so damned seriously.

Battle Pope is a solid comic overall, no mistakes as far as I can see so I have to give this comic a Voltron: Nothing bad to see here dear reader, save for your pestering faces and the smell of dead bodies stinking up my apartment.

RHD

Sinister Monday #9

Sinister Monday... actually written on a Monday? Solomon Grundy? Bueller?

Usually I'm a bit better prepared. I generally write these posts on Sunday, where an ocean of time stretches out before me like those gigantic puddles that form after rainstorms on the back streets of the city where all the filth has clogged up the drains, fast-food styrofaom, candy wrappers, broken bottles, used condoms, dead rats, dead leaves, and dead babies... er, gee, where am I? Let that metaphor drag me away like the anchor of an oil tanker slamming into an iceberg, crew being sucked down into the inky void of... I'll stop, I promise.

Boy, it's great to have the three cerberus heads howling in chorus, ain't it? RHD's pumping out reviews like (oh Christ, not again) a, um, a person who enjoys reading comics and gets thoughts about them? Yeah, that's it. And beloved El cenTrale. He just won't shut his trap. goes on and on about radioactive sperm. it's radioactive sperm this, and radioactive sperm that. Keep this between just the two of us but me, I think he's jealous. I think old center head wishes he too could irradiate bitches with his essence. Um, just in case you think I've gone excessively crude and misogynistic all of a sudden, I'm using bitches in the female hellhound sense, and not the gangsta rap sense. Though I'm curious as to whether or not there isn't already a female rapper with a hellish surname, like Bitchy Von Hades, Sally Struthers, or Whorebags McGoingToHellWithLotsOfBling. This is why I need a research department. That and because as far as facts go, I'm fresh out.

Light load this week at the ole LCS. Seeing as I'm the only hound who makes a weekly trip, you'd expect my stash to be slightly smaller. And that's where you'd be wrong. I'm picking up something like 20 issues a month. 4 a week or so. This week it was:

Countdown: 43
Uncanny X-men #4,332,902 (plus endangered species chapter 2)
City of Others #3

and something else I pull but can't remember because i haven't got around to reading it yet. see folks? precious little facts. mostly just opinions (and metaphors, apparently).

Things I learned from the latest Uncanny X-persons:

1. Salvador Larocca isn't always bad. One shouldn't judge a guy on just one book (*cough* NewUniversal *cough*) and the silly practice of comicbook photo-realist art. I'm sorry but i don't care if you think it's fucking rad that ultimate nick fury looks like Sam Jackson. I'd rather he just look Black, loaded with weapons and it'll-kill-you-so-fast gadgets, and pissed off. Yet Larocca's X-persons are slick. Especially Storm. There is something in his lines which suggests a regal quality of an African born warrior goddess, and not 'just' a hawt black chick.

2. Warpath (nee Thunderbird) is still boring. Even when he's wrassling gators.

3. Morlocks, morlocks, evil little morlocks, where does your garden grow?

4. I'm a bit confused as to how exactly Masque's powers work. While everyone on the subway is incapacitated he says something to the effect of "Now these people will feel what it's like to be a mutant." And after he touches them they are all hideous freaks. But does he mutate them? Are they all mutants now? If so, Beast better call somebody. Surely, a little research on Masque couldn't hurt. And Beast probably has a better R&D team than Cerberus Reviews. Thus the me not having any facts dilemma mentioned above. And writing dilEmma just reminds me of the white queen and makes me wonder why she isn't in every x-comic. Talk about hawt.

As Far as DC's Countdown goes, I give it a resounding 'Meh.' I'm just not getting into it like I did 52's first trade (still waiting for the boys upstairs to put out Vol2, little help DC?). Maybe its a character thing, maybe I just don't care about Jason Todd, or Holly Robinson, or Jimmy Olsen (Must Die. sorry, old habits die hard. Or in this case, old advertising ploys die hard. Bruce Willis dies hard? Live free or... sorry again, I'm in stream of associative consciousness this morning. my bad). Also, it seems like every issue is artificially centered around some big event I could care less about. The death of a new god! A funeral to a character whose death never occurs in Countdown! The only issue I really enjoyed was the Olsen/Joker convo, the only issue to really end on a cliffhanger (i.e. the threat of Jimmy being Croc-clawed to ribbons).

As the lunch hour approaches my thoughts shift to edamame. see ya next week. and I'm out.

TGIC #5

Well, I ain't gonna lie, it's been a good long while since I've posted in this regard. Not that the number on this here TGIC would lead you to believe I've been so silent as I might imply. Admittedly – and interestingly – I haven't exactly felt as though that which needs saying hasn't been said, what with LeftD holding down the fort in such a superlative manner in my (and Righty...he'd gnaw on our collective leg were I to forget him) absence. Hades, his pull list all but perfectly reflects the various changes and challenges posed by the big two in the past few months (when was the last time you envied someone for a pull list including both New Avengers and Captain America?). Nonetheless, I've been quiet for quite long enough and have a thing or two to, ever so briefly and in a split infinitive manner, say...

I think the duology, as a certain someone has described Marvel and DC, may have jumped the shark. Yes, they now can pull off yearly events and, yes, they are now able to pull off the “perpetual” yearly event (52, Countdown, the revised Spiderman [and I have no idea which book this applies to, still], etc.). Furthermore, both companies now have the talent (BENDIS!, ..., ..., hmm, well, BENDIS! and so on, I suppose) to pull off such extravaganzas. OK, ain't gonna knock that unless I have to...and I really ain't had to quite yet.

Nonetheless...WTF??? I'm very much in support of easter eggs and the like, but you seriously expect us not to be pissed about, or at the very least wary of, a company-wide plan that somehow or other ties in everything that has taken place over the last couple years. Sure, we keep hearing about these really super retreats that every writer comes out of pumped to continue to pull the wool over the readers' eyes, and yet, I can't help to feel cheapened by all this. Sure, we should really worry about what we're reading at a panel-by-panel level, and yet. And yet...

While we're on the whole WTF thing...

Radioactive sperm. Really? Not that anyone would take the bet, but $20 says they regret this much sooner than later. Marvel just can't seem to get their quasi-Elseworlds shit together. I probably, though no promises, wouldn't be as pissed were it not for the horrific track record. Bloody well commit if you don't want to look like a damn idiot. For the love of Zeus in Olympus, can't we at least kill a character without resorting to a dumb ass gimmick like...oh, I don't know...RADIOACTIVE SPERM!!!

Anyways, that's about all I can really stomach being pissy in the stomach concerning. Funny how a brief rant ends up significantly shorter than one of my “quick” reviews, eh? See you later on this week for some more review-ing goodness. As always, your overly friendly and slobbery,

cenTrale