The Nerdly Arts

Shocka! More Guitar Hero on the Way

2008-02-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

We all knew that more Guitar Hero was on the way this year. But three more GH games this year? That's a little surprising. Two this spring, one this fall. Maybe a Guitar Hero: Metal Edition?

In the same conference call Activision announced there would be a sequel to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance this year as well. Personally, I'm thrilled. M:UA was a pretty good game that needed a coat of polish. For the life of me I can't understand why a major game based on Marvel characters would use such atrocious still art. Throw a few bucks a Jimenez, McNiven, Hitch, Skottie Young, Sal Larocca and Djurdjevic and let them do the art. And while you're at it, a better story wouldn't hurt either. I know it's a video game based on comics, but doesn't mean it has to be stupid.

The Hot List - Week of December 6th

2006-12-04T15:38:00.000-05:00

Damn that's a lot of comics.
A lot of good comics too.
DC
52 Week #31
All-New Atom #6
Batman Confidential #1
Detective Comics #826
Exterminators #12
Jonah Hex #14
Justice Society Of America #1
Manhunter #26
Mystery In Space #4
Nightwing #127
Outsiders #43
Superman Confidential #2
Tranquility #1

Image
Invincible #37
Nightly News #2
Walking Dead #33

Marvel
Agents Of Atlas #5
Doctor Strange: The Oath #3
Incredible Hulk #101
Irredeemable Ant-Man #3
Marvel Holiday Special 2006
newuniversal #1
Uncanny X-Men #481

I'm burnt out on Batman: Year One stories, but I'm still going to give Batman: Confidential a look, but it's on a short leash/

No exaggeration, Justice Society of America may be my most anticipated title this year. It feels like I've been waiting for it for years.

Manhunter returns with a lot of DC's marketing muscle behind it and about as much support from the creative community as any major label book ever. Will it be enough? I hope so.

By popular acclimation I'm picking up Nightly News. I'm still not sure what it's about.

newuniversal is the kind of major label work Warren Ellis was made for. A blank slate, realistic world with lots of super science. The 'no capital letters in the title' thing is still stupid, though.

Review Time - Week of November 29th

2006-12-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

Teen Titans #41 - Ok so Jericho is back. Good thing? Maybe, but thats another hero-gone-bad and brought back. I complained when Johns resurrected all of the Green Lanterns Hal Jordan killed, and I'm going to complain now that Jericho has been made a White Hat again. He killed, or tried to kill, the rest of the Titans; now apparently it wasn't Jericho's fault since the 'souls of Azerath' drove him mad and made him do it. It just seems like whitewashing to me. Other than that is was a meh issue. The art was mediocre on some pages and bad on others. I understand that Tony Daniel can't pencil 12 issues a year, but this 5 issue arc had 4 different pencillers. Not good planning on DC's part.

Ultimate Power #2 - I was wrong. I expected this issue to be a re-hash of #1 but from the Squadron Supreme's POV. Instead we get a full-on brawl between the Squadron and FF, with the X-Men, Spidey and the Ultimates jumping in later. The battle itself was a little too busy, with some of the players just there. But the parts of the fight that were fleshed out were a lot of fun. The art is typical Greg Land; pretty but kind of vapid. The Powers that Be at Marvel promise that this series will have a lasting impact on both universes so maybe the whole 'our world was destroyed' thing will actually stick. (Which would be a nice nod to the original Squadron Supreme series)

Heroes vs. Lost

2006-11-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

Now I love both shows, a lot. But last night's episode of Heroes illustrated a big difference between it and Lost.

For the first few episodes of both shows a whole truckload of mysteries were introduced. 55+ episodes into it's run and Lost still hasn't answered the vast majority of those questions, while still shoveling new questions onto the pile. But last night Heroes actually went out and answered a lot of the mysteries they had spent the previous nine episodes laying out.

We know who Sylar is. We know how Eden hooked up with Clare's father. We know how Nathan Petrelli's wife was crippled. We know a little more about the whole Nikki/Jessica situation.

Were all of the mysteries solved? No, but they cleared the field enough to keep things workable. Lost, as much as I love it, just keeps shoveling new mysteries onto the massive pile of unsolved ones. (sidenote - a great list of the 50 biggest Lost questions can be found here) Tim Kring and crew looked at that great, steaming pile of questions and saw an impediment to the average viewer.

So, to abuse a metaphor, Heroes is the sidewalk that gets shoveled regularly during the winter, you still see the snow but it doesn't impede your progress. While Lost is the monstrous mountain of snow sitting in the mall parking lot that will probably still be there in April.

Emma Frost Statue

2006-11-27T15:13:00.000-05:00

Hot damn.

Part of me wants this, badly.

Part of me also realizes that some people may get the wrong idea if something like that was displayed too prominently.

And part can only think "Damn, that's hot."

The Hot List - Week of November 29th

2006-11-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

DC
52 Week #30
Aquaman Sword Of Atlantis #46
Batman #659
Batman The Spirit
Green Lantern #15
Guy Gardner Collateral Damage #1
Ion #8
Superman Batman #30
Teen Titans #41

Marvel
Captain America #24
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #14
Immortal Iron Fist #1
Nextwave Agents Of HATE #10
Ultimate Power #2
X-Men #193

DC is releasing three Green Lantern books (four if you count the GLs in Batman/Superman), four chronically late books on time and a Batman - Spirit crossover that I swear was announced during the Clinton administration.

Nextwave is up to 10 already? Time really does fly.

I'm not a huge Iron Fist fan, but with Brubaker and Fraction writing it I have to at least give it a shot.

A Trilogy of Sumrfs Movies !?!

2006-11-27T10:59:00.000-05:00

What. The. F&%k.

I know every studio wants a big animated flick. Every studio also wants the next epic franchise. But what sane person thinks you can have both of those together in The Smurfs? Smurfs was the first show I outgrew. It is about as mindless as a cartoon can get. Yet somebody thinks that it wouldn't just make a hit animated movie, but it would also be the cornerstone of a Lord of the Rings-like franchise.

Oh God my brain just exploded.

This is the kind of idea they should be using for the next season of Entourage. It has to be a joke. Nobody, nobody, could think making a movie about those little commies is a good idea.

Review Time - Week of November 22st

2006-11-26T20:18:00.000-05:00

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #5 - I still like this series but damn it's starting to get repetitive. How many times have the Freedom Fighters had their heads handed to them only to be saved at the last moment by a prospective new member. Acuna's are is also becoming really inconsistent. Some panels and pages look awesome, others look horribly rushed.

Runaways #22 - No I don't think BKV is really going to go there with Chase and Nico, but just for a moment I did, so that last panel did it's job. And how can you not love a book that contains this picture.

(Pirate Werewolves, although Molly calls them Werewoofs)

Punisher War Journal #1 - This may be a sign of the apocalypse. I read a Punisher book, and I liked it. When I was a comic readin' kid I was pretty much the only one of my peers that didn't love The Punisher. But some friends comvinced me to pick this one up more for Matt Fraction that Frank Castle. I'm glad I did, because for the first time ever The Punisher was fun. Yeah he's still a violent ass but now he has a humorous internal monologue and gets attacked by a swarm of tiny Iron Man robots. Punisher purists will probably hate the book, but that's why Marvel still publishes Punisher MAX.

Random Musings - Influenza Edition

2006-11-24T18:42:00.000-05:00

I hate being sick on holidays. You just cannot enjoy Thanksgiving while howrking up a lung.

On Heroes they Saved the Cheerleader but how did they Save the World?

Gears of War kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. On- and off-line.

I can't decide whether the people getting trampled at 5am outside of a Wal-Mart on Black Friday is funny or sad. Probably funny.

Stories are surfacing that Sony shipped fewer than 180,000 Playstation 3s at launch. Ouch.

Okay I have to go take some Nyquil. Why the hell am I blogging when doped up on cough medicine anyway>

Full-time Superheroine

2006-11-20T18:08:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to pretend I know Valerie D'Orazio. I've never met her, and I've never spoken to her. However she was one of the first people to add this little ole site to her blogroll, and I've thoroughly loved her blog since the first time I read it.

It broke my heart to read what she went through. But more than that, after reading what she went through, I smiled a little.

Why? Because she got through it. She walked through the valley in the shadow of death and came out the other side. People go through terrible things everyday and too often let those terrible things crush them. She fought through it.

That makes her a Full-Time Superheroine. Brava, Valerie. And feel better.

Whats up with Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

2006-11-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

A little more than a month ago I was eagerly anticipating the new season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, one of the funniest and most unique shows on television.

Now? Wondering where all that unique humor went.

Five weeks into the season and ATHF is batting an anemic .200, 1 for 5. Clever, if wacky, plots have been replaced with an entire episode about 'Dicks'. However I was fine with the show, until last night. Each episode is 11 minutes long. Before this run they had produced three episodes in two years. (yes I know they were making an ATHF movie, its still been three episodes in two years) And after four episodes we get...a clip show. Maybe the clip show only took up half the episode, but considering how bad the rest of the episode was (Tera Patrick as a guest star?) it was still too much.

What happened? Looking back at previous seasons there were always the occasional stinker, but they were drowned out by the great, funny episodes. Did the writers get burnt out working on the movie? Or have they simply hit the wall creatively? I don't know why, but I still hope things turn around, and soon.

The Hot List - Week of November 15th

2006-11-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

Oh my God! I'm going to need a loan this week. Either that or I'm gonna have to start jackin' fools.
DC.
52 Week #28
Aquaman Sword Of Atlantis #45
Astro City The Dark Age Book 2 #1
Birds Of Prey #100
Checkmate #8
Green Lantern Corps #6
Omega Men #2
Robin #156
Shadowpact #7
Supergirl #11

Image
Bomb Queen Vol 2 #2
Invincible #36
PvP #29

Marvel
Astonishing X-Men #18
Cable Deadpool #34
Civil War #5
Iron Man #13
Moon Knight #6
Ms Marvel #9
New Avengers #25
Squadron Supreme #7
Thunderbolts #108
Ultimate Fantastic Four #36

I had the chance to read most of the Astro City trades recently and I cannot tell you how great they are.

I <3 Birds of Prey. Even if Black Canary is leaving (for now).

They told me that Astonishing X-Men would come out monthly. Astonishing X-Men is not coming out on time. Astonishing X-Men needs to come out on time.

Is Civil War woth the wait? We'll know soon enough.

Looking Forward - DC's February Solicitations

2006-11-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

From our comrades @ CBR.

DETECTIVE COMICS #828
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher
Cover by Simone Bianchi

That is an awesome cover. Bianchi is getting better and better.

ROBIN #159
Written by Adam Beechen
Art by Freddie E Williams II
Cover by Patrick Gleason & Wayne Faucher
He's fought the Joker and Johnny Warlock, OMACs and King Snake. But can Robin survive the challenge of...a first date?

This has to be Tim Drake's eighteenth 'first date'

52: WEEKS 40-43
Written by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Pat Olliffe & Drew Geraci, Joe Bennett and others
Greg Rucka, Mark Waid
Breakdowns by Keith Giffen
Art by Chris Batista & Rodney Ramos
Backup features by Waid and various
Covers by J.G. Jones

That cover is epic. It's like the greatest inspirational poster ever

FIRESTORM: THE NUCLEAR MAN #33
Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Art by Dan Jurgens & Ken Lashley
Cover by Pete Woods
The superstar creative team of Dwayne McDuffie (JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, STATIC), Dan Jurgens (Superman, Captain America) and Ken Lashley (The Flash) bring Firestorm to bold new heights! Jason Rusch and Prof. Martin Stein just want to get their lives back to normal, but the New Gods have other plans! When Orion comes looking for Prof. Stein, you can bet a throwdown's not far behind! Guest-starring the Seven Soldiers' Mister Miracle!

Lots of New God/Fourth World references in this set of solicits.

GREEN LANTERN #17
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert
Cover by Ethan Van Sciver
The explosive conclusion of "Wanted: Hal Jordan!" Wanted throughout the world, Green Lantern suffers the wrath of a new enemy who will plague him for years to come. But what does this alien want from Hal Jordan? And why is it impossible to give? Plus, witness the birth of the new Star Sapphire!

WONDER WOMAN #5
Written by Allan Heinberg
Art and cover by Terry & Rachel Dodson
Concluding the 5-part story "Who is Wonder Woman?" The combined forces of Wonder Woman's transformed rogues gallery declare all-out war on the amazing Amazon, compelling the all-new Wonder Woman to mend fences and join forces with her predecessor and with Wonder Girl if she's going to survive to finally answer the question: "Who Is Wonder Woman?"

DC soliciting these books for February is a bold-faced lie. I know these issues won't be out in February. DC knows they won't be out in February. Just about every retailer knows they won't be out in February. Yet they still list them and act shocked, shocked, when they slip.

MANHUNTER #28
Written by Mark Andreyko
Art by Javier Pina & Robin Riggs
Cover by Kevin Nowlan
"Unleashed" Part 3! Manhunter's dogged pursuit of justice for Wonder Woman brings her face-to-face with the hero she admires and fears the most - Batman!

I'm glad DC is stacking this book with guest stars in an attempt to attract sales, but I also hope it doesn't become a gimmick book.

MYSTERY IN SPACE #6
Written by Jim Starlin
Art by Ron Lim and Starlin & Al Milgrom
Cover by Shane Davis & Matt "Batt" Banning

Shane Davis already needs a fill-in artist?

TEEN TITANS #44
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Tony S. Daniel & Jonathan Glapion
Cover by Daniel
Part 2 of the "Titans East" storyline explodes as the two Titan teams clash!

Great, old school cover

UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS #8
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art and cover by Daniel Acuña
The stunning miniseries conclusion! The Freedom Fighters make their last stand against President Knight with the fate of a nation hanging in the balance.

Is that The Ray blacked out on the cover, or a new 'mystery member'? And who the hell is the chick in the red armor?

No All-Star titles or Ex Machina for February, but otherwise no glaring omissions.

Spiderman 3 Trailer

2006-11-10T14:06:00.000-05:00

In all it's glory.

Thomas Hayden Church looks perfect as Sandman. James Franco looks terrible as the new Green Goblin.

Voltron coming to [adult swim]

2006-11-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

From TV Squad.

While it hasn't been added to the schedule grid yet, the '80s animated series Voltron will in fact be a part of Adult Swim starting on November 13. However, the episodes will air at 5:30 am, so if you want to see them on television you'll either have to never sleep, or wake up really early.

The good news: it will also be available online at the [adult swim] fix. Now to make me really happy Cartoon Network needs to pick up Transformers (the original), Thundercats, Silverhawks and Battle of the Planets as well.

Alan Moore to Appear on The Simpsons!

2006-11-09T21:49:00.000-05:00

Never in a million years could I have seen this coming. (thanks to Warren Ellis)

Moore, aged 53, recorded his lines at The Lodge studios in Abington Square last month for an episode which will be called Husbands and Knives.
The Simpsons' production team are long-time fans of Moore's, whose reputation in the world of graphic novels is legendary.

He features in a sub-plot which sees a new 'cool' comic shop opening in Springfield in competition with the Android's Dungeon, run by Comic Book Guy who is voiced by Hank Azaria.
The new shop has persuaded Moore to make a public appearance.

Random Musings - Cliffhanger Edition

2006-11-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

Before the television season started I thought Heroes had maybe a 60% chance to be good and a 40% chance to be successful. Happily it's not only great it's (alongside Ugly Betty) the big new show of the season. Which pretty much guarantees that we'll see at least 3 new superhero shows on the '07 fall schedules. I think they need to stop, or at least slow down, the constant parade of new characters and develop the existing ones a little more, but otherwise it's been tremendous.

I was a little disappointed in the first six episodes of Lost. I know that Kate, Jack and Sawyer are the focal characters of the show, but as of now we've seen too much of them and too little of the rest of the castaways. We've gained a little insight into the Others, and possibly the other Others, but not enough to justify almost abandoning three quarters of the cast for four of the six episodes. I am glad that the hatch is finally gone, but the show otherwise feels like it's treading water.

I've only had a few hours to knock around with it, but Gears of War is every bit as great as the hype made it out to be. Is it the most original game ever? No, but neither was Halo, or Half-Life or Rainbow Six. GoW is in that class of shooters.

I don't see how Microsoft can sell TV shows and movies on the 360 without having a larger hard drive available. Those 20GBs will fill up real fast with HD content.

After six months every issue of 52 has shipped on time and sold 100,000+ copies. Did anyone, could anyone, predict such success?

I Don't "Collect" Comics. I Read Them.

2006-11-06T14:06:00.000-05:00

This past week while discussing hobbies with some neighbors I mentioned that I read comics. One of the neighbors said that he also 'collects' comics and proceeded to rattle off a laundry list of classic and valuable books he owns. I asked him what he's reading now.

"Oh I don't actually read them. I just collect them." It was then that I realized that I may be different.

I don't collect comics.

I (generally) don't bag & board. Most of my comics sit in various boxes strewn about my living space. The stack of books on (or under) my nightstand is usually around a foot tall. I have no earthly idea how much money any of my books could fetch on eBay. It then struck me that the difference between 'collecting' comics and 'following' comics may be the reason that the general public still views them as kids stuff.

Gamers don't collect video games, even the ones with libraries of games that number in the triple digits. The friend everybody has that buys half a dozen DVDs a week is a movie buff, not a collector. For whatever reason the term collector has developed a negative connotation.

A collector sits in their basement gazing longingly at their mint-in-box ~~toy~~ action figure collection. A collector spends his or her weekend scouring flea markets and garage sales for that one rare coin/stamp/Hummel/vinyl record. A collector is obsessive, compulsive and creepy. In other words: Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

I know most comic fans are nothing like Comic Book Guy. You (probably, hopefully) know that most comic fans are nothing like Comic Book Guy. But the average adult too often hears "Collector" and immediately pulls up a mental image of an obsessive, emotionally immature fat guy. That image isn't going to draw many new faces into comic shops.

The rank-and-file comics fan, who buys the books for the stories and the characters and the art, has to stop calling themselves collectors. Leave that label for the people that seal their books up in Lucite, never to be read. We read comics. We follow comics. We are comic buffs. We are aficionados.

Review Time - Week of November 1st

2006-11-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

Superman: Confidential
Writer: Darwyn Cooke
Artist: Tim Sale

"Kryptonite"

The story of the infant Kal-El as he rockets towards Earth is once again retold, this time from the perspective of the kryptonite that accompanied him to this planet. The (sentient?) xeno-mineral crashes in the Himalayas and expresses feelings of loss and isolation before the locals drag it to a temple. Back in Metropolis Superman fights the Royal Flush gang just two months into his career as a superhero. At this point he doesn't yet know the limits of his powers, so every new experience, in this case being frozen by liquid nitrogen and falling from a great height, may be the one that can actually harm him. Straight from the fight Superman takes Lois Lane on a date at the top of Eiffel Tower, lamenting that with all of his other responsibilities he cannot give Lois the attention she really deserves. Back in Metropolis (again) Perry White has a job for Clark, Lois and Jimmy. They are to investigate Anthony Gallo, a rich industrialist who manages to convince the city council to let him open a huge casino on the waterfront. Perry is convinced that Gallo is crooked and used his wealth and power to buy enough influence on the council to get his way. He sends Clark, Lois and Jimmy to investigate because he knows that they cannot be bought. While Clark and Jimmy set up surveillance equipment Lois tries to worm her way into Gallo's confidence.

Every generation seems to have a definitive Superman artist. Curt Swan in the 60s. John Byrne in the 80s. This period of time will likely be known as Superman's Tim Sale era. His art is the epitome of elegant; simple, clean, but always striking. On a book that is tasked with telling stories of Superman's early days he is the perfect choice to provide the art. (Sale does all of the in-show drawings for NBC's Heroes) Darwyn Cooke does a very good job capturing a young Superman. I don't know if I've ever read another book where Superman was still scared that he could be hurt. Cooke also gets Perry White down better than any writer in a long time. While I like the manic Perry that most Superman writers portray this version of Perry a little more grounded and realistic; The classical American newsman rather than a nicer J. Jonah Jameson. While the art and characterizations are top notch, the story leaves a bit to be desired. Clark, Lois and Jimmy acting like real reporters is nice, but the story they were assigned to didn't grab me at all. I realize you can't use Luthor in every story, but the apparent villain of the piece, Anthony Gallo, is too much of a blank slate to really be interesting at this point. I also couldn't tell if the kryptonite meteor itself was sentient or there was something inside of it that was narrating the opening scene.

Bottom Line:
A tremendous character piece that unfortunately doesn't have a story to match
3 out of 5

Irredeemable Ant-Man #2

Writer: Robert Kirkman
Penciller: Phil Hester

"Shock & Awe"

Present day: Ant Man meets Beth, the woman whose life he just saved, for dinner, telling her he forgot his wallet so she is forced to pick up the bill for their date. She asks him how he became Ant Man and...Six months ago Eric O'Grady, the SHIELD agent that stole an experimental Ant-Man suit from Hank Pym last issue, is still wandering around the Helicarrier, stuck at 2 inches tall. He has no idea how to work the suit and even worse his best friend, Chris McCarthy, is trying to make time with his girlfriend, Veronica. After wandering around for days he stumbles upon a firefight inside of the carrier. A horde of mind-controlled supervillains have attacked in an attempt to secure the still mind controlled Wolverine (as seen in the Enemy of the State storyline from Wolverine last year). Eric uses the Ant Man suit to subdue a couple of the villains and finally figures out how to return to normal size just before he finds his friend Chris hunkered down in his room. They go to escape the carrier but Chris pushes ahead of Eric. At that moment Eric takes a shot to the head from another enthralled villain, killing him. A distraught Chris takes the suit and flees just as the carrier crashes. Back in the present Chris, after telling his date a much more interesting origin story involving Doctor Doom, is invited up to Beth's apartment. Back on the street Chris is being tracked by his former supervising officer Mitch Carson, who now blames Chris for the massive deformity he now sports over one side of his face.

As origins go this new Ant Man's is pretty good. He's a bit of a sleaze, but still feels a lot of guilt over what happened to his friend Eric. I really dig the redesign of the Ant Man suit, complete with an extra pair of arms and a jet pack. He hasn't actually communicated with any ants yet so I don't know if that's still part of the gimmick. I love how Kirkman (Walking Dead, Marvel Zombies, Invincible) tied the origin to the great Enemy of the State storyline in Wolverine last year. In the big picture it doesn't really change the character much, but it's refreshing to see a writer use continuity instead of changing it to fir his/her needs. Kirkman has also laid down some very neat little mysteries for the readers to ponder, the big one being: how did Chris's supervisor, Mitch, get half of his face burnt off and why does he blame Chris? Hester and Parks (Green Arrow, Nightwing) are one of my favorite art combos. Their style may be a bit cartoony for some, but for a book about a dude that shrinks and may or may not talk to ants it fits beautifully.

Bottom Line:
I'm still not certain that the character has enough legs (get it? Legs? Ants? Haha. I'm funny!) to make it as an ongoing series, but this is a promising start.
4 out of 5

Blue Beetle #8

Writers: Keith Giffen & John Rogers
Artists: Cully Hammer & Casey Jones

"Road Trip"

Jamie (the new Blue Beetle), his friend Brenda and the mysterious Peacemaker are taking a road trip to seek out one of the former possessors of the scarab, Dan Garrett. What they find is Danielle Garrett, granddaughter of the first Blue Beetle. She loved her grandfather and has been studying his life, but she never saw any indication that the scarab was alive. She tells Jamie the story of how he became the Blue Beetle and how Ted Kord took over the mantle, sans powers, when he died. Meanwhile a big zombie has been following them, looking for Jamie. He kills a priest and begins tearing through the nearby town. Just as Jamie, Brenda and Danielle are about to start questioning the Peacemaker on his connection to the scarab, it alerts them to the zombie's rampage. Jamie, armored up, fights the monster, but it regenerates so quickly that he can't damage it. The whole time it is rambling on about how Jamie is the angel of death and the harbinger of the apocalypse. Now that it is close to the scarab it knows the name of the danger. "I have dreams, of armies from the heavens. They call, The Reach is Coming, and they bring doomsday." The zombie is finally taken down when Peacemaker hits him with an anesthetic nerve gas that he formulated from household cleaners and rock salt. Danielle Garrett gives them the rest of her notes on the scarab and Jamie and Brenda head out of town, determined to hear the Peacemaker's story.

This book has a very pleasant learning vibe, much like the early issues of Spiderman. Jamie is an extremely likable character who suddenly has to deal with the burden of powers that he doesn't fully understand except that are potentially very dangerous. Giffen and Rogers have built up a wall of enigmas around the Scarab but instead of hoarding every nugget of information (*cough*Lost*cough*) they reward the reader by doling out tidbits regularly. It also seems like DC is positioning Blue Beetle as a possible player in the major events to come in the near future, by tying him into the chalkboard from 52 (references to the Reach and the Armageddon). This issue in particular has a little bit of everything that makes this book fun: a little more light is shed on the scarab and what it can do, we meet a link to the character's past and we cap it off with a big fight scene. Is it a revolutionary concept? No, but it executes everything well and in the process crafts an endearing story.

Bottom Line:
A book with mysteries, humor and action that is more than suitable for all ages.
4 out of 5

Quick Hits

Justice League of America #3 - Where we see a Canary kick major ass, a machine with pointy ears, and the most threatening piece of seafood ever.
Detective Comics #825 - This story sucked. Alfred read like a 9th grader trying to do Monty Python. At least Dini will be back next month.
She-Hulk #13 - Slott spends an entire issue explaining away a continuity gaffe. Unfortunately it was a gaffe he himself wrote...in the last issue. Weak.

The Hot List - Week of November 8th

2006-11-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

DC
52 Week #27
Batman #658
Fables #55
Firestorm The Nuclear Man #31
Gen 13 #2
Green Arrow #68
Green Lantern #14
JLA Classified #29
Stormwatch PHD #1
Superman #657
Tales Of The Unexpected #2
Teen Titans #40
Y The Last Man #51

Marvel
Annihilation #4
Civil War Young Avengers & Runaways #4
Doctor Strange Oath #2
Eternals #5
New X-Men #32
Ultimate X-Men #76

Dark Horse
Star Wars Dark Times #1

Note to DC: Make Ivan Reis and Ethan Van Sciver co-pencillers on Green Lantern. Have them each pencil 6-8 issues a year of the book, this way you not only get back on schedule you potentially have enough extra issues to go bi-weekly during the summer.

I've been pretty underwhelmed by the Worldstorm so far, but Stormwatch looks promising, especially with Doug Mahnke providing the pencils.

How good is Brian K. Vaughn? He made a Doctor Strange story that not only was good, it was great. An act of magic if there ever was one.

The Star Wars comics have been worlds better than I expected, so I'm going to give Dark Times a shot. I can only hope it's as good as Knights of the Old Republic.

Busiek Leaving Aquaman to Work on 'Mystery Project'

2006-11-02T15:55:00.000-05:00

Links from Newsarama

Sayeth Busiek:

I was having a very good time writing the book, as I think anyone who reads it can tell, and was all set for a lengthy run, exploring the world and the characters and the many mysteries and portents and such.
I love writing heroic fantasy, and I think the exotic world of the oceanscape suits it perfectly.

But then, stupid me, I had an idea for something that I thought would be a good project and had the potential to benefit DC, the fans and the comics marketplace in general. It was a very non-standard idea, and I didn't think DC would go for it. But I thought it was a good idea, and I didn't want to just assume it'd be shot down. I'd rather toss it on the table and get an actual ‘no’.

So when I was in New York, I ran it by Dan Didio, and to my surprise, he liked it a lot -- and thought it was something DC should do.

And by the time I got home, he'd pitched it to Paul Levitz, and Paul also thought it was a good idea, and something DC should do.

And they've been wrangling over formats and schedules and such since then, but it's a pretty large project -- more than the usual 22 pages a month that most series are, and it was pretty clear that t wasn't something that could be just added to my schedule, I'd need to give up something to make room for it. And I've been having a great time with both Superman and Aquaman, and it'd be hard to leave either one, but with Carlos kicking ass on Superman and Butch Guice leaving Aquaman, I had a tighter grip on the Kryptonian than the Atlantean, and Dan decided I should let Aquaman go to make room for the Mystery Project.

He's being replaced by fantasy writer Tad Williams (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Otherworld, DC's The Next)

I wonder what the mystery project is? It sounds too out of the blue to be 'Look to the Skies' (which scuttlebutt says Jim Starlin will be writing)

Review Time - Week of October 25th

2006-11-01T16:40:00.000-05:00

Seven Soldiers of Victory #1

"The Miser's Coat"

We open in The Tailor's Shop; seen previously in the Zatanna mini, as the Tailor entertains his client with a tale of The Seven Soldiers who are destined to save the world from an evil queen, yet never meet. We then move to the far distant future where The Shining Knight Sir Ystin, stepping out of the cauldron of rebirth, greets Gloriana Tenebrae, Queen of the Sheeda, in her throne room. We then move 40,000 years in our past, when the New Gods came to Earth and created Aurakles, the first superhero. Aurakles is given seven items of power and set to tame the Earth. Eons pass and Neanderthal super scientists create a time machine, which is sent into the future where Melmoth, scavenger King of the Sheeda, finds it. And so begins the first harrowing of Earth. The next harrowing occurs 30 millennia later, in the days of King Arthur and his knights, but the Sheeda and their Castle Revolving crush them as well. Back in present day New York The Guardian leads the defense against the Sheeda hordes, Bulleteer tries to get help for her nemesis and Zatanna & Misty fly to the rescue with a horde of flying horses. Misty, Zatanna's apprentice and daughter of Melmoth, knocks her teacher out so she can confront her stepmother, Gloriana Tenebrae. Before Misty can get far she is confronted by Klarion, who steals her magic die, (which he calls a Croatoan, the Sheeda word for Fatherbox) and escapes. Zatanna wakes up just as the Castle Revolving pops into existence over Manhattan. On the bridge of the Castle Frankenstein informs SHADE that the Sheeda are not aliens, or extra dimensional, but what humans will become in a billion years. Just as Frankenstein is about to finish the Sheeda Klarion, who still possesses power to control 'Grundy-Men', stops him. High over Manhattan Gloriana and Sir Ystin fight fiercely until Ystin is thrown off the Castle Revolving, only to be saved by his Flying Horse. At street level Mister Miracle confronts Darkseid in human guise. The Lord of Apokolips has struck a deal with the Sheeda, they get the Americas to ravage, and Darkseid gets Aurakles. Shilo offers to take Aurakles' place as Darkseid's captive, claiming that he will make his greatest escape. Darkseid agrees since Shilo, the New Gods spirit of Life and Freedom, is the one he actually wants. Darkseid then pulls out a pistol and shoots Shilo in the head, killing him. Back on the castle Gloriana is about to send her assassin, I, Spyder, to kill her step-daughter Misty when he turns on the Queen of the Sheeda, shooting her in the head with an arrow and dropping her to the street below. On the street below she is struck and killed by 'the spear thrown by mighty Aurakles 42,000 years ago' in the form of the car driven by Bulleteer as her nemesis, Sonic Sally, tries to kill her. We end with scenes showing Sir Ystin attending a girl's school (yes in this version Shining Knight is a girl), The Tailor sewing up Zor (from the Zatanna mini) into the Miser's Coat, Klarion as the new lord of the Sheeda and Mister Miracle's grave as he rises out of it.

The first thing that has to be said about this book is the art. J.H. Williams III produces some of the most amazing art ever seen in a comic book, and his work is even more extraordinary when you see the different art styles he uses for each of the Soldier's chapters. And the art isn't just pretty, it's creative and well thought out, traits you don't always get with other 'pretty' pencillers. There are about a dozen different panels and pages in this issue that should be hanging in a museum. The story Morrison tries to tell also deserves praise; its epic, audacious and has a lot of heart. Unfortunately the story is so epic and convoluted that it's often hard to understand. The story jumps from the distant past to the distant future and back to the present several times while (possibly) breaking the fourth wall at times as well. Several of the Soldiers, Frankenstein and Guardian, didn't seem to do too much in this issue at all. It took me a while to figure out that Bulleteer is apparently Aurakles' descendant, and hence the spear thrown 42,000 years ago that finally found its mark. Ultimately while I think the ideas behind the book were top notch, the presentation was so muddled and convoluted that it made it difficult to fully enjoy. The six-month delay definitely hurt as well. I just don't remember a lot of the details of the seven mini-series, details that may have shed some light on this book.

Bottom Line:
Great art and an epic story that collapsed under the weight of it's own high concept.
3 out of 5

Sensational Spider-Man #31

"The Deadly Foes of Peter Parker, part 3"

As Peter responds to his old flame Liz Allan's distress call The Chameleon, disguised as Peter, worms his way into Avenger's Tower and next to Aunt May. Peter and Liz hash our some lingering resentment before he is ambushed by The Molten Man, The Scarecrow and Will O' The Wisp. Spidey is taking a beating when Black Shows up and they make quick work of the 3 villains. Molten Man tells Peter that the real target is Aunt May and he goes swinging off to save her. Back in Avenger's Tower May is baking cookies for the man she thinks is her nephew. The Chameleon is fantasizing about strangling the elderly woman as the two engage in conversations about cookies, locked doors and yarn. Aunt May has the last laugh however. She knew immediately that it wasn't Peter, so she ground up some of Mary Jane's sleeping pills into the cookies she was baking and fed them to the fake Peter. The real Spidey crashes through the window only to find The Chameleon already unconscious on the floor.

I like the bad-ass, self sufficient Aunt May. For all too long she was portrayed as a doddering victim-in-waiting, so its nice to see her written as competent for once. The rest of the story was a nice exploration of the consequences of Peter's unmasking, but it just wasn't particularly gripping. Angel Medina's art looks a lot like Todd McFarland's Spiderman work from the early 90's. So much so that it distracts from his otherwise competent work. Both of the Spiderman satellite books (Spectacular and Friendly Neighborhood) have been good but both also feel like they're treading water while moving from crossover to crossover.

Bottom Line: A fun story but not a particularly memorable one
3 out of 5

Action Comics #844

"Last Son, part 1"

Superman, after visiting with a computer simulation of his father in his Fortress of Solitude, returns to Metropolis in time to catch a shell-shaped object as it rocketed to Earth. Inside the object is a child. Superman brings the child, who looks about 8, to the Department of Metahuman Affairs where is quickly becomes apparent that the child is Kryptonian. The DMA later learns that the rocket containing the child came not from outer space but from hyperspace. Clark doesn't know what to do with the child, all he knows is the feelings he already has towards the boy. The next day Superman goes to visit with the child but the lab has been stripped down. The child is gone. An enraged Superman forces his way into the Pentagon to get some answers from the DMA head, Sarge Steel. The military convoy transporting the child is ambushed and the child taken away. Finally, on the Kent's farm, Clark shows up with the child and asks his parents to help him raise the boy.

A good start. While the book seemed a little light at times the seeds of some very interesting storylines were planted, first and foremost: Is the boy really a Kryptonian? With almost any other creative team such a huge change for the character would be inconceivable, but the Johns-Donner combo is big enough that you really feel this change may stick. And there in also lies a problem. This run has been so hyped for so long that this first issue felt like a bit of a let down. It may be unfair, anything short of instant classic would have fallen short of the hype, but my initial reaction was: That's it? The lack of an overt villain, other than a one-page tease from Lex Luthor, brings the book down a notch, but not substantially. Adam Kubert's art seemed very sketchy at times. In some places it worked well, in others it looked rushed or incomplete.

Bottom Line: A good start to a storyline with a lot of potential
3 out of 5

Quick Hits

Civil War: Choosing Sides: A whole lot of nothing.
Nextwave #9: You think this 'E' stands for America?
Justice #8: For the first time on a long time, Aquaman is a badass.

The Awesomest Thing Ever!

2006-11-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

The poster is right, this is the most awesome thing ever created by man. The only way this could be better is if Leia was on stage with a key-tar.

(Thanks to Ragnar Danneskjold, The All-Seeing Pirate @ The Jawa Report)

Crackhead Squirrels

2006-10-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

For some reason the fact that this story comes from a British newspaper makes it even funnier.

SQUIRRELS are getting hooked on crack cocaine — hidden by addicts in gardens.

They are digging up the stashes and eating the mega-addictive drug, which comes in small chunks.

Several have been spotted behaving bizarrely in Brixton, South London, since a police blitz against pushers and users.

One resident said: “My neighbour said dealers had used my garden to hide crack.

“Just an hour earlier I’d seen a squirrel digging in the flower-beds.

“It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot, but it kept on desperately digging. It seems a strange thing to say, but it seemed to know what it was looking for.”

Other residents have seen squirrels become unusually aggressive.

The RSPCA said: “These animals are big foragers. They are attracted by smell and will dig up what they fancy.

“If a squirrel did open a bag of crack and start consuming it there is no doubt it would die pretty quickly.”

Crack squirrels are a recognised problem in America. They are common in parks used by addicts in New York and Washington DC.

They have been known to attack park visitors in their search for a fix.

The Hot List - Week of November 1st

2006-10-30T16:28:00.000-05:00

DC
52 Week #26
All-New Atom #5
Blue Beetle #8
Detective Comics #825
Ex Machina #24
Exterminators #11
Jonah Hex #13
Justice League Of America #3
Manifest Eternity #6
Midnighter #1
Mystery In Space #3
Nightwing #126
Outsiders #42

Marvel
Agents Of Atlas #4
Criminal #2
Incredible Hulk #100
Irredeemable Ant-Man #2
She-Hulk 2 #13
Uncanny X-Men #480
X-Men: Phoenix Warsong #3

Fallen Angel Vol 2 #10

It feels like an age since Ex Machina's last issue hit the stands. The wait is worth it.

Justice League has been fun so far, but this issue needs to up the action quotient a little.

I've been riding a wave of good will towards Garth Ennis lately so I'm going give The Midnighter a try.

Planet Hulk started off great, but has been treading water for the last few issues. Pak needs to move things along a little bit.

Random Musings - Lost Year Edition

2006-10-26T19:08:00.000-04:00

Did I read that right? Wildcats #2 delayed until March?!?! All-Star Batman delayed until January? I love Jim Lee, but someone needs to pull him aside and tell him not to take on so many projects. Wildcats. All-Star Batman. The DC massively multiplayer game. He needs to look himself in the mirror and hand one of these off to another artist before its too late.

Fuse, the music video network, was actually playing Evil Dead this week. I don't think I've ever seen that broadcast outside of the premium channels. One of the great horror movies of all time.

I read Seven Soldiers #1 today. I didn't understand it, but I read it. The damn thing should come with a tab of acid to drop while you read it, maybe then it would make some sense.

Japanese game shows are funny. And so very, very painful.

I need Gears of War. Now.

I was given something called a Slanket the other day. Its a big, plush blanket with sleeves in it. It sounds a little odd at first (and it kind of looks like monk robes) but its actually a great idea. Being able to surf the web and play Saints Row in a cold house while snuggly wrapped up is very nice. And since a bunch of my friends and family seemed to like it my Christmas shopping got a bit easier this year.

Review Time

2006-10-24T19:21:00.000-04:00

Birds of Prey #99

"Headhunter, part 4. Class Dismissed"

Black Canary and Huntress chase the Turkish gunrunner Yasemin into an abandoned tenement as Oracle faces the new Batgirl. The new Batgirl seems to know all about Barbara and her Birds and claims to have been in Oracle's base many times before. In keeping with superhero tradition Faux-Batgirl attacks Babs before getting dropped herself. Barbara realizes that the girl isn't really a threat, but she cannot let her fight crime under her cowl. Faux-Batgirl asks Barbara to train her "just like you trained Cassandra (the last Batgirl, who is now apparently evil)" and Babs gets angry slaps the girl, promising to show her "what it means to be Batgirl." Meanwhile Huntress is forced to pursue Yasemin after a henchman waylays Black Canary. Yasemin taunts Huntress, threatening to kill every child in the class Huntress' alter ego teaches. This pisses Huntress off and, after scaling the side of the building, beats Yasemin with an antenna before dangling her over the edge. Huntress threatens to drop her 10 stories to the pavement below unless she promises to stay away from her students. Yasemin, bruised and bloody, consents; much to the relief of Black Canary who thought her friend may once again cross a line. Back in Barbara's base she reluctantly shows the girl just what it means to be Batgirl, giving her the slug The Joker put into her spine, and showing her pictures of Spoiler lying dead on a mortuary slab. The girl is heartbroken by the images and agrees to give up her dreams of being Batgirl and leave, although she says she never promised she wouldn't become a superhero. Next we see Black Canary present Babs with a copy of her memoirs as she tells her best friend that she is leaving the team to spend more time with her adopted daughter, Sin. The two reminisce over past adventures before Dinah goes to break the news to Huntress. In a scene with a surprising amount of lesbian subtext Dinah says goodbye to Helena, with Helena thanking her for being such a good friend. At the end Huntress has, for the first time, taken over as narrator of the series.

...And so begins a new era for one of the best, most consistent books on the market. The dialogue between Canary and Huntress in the first few pages, Huntress teasing Canary about gaining weight, Canary speaking in Bizarro Black Canary voice was absolutely priceless and served as a great counterpoint to the Oracle/Faux-Batgirl scenes. Raiz did a great job capturing the combination grief and determination on Oracle's face as she showed the young girl exactly what being a Batgirl can do to you. Huntress also had a great scene with Yasemin on the roof; almost everything you need to know about her character was included on those few pages. Raiz' art was pretty good (complete with the new trend of drawing every seam, buckle and lace on the costumes) although his faces looked a little blocky and odd at times. The scene with Huntress and Canary at the end was odd. To call it lesbian subtext almost doesn't do it justice, I really expected the two characters to start making out for a moment. It didn't detract from the story, but it took a scene that was (in my opinion) supposed to be more about the big sister-little sister dynamic and turned it into something else completely.

Bottom Line: Humor, poignancy, action, character development and lesbian subtext, all in one neat package

The Authority #1

"Utopian"

A submarine in the Norwegian Sea goes down after members of the crew attack one another. A man named Ken wakes up in England to a cold, unhappy marriage. Ken is called in to investigate the submarine incident but his wife doesn't want him to go. Ken and his crew, Tor and Dex, take a small sub and investigate the site as his wife packs a bag to leave him. They reach the sub and find the crew had been killed, some with broken necks, others with their heads torn off. Tor is confronted by a familiar wall of shimmering orange light before disappearing suddenly without a trace. Ken is worried when he is informed that a large anomalous object has been detected right in front of them. They hit the lights and see an absolutely massive structure sitting on the bottom of the sea.

When I got to the last page of this book I almost thought there were pages missing from my copy. Why? BECAUSE ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED! It felt like the first five minutes of an episode of Law & Order. The Authority, you know the stars of the title, do not appear in one single panel in the entire book. Books that have rich, complex, likable supporting casts can survive an issue without the stars, but the cast of this issue has all the appeal of canker sore. Did I mention that in the first post-reboot issue of one of the flagship titles of the Wildstorm line the main characters are not even mentioned? The whole book just feels pretentious; like it's so mind-numbingly brilliant that they don't actually have to include anything approaching a story to make you but it. The only saving grace of this book is Gene Ha's art, which is impressive to say the least. Other than that there is nothing to this issue. Don't buy it. Avert your eyes lest its hippotamic feculence infects thine eyes.

Bottom Line: Quite possibly the worst comic I've ever read that didn't have the words 'Rob Leifeld' on the cover

John Woo's 7 Brothers #1

"Son of Heaven, Son of Hell"

A great Chinese Emperor sends four treasure fleets to the four corners of the Earth. These fleets circumnavigate the globe collecting wealth and knowledge before returning to the Middle Kingdom. Upon arriving home they are greeted not with honor but with scorn. The expedition cost so much money that the peasants revolted and the Empire was thrown into disarray. In the end China turned to isolationism and all records of the treasure fleets were stricken from history. Almost. In the present day Los Angels a pimp named Double-Double is letting some hos know what the score is when the ladies proceed to beat the crap out of Double-Double for their boss, a big pimp named Skull. We then see a very nice apartment where six men are meeting. All six men were given a plane ticket to LA and $50,000, with the promise of another $50,000 if they attend the meeting. All of the men are intelligent and speak English but hail from all over the globe. The story then cuts back to Double-Double, who is about to receive The Unkindest Cut from Skull when a slender Asian woman pulls up in a sports car. She proceed to beat the holy hell out of Skull and his crew, hitting them so quickly that they did not feel the blows until 30 seconds later. She takes Double-Double, real name Ronald, with her to the apartment. The Asian lady, Rachael, informs the men that she does not have the rest of their money at the moment and they begin to leave when she divulges their secrets. Each man has powers: speed, far-seeing, far-hearing, teleportation, sonic scream and flight. She does not know what Ronald's power is but she knows that all seven of them are needed to save the world. We then move to China where a team of spelunkers is in a cave under the Great Wall. They find a wall inscribed with characters but before they can breach it several members are killed in a freak cave in, an omen of things to come.

I really wasn't expecting much from this book but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Garth Ennis' trademark over the top dialogue mixed with John Woo's martial arts flair and just a hint of Eastern mysticism produced a fun book. Geevan Kang's art was a little rough and dark for my tastes but he did an adequate job on the book. Ennis' work is fun if not exactly original; its equal parts obscene and funny. The scenes with Double-Double, Skull and Rachael were fun, but the rest of the story seems a bit light in comparison.

Bottom Line: An interesting beginning that falls just short of compelling
3 out of 5

X-Factor #12

"X'D Out, part 3"

The Eldest Tryp calmly explains to Madrox, Rahne and Monet that he is also a kind of 'Multiple Man', capable of existing as past, present and future versions of himself at any point along his own timeline. In his future X-Factor was instrumental in undoing the effects of the Decimation and restoring the Mutant's powers. But the sudden re-powering of millions of mutants caused the balance of power to shift and soon there were 'No More Humans'. A pair of rampaging mutants destroyed Tryp's future body while his mind was in the present, so he now exists in a state of near incorporeality. His goal now is to either keep the mutants powerless or kill X-Factor; both actions would suit his goals. A scuffle ensues and the ghostly Tryp uses his powers to show them the future he is trying to prevent. Layla meanwhile does her Butterfly thing back at X-Factor HQ with a few calls to local pizzerias and a set of bolt cutters, the end result being Mrs. Buchanon getting sprung from her captor's van. While Madrox and the others are busy fighting with Eldest Tryp Rictor and Siryn discover Singularity's hidden files and their even more hidden armory. Rictor and Siryn are ambushed by the other two Tryps but the manage to escape. Madrox tells them to stand down as they go the leave Singularity alone. However a Dupe, created in the scuffle with Tryp, comes out of the armory strapped with C-4. This Dupe remembers when Tryp used his elemental powers to kill Madrox' family with a tornado when he was small. The Dupe blows himself up, ejecting X-Factor from the building and destroying The Tryps and their offices in the process. Back at X-Factor HQ Layla is confronted by the Eldest Tryp, who survived the blast. He realizes that Layla is actually the danger point of the group, and tells the stunned girl, "When chaos battles chaos, expect the unexpected"

Firstly, Tryp's power is a little hard for me to get a firm handle on. Whether this is an intentional obfuscation or just a poor explanation is still an open question. The story itself was Peter David near the top of his game. Deep philosophical questions layered over some breakneck plot twists and sprinkled with quirky humor. It was a very villain heavy piece so a lot of the cast faded into the background a bit, but not enough to weaken the story. The art, especially that of Roy Allan Martinez (Son of M) on the flashbacks, was good, although Renato Arlem tries a bit too hard at times to make the book feel noir-ish. I love the concept of Madrox's Dupes each having different personalities with slightly different lettering for each Dupe's speech bubbles.

Quick Hits
Runaways #21 - Chase does the right thing in the end, even if the reader may have been wishing for him to do otherwise. And Molly has too much caffeine.
Checkmate #7 - Only three members of the Suicide Squad died on a mission. That's like an all time low.
52 #24 - The Justice League is back (sort of), Skeets returns (better than ever), Black Adam makes peace (for now) and Amanda Waller makes Atom Smasher an offer that he can't refuse (although he may wish he had). Plus the debuts of POLEDANCER AND E.S.PETE!

The Hot List - Week of October 25th

2006-10-23T12:32:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts but its been an...odd week.
DC
52 Week #25
Action Comics #844
Boys #4
Jack Of Fables #4
Justice #8
Secret Six #5
Seven Soldiers #1
Supergirl And The Legion Of Super-Heroes #23
Superman Batman Annual #1
Trials Of SHAZAM #3
Uncle Sam And The Freedom Fighters #4

Marvel
Captain America #23
Civil War Choosing Sides
Daredevil #90
Exiles #87
Heroes For Hire #3
New Avengers #24
Nextwave Agents Of HATE #9
Ultimate Spider-Man #101
X-Men #192

Is Justice the best Justice League story ever told?

Is the Seven Soldiers finale actually coming out? For reals?

Is The Sentry actually going to do something in New Avengers?

Pull List.com

2006-10-17T19:45:00.000-04:00

Digg + Comic Book News = Pull-List.com.

I'm not sure how big it can get with such a narrow focus, but I'll stick around to find out.

Looking Forward - Marvel's January Solicitations

2006-10-17T13:06:00.000-04:00

Oh mighty crystal ball. Tell us what the House of Ideas will bring forth in the dead of winter's heart.

ULTIMATE CIVIL WAR SPIDER-HAM CRISIS (FEATURING WOLVER-HAM) #1
Written by J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Penciled by MIKE WIERINGO, MIKE ALLRED, JOHN SEVERIN, NICK DRAGOTTA, ARIEL OLIVETTI and JIM MAHFOOD
Cover by MIKE WIERINGO
You asked for it, you got it! Quite possibly the most important comic ever! A life-changing event that will change the way you look at yourself and the world around you! Spinning out of the page of CIVIL WAR -- and every other top-selling comic crossover event you can think of - it's ULTIMATE CIVIL WAR SPIDER-HAM FRISIS (FEATURING WOLVER-HAM)!!! He's little, he's pink, he knows how to bring home the bacon. He's Spider-Ham - and he's about to embark a kaleidoscopic, time-spanning, universe-shifting journey that will prove just how big a pig he really is. Guest-starring: Iron Ham, Deviled Ham, Fantastic Ham, Green Ham, Ant-Ham, Ultimate Captain Ham, Hambit, Hamneto, and everyone's favorite Sorcerer Supreme -- whathisface? You know, the guy with the blue tights and red cape…Mustache…Man-servant named Wong? -- anyway, you know who I'm talking about. He's in it, too. And Wolver-Ham - did I mention him?

I probably won't buy this, but it's still a great idea. I'm glad that Marvel can poke fun at itself.

NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E. #12
Written by WARREN ELLIS
Pencils and Cover by STUART IMMONEN
To all those who HAVEN'T been buying NEXTWAVE-
Thanks a lot, jerks! This is the last issue! To all those who HAVE been buying NEXTWAVE- YOU RULE!! Do not miss this pulse-pounding conclusion to the greatest work of western literature EVER! Hamlet? Horrible. War and Peace? What-a-joke! The Great Gatsby? The Great Lame-by, maybe. Those works are going to be moved to the Bad Section of your local bookstores after this issue comes out. Don't miss this or you won't know what your children's children are reading in school.

While I knew that Ellis probably wouldn't keep this book going for long, I'll be sad to see it go. It was a great, fun read.

NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI #2 (of 5)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS & BRIAN REED
Pencils & Cover by JIM CHEUNG
The Infinity Gems offer their users complete mastery of the universe -- if any one of the Gems fell into the wrong hands, it would be catastrophic. So, when the Illuminati discover the Infinity Gems are scattered across the cosmos, completely unguarded, the race is on to collect them before anyone else learns the truth. The fate of the Marvel Universe hangs in the balance as Brian Michael Bendis (New Avengers) and Brian Reed (Ms. Marvel) team up with Jim Cheung (Young Avengers) to tell another chapter in the tale of the Illuminati!

I'm a sucker for the Infinity Gems

SQUADRON SUPREME: HYPERION VS. NIGHTHAWK #1 (of 4)
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM
Pencils and Cover by PAUL GULACY
It had to happen: The ultimate throw-down between the two stars of the smash hits "Supreme Power" and "Squadron Supreme:" Hyperion and Nighthawk.
But what could draw these two heroes into the biggest of all smackdowns? Nothing less than genocide. In this ripped from the headlines story, Marc Guggenheim (Wolverine, Blade) and comic book legend Paul Gulacy (Master of Kung Fu) explore the real-world tragedy that is going on right now in Darfur, Africa. The most thought-provoking and action-packed book you'll read all year!

Please stop with the Squadron Supreme minis.

CIVIL WAR: THE RETURN
Written by PAUL JENKINS
Penciled by TOM RANEY
As the Civil War rages, two of the universe's greatest heroes are confronted with pasts they can't leave behind in two heart-rendering tales. On Earth, the Sentry confronts his inner demons as the shadows of past and future battles tear him apart. Within The Negative Zone, the walls of 42, are pulled back to reveal the return of one of the Marveldom's greatest heroes…now face-to-face with a Universe they no longer recognize.

Captain Marvel was one of the great deaths in comic history. Why not let him stay dead?

WOLVERINE #50
Written by JEPH LOEB
Penciled by SIMONE BIANCHI & ED MCGUINNESS
Wraparound cover by SIMONE BIANCHI
"EVOLUTION," PART 1
A DOUBLE-SIZED SPECIAL 50TH ISSUE! WITH SPECTACLAR WRAPAROUND COVER BY BIANCHI!
Superstar Jeph Loeb (Batman: Hush) is joined by future superstar Simone Bianchi for the biggest, best and, quite possibly, last battle between Wolverine and Sabretooth! These sworn foes have been locked in an endless grudge match that goes back longer than either can remember -- or even imagine. The key to victory is eons old, and it's certain to rock their world. Think you've seen Marvel's fiercest go toe-to-toe before? Those were just warm-ups. Also featuring a 12-page backup story "PUNY LITTLE MAN," by Loeb and superstar Ed McGuinness (Superman/Batman): He's big, he's green, he's mean, and he just got his mitts on Logan. Now THIS is gonna hurt.

While I'm not the biggest Jeph Loeb fan I'm really looking forward to this story.

X-MEN: PHOENIX - WARSONG #5 (of 5)
Written by GREG PAK
Penciled by TYLER KIRKHAM
Cover by MARC SILVESTRI

Wasn't this the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion

No solicits for Astonishing X-Men, or Civil War #7. I am shocked. SHOCKED.

Looking Forward - DC's January Solicitations

2006-10-16T17:14:00.000-04:00

Books to be released by the Distinguished Competition in the month of the god of doorways.

DETECTIVE COMICS #827
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Don Kramer & Wayne Faucher
Cover by Simone Bianchi
Meet the all-new Ventriloquist! After surviving a near-fatal explosion, Batman discovers the Ventriloquist and Scarface are back - with a vengeance. As the Dark Knight tries to unravel the mystery behind his enemies' resurrection, Scarface unites the most feared names in the Gotham Underworld and introduces them to a surprising new ally in their war against Batman.

Was anyone really pleading for the return of The Ventriloquist?

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #33
Written by Mark Verheiden
Art by Matthew Clark & Andy Lanning
Cover by Phil Jimenez
Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica, Smallville) brings you the conclusion of the epic story pitting DCU aliens against the Earth. You won't believe who the Last Son of Krypton and the Dark Knight must face in this finale!

Nice concept on this cover, but the execution needs some work.

BLUE BEETLE #11
Written by Keith Giffen & John Rogers
Art by Rafael Albuquerque
Cover by Andy Kuhn
Lost in space - again! But this time the Beetle's got Metron of the New Gods on his side - if he can survive the hostile world where they've met.

The New Gods are a recurring theme in these solicits

CHECKMATE #10
Written by Greg Rucka
Art and cover by Jesus Saiz
"Pawn 502" concludes! All spy agencies have special forces. Only Checkmate has Shadowpact - but even magic may not stop a survivor of Luthor's Everyman Project from blowing this op sky-high!

The Shadowpact and The Everyman Project in the same issue? The threads of 52 pull tighter.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #2
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Dale Eaglesham & Art Thibert
Cover by Alex Ross
Variant cover by Eaglesham
The new adventures of America's greatest super-team continue! After a deadly arrival at their new headquarters, the JSA must discover who's hunting down their descendants. Will the youngest member, Cyclone, be the next victim?

How badass is this cover?

TEEN TITANS #43
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Tony Daniel & Jonathan Glapion
Cover by Daniel
Part 1 of the eagerly anticipated "Titans East" story! Led by Deathstroke, a Teen Titans team consisting of Batgirl, Risk, Match, Alter Boy, Enigma, Sun Girl and Inertia is out to chew gum and kick butt…and guess what? They're all out of gum!

I want this book now!

No solicits for Justice League, Green Lantern, Firestorm and Wonder Woman this time. That's not a good sign.

The Hot List - Week of October 18th

2006-10-16T11:42:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #24
Authority #1
Birds Of Prey #99
Checkmate #7
Exterminators #10
Fables 1001 Nights Of Snowfall HC
Omega Men #1
Robin #155
Sandman Vol 2 #1 $0.50
Shadowpact #6
WildCATS #1

Marvel
Cable Deadpool #33
Civil War X-Men #4
Runaways Vol 2 #21
Ultimate Fantastic Four #35
X-Factor #12

The Worldstorm continues with the Grant Morrison penned relaunches of both The Authority and Wild C.A.T.S. hitting stands this week. I'll give both a shot but to be perfectly honest I never really liked The Authority.

It feels like I've been waiting for the Fables 1001 Nights of Snowfall Hardcover for 1001 days. I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

A $.50 comic? Oh hells yeah. Its a Sandman Mystery Theater relaunch? Double hells yeah.

If Civil War: X-Men was a six issue mini then I would have already dropped it, but since there is only one issue left I'll bite the bullet and pick it up.

Warren Ellis Writing Castlevania Animated Film

2006-10-13T18:18:00.000-04:00

This blew my mind. Castlevania has so much potential as an animated film, and Ellis can get the most out of the concept. I'm not sure who the lead designer is on the project, but the material lends itself to some very stylish visuals.

Review Time - Week of October 11th

2006-10-13T17:10:00.000-04:00

Fables #54 - Hansel arrives in Fabletown as the Emperor's ambassador and kicks the proverbial beehive. Prince Charming, absent from Fabletown for most of it's history, hears Hansel's story from Beauty and Frau Totenkinder, and it isn't pretty. After killing the Witch in the Gingerbread house (the afore mentioned Totenkinder) Hansel immediately begins to show a disturbing fascination with killing. When he and his sister reach Fabletown in the 1600s Hansel is horrified to find Frau Totenkinder living peacefully, safe from harm by force of the Fabletown compact. Hansel immedately leave to live in the Mundy world, becoming a world renowned Witch Hunter in the process. When he returns to Town a century later he finds his sister has become friendly with the old witch. In a fit of rage Hansel kills Gretel and tries to portray it as an accident. The Fables don't buy his story and exile him, stripping him of his amnesty under the Fabletown Compact. Soon after the business of Witch Hunting dried up and Hansel returned to the Homelands to work for the Emperor. This backstory is interwoven with Hansel's attempts to secure new digs and Beast's quandry of how to keep track of the Emperor's embassy.

Where is Gretel?

I know she was shown killed in the flashback, but shes a pretty famous Fable. Goldilocks survived multiple gunshots, a fall down a cliff and a axe to her head, so Gretel should be able to bounce back from a broken neck. So I fully expect Gretel to show up at some point soon. As for the issue, it was the normal excellence I expect from Willingham in this series. This issue really made me realize well he writes Prince Charming. Prince began the series as an almost irredemable louse, but ever since he became Mayor of Fabletown he has slowly become a very likeable character. He's still ruled by his libido, but he also seems to genuinely care about the fate of his people now.

New X-Men #31 - The New X-Men face Nimrod, a Sentinel from the future so advanced that even the X-Men, with one of their most powerful lineups ever, couldn't defeat it. They attack, but seem hopelessly outmatched, with Rockslide being blown to bits by Nimrod. Forge comes up with a plan to destroy the Super-Sentinel and the NXM attack en masse. Each teammember gets their licks in before Talon tears open its armor, allowing Mercury and Surge to overload the time device. Nimrod wakes up in the past, just before it's first encounter with the X-Men. The NXM however are devastated with Rockslide in pieces and Talon injured so badly her healing factor cannot compensate. Rockslide pulls himself together, albeit looking somewhat differently, and Hellion takes Talon and tries to fly her from Dallas to Westchester so Elixir can heal her. He makes it an collapses at Elixir's feet, but he manages to save Laura from death.

When Kyle and Yost first took over this book I disliked how many characters they killed off early on. It was a bit gratuitous, especially coming right on the heels of the Decimation. This issue those deaths really paid off. I really thought they killed off Rockslide for good this time. Santo Vaccaro isn't a great character, but I found myself feeling bad when I thought he was gone for good. The rest of the issue was equally great, with each team member getting a moment to shine. Its tough to take what is essentially a junior team and craft stories that are sufficently threatening while working within the bounds of the mother books, and in this case the writers did a bang up job. I tip my cap to Misters Yost and Kyle for making a worthy successor to the old New Mutants book without being slavishly bound to the past. This issue shows why Paco Medina is a rising star. Some fans think his work is too cartoony, but I think it fits the material here perfectly.

Quick Hits
Ultimate Power #1 - Bendis' take on Reed Richards may be his best work. Ultimate Reed may be the most sympathetic character in the Ultimate U.
52 Week 23 - The Island of Mad Scientists should get it's own series.

Infinite Crisis ver. 2.0?

2006-10-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

DC released the hardcover version of Infinite Crisis this week. In addition to the retouched artwork and 'deleted scenes' that we were expecting DC also apparently made some substantive changes to the dialouge itself. The details can be seen here and here, but the gist is that DC apparently may be bringing back Earth-2 in some way, shape or form.

This makes me angry.

The return of Earth-2 doesn't bother me. If DC's braintrust thinks they can get good stories out of it, great.

The 'deleted scenes' don't bug me. If they were taken out in the first place then they probably didn't add anything to the whole.

The retouched art doesn't really bother me much. I wish I had it but I'm not going to spend $19.99 to see it.

What does make me angry is changing the story, even incrementally, from the original to the hardcover. I bought all 7 issues of the main book, all 30+ issues of the lead-in minis and lord knows how many tie-in issues, yet I now discover that I don't have the whole story. DC is essentially saying "The $21 you paid for the series? It doesn't entitle you to the whole story. Pony up another Jackson." You want to make things right DC? Post a panel-by-panel comparason on your website. Let the people that bought IC when it came out (i.e. - your loyal customers) see what you want us to see without having to buy the HC.

Random Musings - Fembot Edition

2006-10-10T16:40:00.000-04:00

Terrence Howard will be playing Jim Rhodes in the new Iron Man movie. Good casting, but with an eye towards future iterations of the character/franchise. The comic book movie collapse is staved off for another year.

David Eick, one of Battlestar Galactica's showrunners, will be bringing the Bionic Woman back to television, updating the concept a la BSG. The ethical/moral implications of a bionic person have always fascinated me, so this is right up my alley. No word on when the show will debut, but I'd guess Fall '07.

On a related note: A lot of people disliked BSG's season premiere.
It was too talky.
It was too political.
It was too different.
Me? I liked it. It wasn't great, but I thought it was effective. Lots of people hated the direction the show took at the very end of season 2 when the focus shifted to the New Caprica colony. The producers could have kept them bopping around in space for the next 6 seasons without a word of complaint, but they took a chance and changed the status quo of a hit show. It was very politically charged, but the past 2 seasons have dealt with complex hot button issues so well, and so even handedly, that it didn't bother me this one time.

Last BSG tidbit: earlier today a rumor hit the net (via AICN) that NBC was thinking of moving it form Sci-Fi to the mothership. This would be a collosally bad idea. BSG does very good, maybe great, ratings for a basic cable channel. Put those same numbers on a network show and you have a disaster.
(UPDATE - NBC has since debunked the rumor. Its staying on Sci-Fi)

So people are now camping out in front of game retailers to make pre-orders on the Playstation 3? For a console that costs $500-$600 and may only launch with ONE semi-exclusive title? I feel shame for my fellow gamers.

Huh?!? Google to Buy YouTube for $1.7B

2006-10-09T16:56:00.000-04:00

This makes no sense.

I like YouTube. I could spend hours on it watching old Sportcenter commercials and Japanese gameshows. However when you get right down to it 90% of YouTube's content falls into two categories.

1) Video of little Billy's first baseball game or baby Sally's first steps, uploaded to give the grandparents an opportunity to see these magical moments. These videos, of course, have no appeal to anyone else in the world.

2) Copyrighted material. SNL clips. World of Warcraft machinima. Morons lipsynching the latest Black Eyed Peas song. Video of Oleg Maskaev knocking Hasim Rakhman through the ropes a decade ago.

All of these are, in some way, shape or form, copyrighted material. You want to use it for your personal use, fine, the big boys aren't going to go after you. But now that YouTube has actual capital behind it (Google Money) you can be sure the heavyweights are going to be beating a path to your door with cease-and-decist orders.

This just smacks of the late 90's internet boom, when even moronic ideas like pets.com had dumptrucks full of money dumped in their laps. Google would rather be known as the company that bought a failing YouTube than the company that passed up the opportunity to buy a massively successful YouTube.

The Hot List - Week of October 11th

2006-10-09T15:26:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #23
Fables #54
Firestorm The Nuclear Man #30
Gen 13 #1
Green Arrow #67
Green Lantern Corps #5
JLA Classified #28
Martian Manhunter #3
Tales Of The Unexpected #1
Worldstorm #1

Marvel
Annihilation #3
~~Civil War Front Line #7~~
New X-Men #31
Thunderbolts #107
Ultimate Power #1
Ultimate X-Men #75
Uncanny X-Men #479

Another light week. My wallet says 'Yay', my sense of wonder and anticipation says 'Yawn'

Worldstorm is the semi-relaunch/revamp of the Wildstorm Universe. I don't know all that much about the WSU other than The Authority and Captain Atom - Armageddon but with the talent DC is putting into this relaunch I have to at least give it a shot.

I'm done with Civil War: Frontline. The whole series to date has bugged me, but the last one pissed me off to no end.

New X-Men has been a very pleasant surprise. When Yost & Kyle took over I thought it was going to turn into Little Miss Wolverine and her Amazing Friends, but they've managed to keep the entire team in the spotlight. I still think the student massacre a while back was excessive, but the rest of the run has been a lot of fun.

Ultimate Power lust looks like a lot of fun. This may be heresy to the ol' comics blogosphere but I like Greg Land's art. Its cheesecake-y and Land does make his characters look a lot like real celebrities, but its still beautifully drawn. Is he an all time great penciller? Probably not, but I still enjoy his work.

Play NES Games For Free In Your Browser

2006-10-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

Link

...And there goes my productivity for the rest of the week. Ah Bionic Commando. How I missed thee.

Ellis & Deodato, Jr. on Thunderbolts

2006-10-06T11:04:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Newsarama

Issue #110 will be the first for Ellis & Deodato, Jr.

Ellis is at his best when dealing with anti-heroes, so I have to assume he'll be just as good when writing non-heroes. On the other hand Ellis does his best work when he's not too encumbered by continuity, which this book will probably be dripping in.

Deodato is hit or miss for me. Every now and then he draws a book that blows me away, but all too often his work seems blah.

But the thing that really sold me was a quote from Mark Millar:

My idea for Thunderbolts, very simply, was that it should employ the same strategy as New Avengers and JLA in that if we have a team, why not make it the A-Team in the sense that they're all recognizable names? Sure, these guys would be harder to control, but that also takes the story in interesting new directions. I really started to see the Marvel Universe in terms of pre and post-Civil War and the Thunderbolts line-up was one of the big changes.

They could have gone the Suicide Squad route and stocked the team with D-listers*, but they went whole hog and put big names on the team and even bigger names on the marquee. A job well deon Marvel.

*(This was in no way a shot at the Suicide Squad, which was a great book, but when your big names are Deadshot and Captain Boomerang you're not exactly playing with the big boys)

Random Musings - Playoffs Edition

2006-10-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

Heroes has been a lot of fun so far, but after two episodes the only characters I like are Hiro and maybe Mohander. That can change quickly but the producers should have done a better job of making the characters connect with the audience.

While I liked the time-travel twist in the second episode, I think it may have been too soon. Time travel and paradoxes (paradoxii?) generally tend not to play well with most audiences, especially if the characters haven't caught on yet. I think a lot of people may have been turned off by the last episode.

Lost's season premiere was good (well, maybe very good) but not great. The producers actually answered a few questions without completely innundating the viewer with too many fresh ones. I can't really say what I found wrong with the episode. Something just felt...off.

My initial pessimism about Smith seems to have been off base.

Why are there no good videogames based on DC games? I'd love to see a Batman game that blends the stealth elements of Splinter Cell with the acrobatics of Prince of Persia. Somebody, please make this happen.

Jackass 2. Words cannot describe this movie. I have a pretty strong constitution but I had to cover my eyes for a good 20% of the movie. It was that revolting. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't funny, it was, but it was also so very, very hard to watch.

The South Park premiere was everything a fan could ask for. The cadence and inflection Cartman uses while planning and executing the raid was tone perfect.

Gamerscore Farming?

2006-10-03T20:00:00.000-04:00

Link

This is one of the dumbest, most gobsmackingly stupid scams I've ever seen. And I really wish I had thought of it first.

Only $299.99 for 3000 gamer points. What a deal!

(h/t - Evil Avatar)

Review Time - Week of September 27th.

2006-10-03T14:13:00.000-04:00

Ultimates vol. 2 #12

“Grand Theft America part 6“

The Ultimates fight back. In the middle of Washington, D.C. the two teams quickly pair off against their counterparts with Hulk taking on Abomination, Quicksilver obliterating Hurricane, and Captain America squaring off against The Colonel, Abdul al-Rahman. The fights are fierce and gory, with Abomination having his arms and head ripped off by Hulk and Hurricane dissolving after being taken for a ride by Quicksilver. The Crimson Dynamo, realizing that things are beginning to go south, sets out to kill as many civilians as possible but he and his drones are stopped by Iron Man 6, an arena-sized iteration of Tony Stark’s armor. Meanwhile in New York the X-Men, Fantastic Four, the Defenders and the other heroes are set free by the Captains Britain, France, Italy and Spain. The freed heroes then wipe the floor with the remaining Schizoid Men and Dynamo Drones. Back in D.C. Wasp uses a gift from her husband to become Giant Wasp and step on Swarm as Fury, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch get the President, the VP and their families to safety. Cap and The Colonel fight, with neither gaining the clear upper hand until some Schizoid men grab Cap. Al-Rahman is about to execute him when Hulk throws Cap’s shield, slicing off al-Rahman’s hands and freeing Cap. Just when The Ultimates think the fight is over Loki makes his presence known by setting the National Mall aflame as he hovers above. He gloats for a moment before a thunderbolt streaks across the sky, heralding the return of Thor.

The Ultimates is, bar none, the best yearly comic ever. Kidding aside this was a great issue. While the concept of having two super-teams square off against their opposite numbers is a bit overdone in regular comics it seems a bit fresher since The Ultimates is such an irregular comic. Each team member gets his or her moment to shine, but the story (at least in this issue) doesn’t feel stretched. Bryan Hitch’s art is spectacular as usual, with several pages that just take your breath away.

Secret Six #4 (of 6)

“Six Degrees of Separation, part 4”

Vandal Savage breaks bread with Cheshire and Dr. Psycho, praising them in their effort to break his daughter Scandal, but chastises them for trying to actually kill Catman, (the man Savage wants to father his granddaughter) by serving them Grundy Steaks. Cheshire is nauseated but Dr. Psycho just asks for some Worcestershire Sauce. Meanwhile The Six, damaged physically and emotionally and matched up with the vastly more powerful Doom Patrol, manage to win out through luck, guile and a peculiar little man with a hat fetish. Mad Hatter (somehow) mentally influences the Doom Patrol, forcing Elasti-Girl to bite Robotman’s head off (I promised you all another decapitation) and Negative Man to have a seizure. The Six escape and return to the House of Secrets to convalesce but her father soon contacts Scandal through her dreams, demanding that she get to work making an heir for him. She wakes up and investigates a noise only to discover her beloved Knockout bumping uglies with Deadshot on the kitchen table.

Gail Simone’s trademark wit and humor do a lot for this book (Ragdoll looking up Elasti-Girl’s giant-sized miniskirt and Mad Hatter apparently pleasuring himself with a vibrating Stetson are just some of the highlights) but they cannot completely paper over the convoluted plot and awful art. Pitting the Six against the equally off-kilter Doom Patrol was a nice touch, but like every other battle fought in this series it just felt random and meaningless to the plot. I don’t like to slam artists but Brad Walker flat out should not be doing a book with even this high of a profile. Character’s faces change not only page-to-page but also panel-to-panel.

X-Men #191

“Supernovas, part 4”

Serafina, using her powers to interface with the comatose Lady Mastermind’s illusion weaving abilities, forces Cannonball to live out the perfect suburban life with her as his wife. They meet, marry and have children all in the blink of an eye before Wolverine severs Serafina’s connection to Lady Mastermind. She takes Logan down and makes her escape. Meanwhile Sabretooth tells the X-Men how he got involved with the Children of the Vault. Several months earlier he and a partner had taken a job to assassinate several scientists and in the process had stumbled upon The Conquistador, a heavily modified tanker ship that had been sitting undisturbed in the south Atlantic for three decades. Inside of the ship were the Children. Sabretooth barely escaped from the ship and has been hunted ever since. The X-men, utilizing Cable’s connection to the Global Infonet, determine that the ship had been licensed to a group of scientists, biologists studying evolution and physicists studying time acceleration. Together they created a sealed system to study evolution by speeding up time within the ship. In the 30 years since the experiment began over 6,000 years have passed on the ship. On the ship Serafina reports to the leader of the Children that she was seen, but the leader, Sangre, tells hip people that it really doesn’t matter and a conflict was inevitable. We then see the exterior of the ship, as it is about to fly into New York Harbor.

The art in this book almost kills what is an otherwise good story. Now Clay Henry’s art isn’t bad, it’s clean and he has a good grasp of anatomy and kinesiology but it also looks nothing like Chris Bachalo’s art. Character designs that were interesting and dynamic with Bachalo’s art look hideous in Henry’s more naturalistic style. Serafina looks like a character from a Tim Burton film when drawn by Bachalo, but with Henry she looks like a fat girl wearing children’s clothing. The story itself is nice, although if I have to endure another version of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ in a comic this month I may scream. The problem is the X-Men, other than Cannonball, don’t get very much page time in this exposition heavy issue.

Batman #657

“Batman & Son, part 3”

Batman takes the blindfold off of his son and shows him the Batcave for the first time. The child, Damien, is an absolute terror, aggressive, demanding, imperious and rude to Batman Robin and Alfred. After receiving a call from the Commissioner that The Spook (who I’ve been informed is a real Bat-villain) has taken the Mayor hostage Batman confines the kid to his room. After a funny exchange between one of The Spook’s henchmen and an undercover cop Batman finds The Spook’s headless body. Back in the Cave Damien is shadowboxing when Robin swings in. He offers to spar with the child but he refuses, instead pulling The Spook’s head, complete with a grenade in it’s mouth, out of a sack and throwing the whole thing at Robin. Robin dodges and the two fight throughout the cave. Damien gets the upper hand after Robin saves him from the mechanical dinosaur and sucker punches his adopted brother. Damien then confronts Batman on a rooftop dressed in an old Robin costume.

Have you ever seen Problem Child? Well mix that with a dash of The Omen (Damien, get it?) and you have the son of Batman. The story itself, while not bad, just feels…I don’t know, flat? I kept expecting something else, some twist, some revelation that just never came. The issue is also fairly un-Morrison like, with none of the wacky goings-on and metatext he usually infuses into his work. Andy Kubert’s art is terrific, as usual. The action and fight scenes in particular jump off the page although his faces still, after all these years, seem a little off to me.

Quick Hits

Justice League of America #2: The team begins to take shape and the plot thickens.
Ultimate Spider-Man #100: I read it 3 times and I still don’t know what happened in this issue.
Teen Titans #39: This issue is all about the Titans from the missing year. Unfortunately none of the missing year Titans really interest me that much.
Daredevil #89: Daredevil versus El Matador!

Dancing Venom?

2006-10-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

This may not be real test footage from Spiderman 3, but its still funny.

(h/t - Bam!Kapow!)

South Park meets World of Warcraft

2006-10-02T14:17:00.000-04:00

I cannot even begin to describe how awesome this is. There is no better way to remind all of you that the new season of South Park begins this Wednesday.
(h/t - Ace)

The Hot List - Week of October 4th

2006-10-02T11:53:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #22
All-New Atom #4
Boys #3
Detective Comics #824
Jonah Hex #12
Manifest Eternity #5
Mystery In Space #2
Nightwing #125
Outsiders #41
Y The Last Man #50

Image
Fear Agent #8
PvP #28
Marvel
Fantastic Four #540
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #13
Incredible Hulk #99
Irredeemable Ant-Man #1
MAX Sampler
~~X-Men Phoenix Warsong #2~~

Fallen Angel Vol 2 #9 IDW

Finally a return to normalcy after three consecutive insane weeks at the ol' comic shoppe.

I'm not the biggest Garth Ennis fan but The Boys has been a lot of fun. Although at this point the 'ultraviolent, oversexualized deconstruction of the superhero paradigm' section at my LCS is beginning to get a little crowded.

Marv Wolfman returns to Nightwing and it feels so good.

Phoenix: Warsong. I want to like this book. I really do. But at this point I think I'll wait for the trade.

RANT: Civil War Thoughts

2006-09-28T14:27:00.002-04:00

Civil War is starting to piss me off. I'm warning you now that discussion of this week's releases, including ASM #535, Civil War Frontline #6 and others will follow. So read the rest of this post at your peril.
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Joe Quesada, Tom Brevoort, Mark Millar and a host of others have been saying for almost a year that Civil War would tell a balanced story. Both sides would be shown as principled, neither side would be 'the bad guys'. Well a little more than halfway throrugh the event and Marvel's braintrust has been revealed to be bold-faced liars.

Think I'm being too harsh? Here are some examples of just how badly the Pro-Registration side has been acting.

EXAMPLE - Amazing Spiderman 535. Reed Richards tells of a beloved uncle, a writer, called before Joesph McCarthy's HUAC committee. Reed's uncle refused to testify, was blacklisted and died a broken man soon after. Okay nothing too crazy there, until you see that Reed is using Uncle Fantastic to illustrate that nobody is above the law. So JMS' example of why you should respect the rule of law is an uncle that flipped McCarthy and HUAC the bird? Why not go whole hog and put him in the S.S. and show him "just following orders" as an example. There are literally dozens of examples I could have come up with to illustrate why you should comply with the law, and I'm not a professional writer. Why would JMS use what is clearly, other than the Nazi scenario I cited, the worst possible analogy imaginable? Because he isn't really interested in showing Iron Man's side in anything approaching a positive light.

EXAMPLE - Civil War 4, AMS 535 & Frontline 6. The Negative Zone prison. Tony gives Peter a tour of the facility and makes it very clear that the people there are there for the duration. Since the prison isn't on American soil you have no rights once you're there. Now for the moment I'm going to ignore the ham-fisted polemics about modern American policy here (that's a rant for a different day) and focus on the subtle details. In both instances where the Prison is shown, ASM and Frontline, several inmates are clearly identified. All are in small, dank cells with dirt floors and will remain there until they Register or die. All of them are characters we would, previously, called 'good-guys'. Why? Why not show some of the bad guys that refuse to register when we tour the prison? Because all of the really bad apples have been recruited into the new Thunderbolts. The Pro-Reg side has the 'good guys' sleeping on dirt floors, while simultaneously drafting the baddest of the bad into a Cape-Killer unit. Jenkis and Straczynski could have shown someone, say The Absorbing Man, that truly deserved to be incarcerated for life. Instead they only show heroes at the detention center. Why not just show Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic runnning over kittens while you're at it.

There are a ton of other examples I could make. But when you get right down to it every time Quesada or Millar or anyone else at Marvel tells the public that they give both sides equal shrift they are lying.

TV Reviews - Week of September 17th

2006-09-26T18:11:00.000-04:00

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - Pilot - Aaron Sorkin's return to TV in this semi-autobiographical look at a fictional late-night TV sketch comedy show is classic Sorkin. The dialouge moves at light speed and the characters seem to be in constant motion. The characters are flawed and conflicted yet, after even one episode, they are also endearing. I'm not sure how long the novelty of seeing the inner workings of SNL-West will last, but for now this looks like a winner. 4/5

Smith - Pilot - I loves me some heist movies, but as I said in my Fall TV preview, that love doesn't necessarily translate to the small screen. Smith, while better than Thief or Heist, still didn't blow me away. The episode was presented in almost reverse chronological order, with the botched getaway shown at the start of the episode and the details leading up to that point filled in as the show progressed. While I usually like the Rashomon/Memento approach in this case it felt like time filler more than anything else. The performances are all top notch, and some of the characters seem likeable, but overall I felt 'meh'. 3/5

Jericho - Pilot - Of all the series concepts I read about this spring this was the one that excited me the most. The rural town of Jericho, Kansas suddenly loses all communications and when the residents look to the western sky they see a mushroom cloud where Denver should be. The townsfolk, convincingly rural without crossing over into hick territory, deal with the situation in a variety of ways, most of which feel realistic. I'm not sure what kind of legs this show has but the first episode was good enough to warrant another look. 3/5

My Name is Earl - Very Bad Things - I was originally worried when the producers said that Earl wouldn't revolve around the list as much this season. After this episode I'm not quite as worried anymore. Earl decides to take Joy's side in an argument for the first time ever, resulting in Joy stealing a truck fom the local furniture store. Earl and Joy spend a while trying to dispose of the truck before they discover that one of the store employees had been trapped in the truck the whole time. Earl was (maybe) the best new show of '05 and this episode continues the excellence. 4/5

The Hot List - Week of September 27th

2006-09-25T11:48:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the lack of updates but apparently my phone line was attacked by a family of Gremlins hopped up on PCP.

DC
52 Week #21
Action Comics #843
American Way #8
Batman #657
~~Blue Beetle #7~~
Jack Of Fables #3
Justice League Of America #2
Ninja Scroll #1
Secret Six #4
Supergirl And The Legion Of Super-Heroes #22
Teen Titans #39
Trials Of SHAZAM #2
Uncle Sam And The Freedom Fighters #3

Image
Invincible #35

Marvel
Amazing Spider-Man #535
Cable Deadpool #32
Captain America #22
Civil War Front Line #6
Civil War Young Avengers & Runaways #3
Daredevil #89
Heroes For Hire #2
She-Hulk 2 #12
Ultimate Spider-Man #100
Ultimates 2 #12
X-Men #191

Holy crap thats a lot of books. The last few weeks have been absolutely insane comics-wise.

Blue Beetle has officially gone to 'wait for the trade' status, and its dangerously close to 'I'll read the reviews online' status.

Ninja Scrolls is one of my favorite animated movies of all time, but I'm just not sure how good it will be as a comic.

Civil War - Young Avengers/Runaways hasn't really added anything to the overall CW story yet, but its still been a fun read. Stefano Casseli's art has been a very pleasant surprise.

Be still my beating heart. Ultimates #12 is actually coming out this week?

Random Thoughts

2006-09-22T13:17:00.000-04:00

The Patty Cockrum post on Blog@Newsarama is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Suspension of Disbelief if normally a good thing, but to get that wrapped up in a character (or characters) that neither she nor her husband created is just... I don't know. Sad? Creepy? Absurd?

52 took four of the top nine slots on the August sales charts, each selling over 116,000 copies. Wow. Did anyone at DC think this book would sell these kind of numbers?

Sony's keynote address at the Tokyo Game Show was apparently so dull and uninteresting that the bloggers and journalists in attendance began nodding off during the speech. Has Sony gotten anything right in the last year?

Filming has begun on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend in New York City. For some reason they're changing it from a lone, thoroughly average survivor living in the outskirts of a city, to a military man living alone in Manhattan. So instead of remaking I Am Legend they are actually remaking The Omega Man. Why? I Am Legend is a great story that would translate perfectly as a movie. Why change it so drastically? This is the third time its being made into a movie, and the third time its being drastically changed. Makes no sense.

Black Stone Cherry's self-titled album may be the best debut album I've hear in years. Great, blusey rock.

The trailer for Frank Miller's 300 is a must see.

"Tonight, we dine in Hell"

Review Time - Week of September 20th.

2006-09-21T15:34:00.000-04:00

Astonishing X-Men #17 - We begin with Kitty cradling the newborn she has just given birth to. She is surrounded by the baby's father, Colossus, and the other X-Men. We jump forward and the baby is now a toddler. The X-Men come to take the baby away since it has some 'terrible power' and Colossus is forced to stop Kitty from fleeing. We jump forward another 18 months and Kitty, having escaped from custody, holds an axe phased into Peter's head to make him tell her where her son is: In a box in the basement.

Of course what we saw wasn't real. It was a psychic episode broadcast into Kitty's mind by The White Queen to make her breach The Manger. What's inside of The Manger? The body of Stuff, a shapeshifting member of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard inhabited by the mind of Cassandra Nova, Xavier's evil , unborn twin sister. As Kitty is trying to get into The Manger the scene shifts to S.W.O.R.D. as they recieve word from their 'mole' inside the X-Mansion that Ord and Danger are only a few miles away from the mansion. Who is the Mole? Lockheed! Ord and Danger hit the mansion, inadvertently snapping Wolverine out of his trance in the process. Just as Cassandra is about to inhabit her new body, that of the now unconscious Kitty, The White Queen is shot in the back by a now visor-less and pistol-packing Cyclops.

Maybe I'm just a little slow on the uptake this week, but this issue was just a little confusing at times. I couldn't tell if Cassandra Nova or the classic White Queen was running the show and both Shaw and Negasonic were acting very...odd. I'm fairly sure that the strangeness was intentional, but it was nonetheless annoying. Otherwise this was a great read. Cassaday's work is masterful as always and Whedon peppers the book with great lines and moments. The page where Wolverine comes to his senses, aided by a can of beer, is both funny and masterful. I'm a little annoyed that the whole 'Ernst is Cassandra Nova being taught humanity' thing from Morrison's run is being disregarded, but since the story has been so good I'll let it slide.

Walking Dead #31 - Rick and Michionne are still the Governor's captives, but things in the town of Woodbury are not going well and things get worse when one of the town's 'gladiators' is killed by the other. This forces the Governor to enlist Michionne in his efforts to give the people their bread and circuses. Instead of keeping to the WWE-like script she immediately decapitates her opponent and kills biters that surround them. Rick, still held in the infirmary and short a hand, begins to bond with the Doctor and his attractive female nurse. Meanwhile Martinez, a guard who has become disgusted with the goings on in town, moves to help Rick escape from Woodbury.

Ahh, thats the Walking Dead I know and love. There just haven't been enough decapitations the past few issues for my tastes. The book has fallen into something of a rut ever since the survivors settled into the prison, but this issue feels more like one of the earlier issues where danger seemed omnipresent.

Quick Hits
Civil War #4 - Well the death everyone predicted came to pass. Everyone except for me that is, since I thought it was the too obvious choice.
Checkmate #6 - The Suicide Squad is back and of course one of them dies during the mission. The reason for bringing the mback, while convoluted, makes a lot of sense.
Moon Knight #5 - BADASS!

Looking Forward - Marvel's December Solicitations

2006-09-19T15:52:00.000-04:00

The full solicits are up on CBR.

ULTIMATES 2 #13
Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Wraparound Cover by BRYAN HITCH
"GRAND THEFT AMERICA"
The concluding chapter of the much-heralded Millar/Hitch tenure on Ultimates has finally arrived! All the running plot lines come to their cataclysmic end in these pages as the Team Supreme puts everything they've got into a grand finale that will take its place alongside the finest comics of the past decade. Alliances are made and relationships are severed in a tale you simply cannot miss. You have been warned! Part 7 (of 6)

Hahahahah!

CIVIL WAR: WAR CRIMES ONE-SHOT
Written By FRANK TIERI
Pencils by STAZ JOHNSON
Cover by SEAN SCOFFIELD
Wilson Fisk, the incarcerated ex-Kingpin of Crime, has a deal to propose to Iron Man: he'll use his underworld connections to help track down Captain America and his anti-Registration underground in exchange for consideration on his sentence. But can the Kingpin be trusted, or is he playing a deeper game? And how are the criminals of the Marvel Universe being forced to change the way they do business as a result of CIVIL WAR?

Sounds like one of the better ideas to spin out of Civil War so far

newuniversal #1
Written by WARREN ELLIS
Penciled by SALVADOR LARROCA
Planet Earth. Inhabited by six billion people. People leading ordinary lives, coping with everyday struggles. But on a night like any other, the Earth is rocked by the most startling celestial event ever witnessed by the human race. The White Event. And from its wake, a handful of humans emerge as something more.
Acclaimed writer Warren Ellis (NEXTWAVE) and superstar artist Salvador Larroca (X-MEN) bring you this new universe -
a universe witnessing superhuman power for the first time.

This sounds like something right up Ellis' alley. I can't wait for this book

NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E. #11
Written by WARREN ELLIS
Pencils and Cover by STUART IMMONEN
"NOT A CIVIL WAR TIE IN"
Freedom or safety? Secrets or celebrity? Iron Man or Captain America? WE DON'T CARE! What care we for freedom OR safety when there are things that need to be kicked and exploded! Yes, "explode" can now be used as a verb. DEAL WITH IT!

Cover of the month

X-MEN #194
Written by MIKE CAREY
Pencils & Cover by CHRIS BACHALO
"PRIMARY INFECTION" Part 1 (of 3)!
Having barely survived their first mission as a team, Rogue's squad immediately find themselves up against another new
mysterious threat! What does the man called Pan want with the X-Men, and what is he willing to do to get it?

Carey's run on Adjectiveless has been great so far, better than Brubaker's on Uncanny and close to Whedon's on Astonishing.

Looking Forward - DC's December Solicitations

2006-09-18T17:31:00.000-04:00

DC's December solicits, on CBR.
BATMAN #660 & 661
Written by John Ostrander
Art by Tom Mandrake
Covers by Gregory Lauren

Ostrander is one of the underrated greats and it's good to see him back in the DCU. But this also means the Morrison's run is only one arc, and it seems like this title may go to rotating creative teams.
Update - Apparently Morrison is on Batman for as long as he wants to be, so this is a fill-in arc designed to give him and Kubert some leeway.

BIRDS OF PREY #101
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Nicola Scott & Doug Hazlewood
Cover by Stephane Roux
The new Birds of Prey pay a heavy price as one of their own becomes the target of a government sting designed to put Oracle out of business for good. Even with the added power of her new operatives, can Oracle prevent Manhunter's true identity from being exposed?

Well I guess the mystery of the new lineup isn't a big enough secret to protect in the solicits. The new line-up looks nice, although Huntress is conspiculously absent from the solicitation.

DCU INFINITE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL
Written by Greg Rucka, Judd Winick, Bill Willingham, Joe Kelly, Kelley Puckett, Keith Champagne and Ian Boothby
Art by Joe Bennett, John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Ale Garza, Giuseppe Camuncoli and David Lopez.
Cover by Howard Porter
Time to celebrate the holidays with the greatest heroes and rising stars of the DCU! Join Superman, Supergirl, Batwoman, Shazam, Green Lantern, Flash and Shadowpact as they spread the joy of the new season in their own special ways.
This giant sized 80-page Special features stories by Greg Rucka, Judd Winick, Bill Willingham, Joe Kelly, Kelley Puckett, Keith Champagne and Ian Boothby and art by Joe Bennett, John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Ale Garza, Giuseppe Camuncoli and David Lopez.
On sale December 6 o 80 pg, FC, $4.99 US

I love these 80 page anthologies, although they look a lot more attractive when they cost only $1.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #7
Written by Keith Champagne
Art by Patrick Gleason & Prentis Rollins
Cover by Gleason & Wayne Faucher

Best cover this month.

JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Dale Eaglesham & Art Thibert
Cover by Alex Ross
Variant cover by Eaglesham
Determined to rebuild the Justice Society, founding members Green Lantern, Flash and Wildcat initiate an unprecedented recruitment program, tracking the bloodlines of heroes across the world and bringing in the new Starman, Damage, Liberty Belle and more!
But just as the Society welcomes the rookies into their ranks, an evil force sets out to destroy them. Meet new legacies, solve a mystery stretching into the far future, witness the return of the world's greatest hero, and watch another one fall - all in the pages of this fantastic new series!

I've really missed this book.

JUSTICE #9
Written by Jim Krueger & Alex Ross
Art by Doug Braithwaite & Ross
Cover by Ross
The breathaking miniseries by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger and Alex Ross continues with plenty of surprises! Black Adam! The Marvel Family! And the Justice League's plan to storm their adversaries' stronghold!

Pretty cover, although Black Adam's head is ginormous for some reason.

MYSTERY IN SPACE #4
Written by Jim Starlin Cover by Davis & Banning
Art by Shane Davis & Matt "Batt" Banning and Starlin & Al Milgrom
What happens when the woman who killed you returns to finish the job? Captain Comet finds out the hard way in a cold confrontation with the galaxy-crushing power of Lady Styx! Featuring the unexpected and terrifying return of The Darkstars! Plus, the enigmatic Weird finds deeper mysteries in his search for meaning!

DC is pushing Lady Styx as the big new super-threat. I hope she lives up to the hype.

Spoiler Warning for Tuesday & Wednesday

2006-09-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

According to Lying in the Gutters something happens in Civil War#4 that is big enough to get play in the mainstream press. If you want to avoid spoilers be wary when browsing newspapers and news sites until you have Civel War in your hot little hands.

You have been warned!

RANT: On Lateness and LATENESS

2006-09-18T13:38:00.000-04:00

A few intersting bits of comedy on Diamond's changed shipping dates report (via Newsarama)

WILDCATS #1 09/27/06 - 10/04/06

Now under normal circumstances a one week delay wouldn't bug me too much. But this is the first issue of a major relaunch of the Wildstorm line of books, and its coming out a full month late? I'm actually not surprised, after all WildCATS is written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Jim Lee, but that also means that DC shouldn't have been surprised either. Yet they solicited this title, a title that was announced at the beginning of the year and rumored for months before then, and with a straight face said "First week of September."

This is not a new problem for comics, but recently it seems to be spiraling out of control. The Great Civil War delay of '06. The 21 issues in 5 years Ultimates. The fill-in artists and unfinished splash page in Infinite Crisis. Young Avengers and Wonder Woman approaching quarterly schedules under Allan Heinberg's pen. Damon Lindelof's Ultimate Hulk vs. Wolverine 5 issue mini that may never end. I could go on and on.

Comic books are an art, not a science, I know this. But they are also a business, and by allowing books to come out 'when they are ready' the editors and publishers are allowing the inmates to run the asylum. To go back to WildCATS, DC knew that Lee, and to a lesser extent Morrison, are notoriously late, yet they still solicit their book when it obviously was not done. Why? Why not wait until at least the first 4-6 issues are totally finished before soliciting the book? I don't want the end product to be compromised by rushing scripts or bringing in fill-in artists, but the editorial staff has to be wiser when scheduling.

There are bright spots in this regard. Astonishing X-Men was plagued by delays for it's first 'season' so Marvel put it on hiatus for a few months, then brought it back on a bi-monthly schedule to start. It's now (apparently) back on a monthly schedule. They waited until they knew the book would be out on schedule before soliciting it. I still ended up waiting 8 weeks between issues, but at least it came out when promised, just like DC does with Justice. All I'm asking is for the comics companies to be honest with their fans, and to themselves, when they publicize their schedules.

The Hot List - Week of September 20th

2006-09-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #20
Birds Of Prey #98
Checkmate #6
Flash The Fastest Man Alive #4
Robin #154
Shadowpact #5
Superman #656

Image
Walking Dead #31

Marvel
Astonishing X-Men #17
Civil War #4
Civil War X-Men #3
Exiles #86
Iron Man #12
Moon Knight #5
Nextwave Agents Of HATE #8
Runaways #20
Ultimate Fantastic Four #34
X-Factor #11

Hot damn but that's a mighty mountain of a pull list. I going to have to get cracking on that pyramid scheme to pay for all of this crap.

Bilson and DeMeo get one more issue of Flash to hook me before I bail. For a book subtitled "The Fastest Man Alive" it's pacing has been sloth-like

Astonishing X-Men moves to a monthly schedule and Angels begin to sing.

The long national tragedy is finally over as Civil War #4 finally sees the light of day.

New Lost Info With Video

2006-09-15T20:07:00.000-04:00

Apparently the Lost alternate reality game has ended and the full set of clips is up on YouTube, including information on what the numbers actually are.

Enjoy!

For those of you like me that are too important to watch the video our friends at Cinescape have the rundown.

Review Time

2006-09-15T15:18:00.000-04:00

52 #19: As recently as one month ago I was complaining about the pacing and the 'even numbered curse' on this book. Oh boy have things changed. All of the storylines seem to moving ahead at breakneck speed (well except for the Steel and Giant Hawkgirl storylines) with enough twists and turns to keep the message boards humming. Skeets (Skeets!) has become more interesting than anyone could've ever expected, and Archbishop Lobo is just inspired. I had reservations about this book when it was announced, but so far it has surpassed all expectations.

Fables #53: Ah, The Snow Queen. Such a bright happy soul :). Its interesting to note how similar Lumi's description of the four plagues matches Al Gore's vision of the future in An Inconvinent Truth. Rodney and Pinnochio's reservations about the plan could be the foreshadowing of a betrayal or it could be a red herring. I'm actually hoping for the latter. Joshua Middleton's back-up story "Porky-Pine Pie" feels like a lost Merrie Melodies short and was the perfect complement to a fairly dark story

New X-Men #30: I was worried when Kyle & Yost took over this book; I thought it would morph into X-23 and her Amazing Friends. After almost a year I can safely say that the New X-Men are in good hands. It feels a lot like an old-school New Mutants story; the kids steal the Blackbird to fight an enemy they should have no business facing, and hijinx ensue. Paco Medina's art fits the tone of the book like a glove.

Quick Hits

Green Lantern #13 - A good story with great art and lots of underlying mysteries. I'm glad DC isn't completely whitewashing Hal's history.
Annihilation #2 - Giffen does a very good job of juggling a bunch of unfamiliar characters in big crowd scenes.

LIST: Top 10 Action Movies of All Time

2006-09-14T16:27:00.000-04:00

You know the drill. These are my favorite action movies, not necessarily the best action movies.

A note on genres. What I consider to be an action movie may be a little different than your definition. To me an action movie is one wholly dependant on it's action scenes; if you can remove the action scenes from a movie and it remains watchable then it's not, in my mind, an action movie but a hybrid. Star Wars isn't an action movie it's sci-fi/action, just like Gladiator is drama/action and Lord of the Rings is fantasy/action.

10 - Pirates of the Carribean(2003): I thought this was a ridiculous idea for a movie. It was an entire film based on a mediocre ride at Disneyland for God's sake! But it ended up being a great movie. Johnny Depp spends 2+ hours absolutely chewing the scenery as Captain Jack Sparrow and sailing through some great light-hearted, family friendly action sequences. And Keira Knightly in a corset.

9 - Kill Bill(2003-4): I consider Quentin Tarantino's love letter to 70's pop cinema to be one single film. Mostly so I don't have to choose between which movie had the better fight scenes. The action scenes in this epic are great not only on their own merits but also when taken as the homages they are meant to be by Tarantino.

8 - Enter the Dragon (1973): And we come to our first action movie Icon: Bruce Lee. A revolutionary movie form both an artistic and business perspcetive Enter the Dragon was the first Kung-Fu movie produced by an American studio and most Americans first exposure to the genre. A great movie that is taken to the next level by it's charismatic star. It also features cameos by future stars Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung.

7 - Marked for Death (1990): Someone whose only exposure to Steven Seagal has come in the last 8-10 years may laugh at this selection, but back in the day he was the baddest of the badass. Chuck Norris had faded into television obscurity and Jean-Claude Van Damme was more of an exihibition martial artist, but Seagal seemed closer to the real deal than anyone else in film at the time. Marked for Death was in many ways a typical late 80's/early 90's action film: a little martial arts, a little gunplay, and an unambiguously evil nemesis, but somewhere along the way it managed to set itself apart from the herd and stand out as a great flick. Maybe it was Screwface, who was one of the great villains of all time, or the novelty of having a crime family that wasn't Italian, Chinese or Russian, but this is one fun movie.

6 - Commando (1985): Ahhhnoldd. Maybe the greatest action star of all time in a movie that has the greatest one-liner density of any known film. "Remember when I said I'd kill you last? I lied." and after impaling a man on a heating pipe "Why don't you let off some steam." It also features a young Alyssa Milano and Dan Hedaya sporting the worst Spanish accent this side of Al Pacino. It's cheesy, violent and oh so much fun.

5 - Terminator 2 - Judgement Day(1991): The movie that transformed Arnold from a star to an Icon. T2 featured some of the best effects in movie history alongside great action scenes from one of the masters: James Cameron. Loud, violent and innovative T2 is one of the all time greats.

4 - The Matrix(1999): I thought long and hard about whether this one qualified as an action movie. It has a better, more thought provoking story than any movie on the list, but if you take the action scenes out no one would every be able to sit through the whole story. Regarless of how it is classified The Matrix is still one of the most influential action movie of all time. The 'bullet time' effect, commonplace and pedestrian now, was revolutionary at the time and is still one of the best uses of the effect. A landmark film, even if the subsequent sequels were terrible.

3 - Drunken Master 2 (1994): This may be better known by it's American title - Legend of Drunken Master, but regardless of what its called this is the best martial arts movie of all time. Jackie Chan, another Icon, has done great work both before and since, but to me this will always be his Citizen Kane. The fight scenes have Chan's trademark wit and whimsy without being as goofy as, say Rush Hour. The fights are epic, sprawling and brutal, really words cannot properly convey how awesome this movie is.

2 - Die Hard 3(1995): I'm especially partial to this film since New York is my town and she gets a starring role in it. I have a deep, almost unnatural love for all of the Die Hard movies, but this one occupies a special place in my heart. Like all great movies this one is timeless, you can watch it at 15 or 50 and still have a great time.

1 - Raiders of the Lost Ark(1981): The apex of action cinema. There really is nothing bad that I could say about this movie. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's ode to movie cliffhangers of yore is simply one of the best movies, of any genre, of all time.

Honorable Mention: Die Hard 1(1988) & 2 (1990), Indiana Jones 2(1984) & 3(1989), Cliffhanger (1993), Spider-Man 1(2002) & 2(2004), True Lies (1994), Predator (1987), Rush Hour 1(1998) & 2(2001), The Running Man (1987), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Speed ()

Nintendo Wii Details Announced

2006-09-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

The details from today's press conference in New York:

The Wii will launch on Sunday, November 19th in North America and Saturday, December 2nd in Japan.
The system will sell for $250 and come packaged with one Wiimote, one nunchuck attachment and a copy of Wii Sports.
First Party games will cost $50. There will be 20 launch titles and 30 titles by the end of the year.
It will NOT play DVD movies.
Free online service, although none of the U.S. launch titles will be playable online. Web browsing available through a version of the Opera browser.
Virtual Console will have 30 games available at launch. Prices will range from $5-$10.
Extra Wiimotes will be $40, with nunchuck attachments and 'classic' controllers selling for $20
Zelda - Twilight Princess will launch with the system, but Metroid has been delayed until 2007

Thoughts:
$250 with a pack-in game is a sweet deal, although $60 for an extra Wiimote-nunchuck combo is pretty steep.

No online games at launch is a bad sign.

$5 for NES games sounds a bit high until you realize that Microsoft is charging that for Pac-Man.

All in all this sounds like a great launch if they can deliver on anything close to what they have promised.

Review: Black Label Society - Shot to Hell

2006-09-12T13:51:00.000-04:00

Black Label Society, fronted by the legendary Zakk Wylde, is the apex of modern Metal: melodic, haunting and heavy. Powerful, rhythmic and deep. BLS eschews the overproduced, pre-packaged trends in favor of three things most metal artists fear: depth, emotion and actual singing.

From the first whammy-barred chords of Concrete Jungle to the almost dirge-like Blood is Thicker than Water, Zakk shows why he is one of the few living souls to have earned the title Rock God. While Shot to Hell lacks the high intensity power ballads of previous BLS albums it more than makes up for it with haunting laments and musical range. Where 2003's Blessed Hellride felt like an album written for an arena tour, Shot to Hell fells like it was composed for an intimate club preformances. Like their namesake Scotch Black Label Society only gets better with age.

5 out of 5

A New DC vs. Capcom Fighting Game?

2006-09-11T20:17:00.000-04:00

Oh. Hells. Yeah.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a great goofy fighting game. Beloved Marvel characters fighting classic (and not so classic) Capcom characters, all set to one of the oddest soundtracks ever heard on a fighting game. Some "purists" derided it as a button masher; maybe because it was a button masher, but it was a fun button masher. Now this is just a rumor so I'm not getting my hopes up too much, but this could be great fun, especially if Capcom actually gets off their collective asses and makes a new fighting engine.

Original Simpsons Shorts Available for Download

2006-09-11T18:27:00.000-04:00

(H/T Joel @ TV Squad)

For you youn'uns that didn't know; The Simpsons began life as shorts on the long defunct Tracey Ullman Show, which was one of the original shows on the fledgling Fox network.

Wow. Time has not been kind to these shorts. That said these are still fascinating just from a historical perspective, like watching Larry Fishburn on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

The Hot List

2006-09-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

DC COMICS
52 WEEK #19
AQUAMAN SWORD OF ATLANTIS #44
EX MACHINA #23
FABLES #53
FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #29
GREEN ARROW #66
GREEN LANTERN #13
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #4
JLA CLASSIFIED #27
MARTIAN MANHUNTER #2 (OF 8)

IMAGE COMICS
TRUTH JUSTIN & AMERICAN WAY #4

MARVEL COMICS
ANNIHILATION #2 (OF 6)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #21
INCREDIBLE HULK #98
MS MARVEL #7
NEW X-MEN #30
THUNDERBOLTS #106
ULTIMATE X-MEN #74

After a few sketchy issues 52 is really starting to live up to it's promise. The cast is pretty large but I like, and root for, all of them. The art has also gotten better and more consistent as the weeks have progressed.

It's good to see DC is bringing back Green Lantern Quarterly...What? You mean it's not supposed to be quarterly? Oh.

None of the Annihilation minis grabbed me, but I was really into the first issue of the main series. I'm dying to see how they get around the last page of #1.

The Justice League by Alex Ross

2006-09-09T20:43:00.000-04:00

Because it just looks cool.

Palmiotti & Gray Exclusive to DC.

2006-09-09T17:18:00.000-04:00

It was announced at the Baltimore Con this weekend. While I'm happy for Jimmy and Justin, they are two good writers, I think this trent towards exclusive contracts is bad for the fans and maybe for the industry as a whole.

Ask yourself: Who is the highest profile writer that is NOT under an exclusive deal? Stuart Moore? Rick Remender? I like the work of the two men I just mentioned but when they are the two biggest names that work in both Big sandboxes something is off kilter with the industry.

LIST: Top 10 Horror Movies of All Time

2006-09-08T16:29:00.000-04:00

As with all lists these are my 10 favorite horror movies, not necessarily the 10 best of all time.

10 - Blair Witch Project (1999): Some people absolutely hated this movie, but I really liked it. It was slow at times but I think it did a masterful job of building tension. As a city boy the fear of being lost, really and truly lost, hits clost to home. A movie like this was the perfect storm of concept, execution and viral marketing and likely will never be duplicated.

9 - Evil Dead (1981): Confession time. I saw Army of Darkness before I saw Evil Dead 1 or 2, so I went in thinking this would be a low budget version of it's sequel. Oh boy was I wrong. Evil Dead has a wicked sense of humor, but it's still a straight-up brutal horror movie. It gleefully soaks the viewer in blood and gore without ever tipping over into brutality.

8 - Se7en (1997): I've had actual arguments about whether Se7ev is a horror movie or not. To me any movie designed to scare that stars a monster can be considered a horror movie. To some friends a horror movie needs some element of the fantastic or supernatural; anything that lacks that element is a 'thriller'. Whether you consider Se7ev to be horror or a thriller it's still a great, scary movie. David Fincher's dystopic view of city life felt a little forced to me, but I can see how powerful it would be to someone that hadn't grown up in a major city.

7 - The Ring (2002): Yes this is the American remake version; I never saw the original Japanese version of Ringu. The individual elements of this movie may not be great, but they combine to form a very entertaing whole. And I love a good urban legend tale.

6 - Dawn of the Dead (1978): There are several Romero movies that I could have put on this list, but Dawn has always been my personal favorite. The combination of over-the-top gore and social commentary just blends perfectly here; the message is just subtle enough to enjoy it as just a zombie flick or as an indictment of our consumer culture.

5 - The Thing (1982): Like most of the great horror movies of all time John Carpenter's The Thing plays off primal, basic fears; in this case isolation. Everything in this movie reinforces the fact that they are alone in every sense of the word. Like almost every other film on this list the effects stand the test of time; Carpenter knew his limitations and worked around them instead of against them.

4 - Suspiria (1977): I had heard of Dario Argento but until about three years ago I had never actually seen one of his films. One night Suspiria was showing on IFC and I was blown away. The story is fairly basic but the visual execution is like nothing else I've ever seen. Most horror films reside in the gray - brown - black end of the visual spectrum, whereas Suspiria looks like the crayon box exploded. The palette used gives the whole movie a fantastic, dream-like quality that is to this day still pretty unique in the world of horror movies.

3 - Alien (1979): Another classic concept honed to perfection by a great director. Alien earns a place on this list, as well as the upcoming Sci-Fi list, because it was one of the first 'realistic' space movies. Gone were the transporters, friendly aliens and robots of ambiguous sexuality; in was a gritty, claustrophobic space craft that resembled a 19th century steamer more than the Enterprise. Like many of the legendary horror classics Alien scares you more with what you don't see, letting the imagination run wild with speculation. The chestbuster scene is still one of the most memorable in the history of cinema.

2 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974): Little known fact: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn't very bloody. The teens were killed off in some brutal ways, but there was very little actual blood on-screen in the movie. This was, of course, the birth of the modern slasher flick, and it may be the best example of the sub-genre. This movie actually got better in my eyes after seeing the abysmal remake from a few years ago, which was paradoxically both gory as hell and completely neutered.

1 - The Exorcist (1973): The pinnacle of scary movies. There is almost no blood. The characters aren't confined to a small or unfamiliar place. No 'monster' is stalking the characters. The Exorcist manages to be the most terrifying movie ever comitted to film without any of the three major devices of a horror movie. The fear in this movie is more basic: a mother with a sick child whom modern science cannot even diagnose much less cure. The war between Fathers Damien & Merrin and The Demon is secondary to the fear one has when a loved one is ill and just won't get better.

Only three out of the top ten were produced after 1982, and only one in the 21st century.

Honorable Mention - Event Horizon (1997), Aliens (1988), Nightbreed (1990), Last House on the Left (1972), Silence of the Lambs (1992), Jaws (1976), Nightmare on Elm Street (1986), The Silent Hill games (not the movie!)

The Path to 9/11 and Freedom of Speech

2006-09-08T11:53:00.000-04:00

I normally try to keep my political viewpoints on the back burner, if not out of sight, here on The Nerdly Arts, but this just has to be said.

This weekend ABC will be airing "The Path to 9/11". A furor erupted when Bill Clinton and members of his administration began to lobby ABC to change the film. Depending on which side of the political spectrum you inhabit Clinton was either trying to get factual errors in the film corrected or attempting to whitewash his administration's terrorism policies. Now I'm somewhat conservative to I tend to believe the latter; I think Clinton was trying to polish his legacy while paving the way for his wife's Presidential run in '08. While I think Clinton is wrong to lobby to change a movie he has every right to do so. The same thing with a group of Left wing bloggers who are organizing a 'google bombing' in protest; I think it's hypocritical and wrongheaded but it their perogative.

Then I read this. A letter from the Democratic leadership in the Senate basically threatening the broadcast licences of ABC and it's affiliates if they broadcast the movie. It may be the most overt act of extortion I've ever seen. Here are some relevant quotes

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events.

Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, the factual record, millions of viewers, countless schoolchildren, and the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

This is the legislative equivalent of walking up to a motorist, showing him a gun and saying "Give me your car." Threatening to take down an entire broadcast network if they don't conform to your political orthodoxy in such a public way is the most sickeningly corrupt act I've ever seen.

The Playstation Death Spiral

2006-09-06T12:30:00.000-04:00

A year ago at this time I was telling a friend that Sony and it's Playstation 3 would absolutely win the next round of the console war, barring a major disaster or screw-up by Sony.

As of today Sony has officially screwed-up, and it is a spectacular disaster.

The news: The PS3 will not launch in Europe until Spring 2007. Sony also announced that there will be only 400K units for the North American launch and 100K units for the Japanese launch.

400,000 units means your chances of scoring a unit this year in the U.S. is only slightly better than the odds of winning the lottery. And Japan? There probably won't be one system per game store there. Disaster may be too mild a word for this.

BKV & Alphonia Leaving Runaways

2006-09-05T18:21:00.000-04:00

From Newsarama:

There will be a more in-depth article about this soon, but it sounds like Marvel.com is posting an announcement today, and I wanted you guys to hear it first. Anyway, I'm not one for burying the lead, so...

After working together on the series for more than four years, Adrian Alphona and I will be leaving Runaways with Issue #24.

And no, this is absolutely not because of creative differences. I love editor Nick Lowe like a kid brother, and Joe Quesada and everone at Marvel have obviously been nothing short of insanely supportive of our little book since the first page of the first issue.

This was entirely my idea. While Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina have planned endings, I've always said that I hoped Runaways would last forever, long after I left the series. I never wanted Runaways to become a vanity book that was dependent on its original creators' involvement; I wanted our kids to be able to eventually run away from us, and find new life apart from their "parents."

I can say with a great deal of confidence that these next five issues are the pinnacle of the series, and Adrian and I decided that the best thing for the Runaways would be to hand them off to new creators on this high note, rather than risk overstaying our welcome until we ran ourselves--and the book--into the ground.

I love these characters more than you can possibly imagine, and I swear I wouldn't abandon them unless I knew for a fact that they were going to end up with the very best creative team possible. Marvel will be announcing that new team in about a week, and to say that you guys will be thrilled is probably an understatement.

As for Adrian and me, we've already started talking about possible new projects to work on together. I'd really like to take time to give birth to a few more creator-owned books, and I hope you Runners will follow us wherever we end up next.

No one thought Runaways would last six months, but after nearly forty issues and a few Eisner nominations, our sales are still going up (especially with the digest collections in bookstores), making our series one of the most successful comics starring all-new characters to be launched by any major company in recent memory. I'm extremely proud of the entire Runaways team, some of whom will definitely be sticking with our kids, and I'm so grateful to all the undyingly loyal readers out there, the best group of friends a comic book could hope for.

Keep running,
BKV [Ed- All emphasis mine]

Sad, sad news. Runaways is one of the best titles out there, and one of the few that is truly all-ages. It's also quite probably the most successful book starring wholly original characters in a very, very long time at either of the Big 2.

I think the quote about creator owned books is particularly telling. Now that he's leaving Runaways Vaughn will be exclusively on creator owned works, and one of those, Y: The Last Man is ending in less than a year. Maybe Mark Millar's comments about the exodus from comics to Hollywood was more prescient than I originally thought.

Random Thoughts

2006-09-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

Man I cannot wat for the new TV shows to start. Rescue Me and Always Sunny... on FX and Eureka on SciFi have been good, but this summer TV season just seemed to go on forever.

Saints Row is a blast, but all I can think of while playing is "How awesome is Grand Theft Auto 4 going to be?" The dialouge in particular isn't bad, but it just seems a little off compared to San Andreas.

All-Star Batgirl? Does she really rate an All-Star treatment? To be perfectly honest I like Cassie Cain-Batgirl and Babs Gordon-Oracle more than I like Babs Gordon-Batgirl.

Every week there seems to be some piece of news that makes me want a PS3 even less. But looking at the sparse list of exclusive titles pretty much kills any desire I had for the system, even if I had $500-$600 to blow on it.

In 10 years will Civil War be known more for the story it's telling or the Great Marvel Delay of Aught-Six?

I like that Lost's creators, and ABC, took fan criticism of the show's erratic scheduling to heart, but a 13 week gap in the middle of a season is borderline ridiculous.

New Audioslave this week, new Black Label Society next week. The rock gods are smiling.

You know what movie should be remade? Clash of the Titans. It could be the next LotR if they get the right person to helm it.

I need a new book to read. Any suggestions? Something Sci-Fi but smart.

Fall TV Preview Part 2 - Returning Dramas

2006-09-04T19:54:00.000-04:00

Part 2 of this series was supposed to be my top new comedies of the fall season.

Then I actually looked at the list of new comedies.

Not one new comedy looked good. Hell not one new comedy looked even remotely watchable.

So I junked it, and moved on to the next part: My Most Anticipated Returning Shows. Just like Part 1, I'm only covering Fall-debuting shows, so old favorites like 24 & The Shield will be covered in a few months.

Battlestar Galactica - SciFi Fridays @ 10
BSG may be the most complete show on television today. It serves up action, drama, tension and intrigue while still dealing with situations that very few shows would touch with a 10 foot pole. The acting, writing and effects are all top notch and none of the episodes feel like padding. You never get the feeling that things have been 'dumbed down' or 'sanitized' for mass consumption the way they are on most sci-fi shows.

Lost - ABC Wednesdays @ 9
Yeah some of the flashbacks last season felt like filler, and a few characters became down right annoying, but Lost is still the epitome of Appointment Television. The new season promises a whole new group of castaways to focus on (The Others) and even more mysteries to obsess over. This season's broadcast schedule, in which 6 episodes air to start the season and the remaining 18 episodes air without interruption beginning in January after a short hiatus, should make the show a little easier to follow.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Tuesdays @ 10
SVU is like the quiet, unspectacular veteran ballplayer that still always manages to put up great numbers. In the crowded world of procedural crime dramas it always manages to stand out.

The Unit - CBS Tuedsays @ 9
This show was such a great surprise last season. Between this and 24 I'm starting to believe that action shows may actually have a chance on network television once again.

The Hot List

2006-09-04T14:46:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #18
All-New Atom #3
Detective Comics #823
Exterminators #9
Jonah Hex #11
Manifest Eternity #4
Mystery In Space #1
Outsiders #40
Y The Last Man #49

Marvel
Agents Of Atlas #2
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #12
Uncanny X-Men #478
X-Men Phoenix Warsong #1

DC has done an admirable job revitalizing their oft neglected space-centric characters in the last year and Mystery in Space looks to continue the trend. It also continues the rebirth of the backup feature, which is a very good thing.

I loved Phoenix: Endsong so I'm very excited about the follow up, Phoenix: Warsong. Unfortunately since the events are occuring in a poorly promoted mini and not a main book it, in the end, won't amount to much of anything.

Omega Flight

2006-09-03T11:04:00.000-04:00

The teaser image for Marvel's new Omega Flight series from the Toronto Comic Con. The book will be written by Michael Avon Oeming with art by Scott Kolins and launch after the end of Civil War so look for it in early 2009.

Review Time

2006-09-02T17:42:00.000-04:00

Teen Titans #38 - The Titans attempt to find Raven brins them to Russia, where the former Titan Red Star is now Russia's premiere superhero. They eventually get sent to Beijing where we learn Raven suspects that one of the missing year Titans is a traitor. The guest penciller, Ferreria, seemed to be trying to hard to ape Tony Daniel's style and the end result was not very good. I'll be honest, maybe a third of the missing year Titans looked interesting, the others were just lame.

52 #17 - Another more or less single storyline issue as we follow our intrepid space castaways in their attempt to get home. Animal Man, Starfire and Adam Strange are beginning to crack under the stress of their situation when they are again caught by Devilance. Things actually get worse when Lobo shows up and promptly mounts Devilance's head on his own spear. The scene with Starfire 'negotiating' with Lobo in the vacuum of space was priceless. And Lobo's new look is great; he looks like the long lost member of Pantera. Bennett's art is much improved over his earlier issues.

X-Factor #10 - A traitor...revealed. I won't spoil who is the snake in the bosom, but it's not who you expected. They may be controlled or otherwise coerced, but either way it was a great reveal. Oh yeah, and Madrox, or one of his dupes, slept with both Siryn and Monet, so that means X-Factor investigations HQ is apparently located on Melrose Place.

Teen Titans #38

2006-08-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

From this week's Teen Titans #38, a rundown of the Titan's membership during the missing year.

Mark Millar Predicts the end of Comics

2006-08-31T14:19:00.000-04:00

From an essay on Newsarama:

Millar basically pronosticates the day in the not too distant future that the American comics scene is decimated; first by the normal cycles of boom and bust, and secondly by a flood of talented comics creators seeking the greener pastures of Hollywood. A relevant quote:

Likewise, every writer I know has a movie deal at the moment. I can’t think of a single working pro at the big two who isn’t involved with Hollywood in at least some capacity. And the more I like their comics work, the more Hollywood seems to like them too. It wouldn’t be inconceivable to imagine that their part-time movie gigs become full-time over the next few years and I’ll give you an example in numbers. Supposing a writer had an idea for a brand new, four part series. Selling this to a comic company might net him anywhere from 10,000 dollars to 40,000 dollars. It’s a lot of money, of course, and especially sweet when it’s doing something you love. But taking that same story and writing a first draft of a screenplay (something that takes about the same length of time as a four issue mini) and you could be looking at ten times the amount. Get a bidding war going and you might be looking at two or three million dollars for your cool little concept (as a couple of comic-book pros managed recently when they flogged a couple of original screenplays). As much as people love this biz, and I don’t think I’ve met a pro who doesn’t LOVE what he or she is doing, that’s a lot of cash to turn down. I think it will be especially hard for artists. They can only have a much more limited amount of work in print and, even if they aren’t creating anything, could make ten or twenty times their comic-book salaries every week if they take a good production jobs on a major motion picture.

He also compares the industry now to the British Sci-Fi weekly 2000AD in it's early 80's heyday.

While I think Millar is a bit too pessimistic in his arguments, he raises a lot of good points about the eventual fate of the industry. Hollywood snaring the best and the brightest comicdom has is bad news for the industry, but it's not the fatal blow Millar makes it out to be. The fact is, as Millar himself states in his essay, every creator he knows loves the comic industry, whereas very few people say the same about being a screenwriter. In fact if you ask a pre-2004 Frank Miller or James Robinson about their experiences writing for the big screen and you'd probably hear horror stories.

Also, one of the reasons 2000AD crashed was the debut of American comics into the British market. I just don't see that happening here. I know manga's popularity has expolded in the past 7-10 years, but it's not at the point that it will relegate mainstream American comics to the back of the store. Will there be a nadir? Of course. In 2015 we'll probably all be lamenting the good old days of aught-six, but I just don't see a total collapse in the cards.

Remakes That Should Not Be: Revenge of the Nerds

2006-08-30T13:43:00.000-04:00

Ugghhh. My brain just imploded, crawled out of my nose and is proceeding to douse itself in bleach. Why?

Because they're remaking Revenge of the Nerds.

According to The Movie Blog this was announced almost two years ago, but I obviously repressed that memory. This, like almost all remakes, is a bad idea. The original was a fun movie, for it's time, but the world just isn't the same as it was in 1984. Revenge was funny partly because it was set in a world that was about to be taken over by the nerds, whereas in 2006 the nerds already run things. Sure you can replace the Fortran jokes with World of Warcraft, but I doubt they would resonate with the audience. While this may not be the most egregious remake in the pipeline, it may be the most ill-advised.

RANT: Video Games and Q4

2006-08-29T20:22:00.000-04:00

I'm going to fire up the wayback machine and bring you a tale from the distant past of November 2002. Ubisoft was on it's way to becoming the #2 third-party video game developer. At that year's E3 they had shown off two titles that had hit written all over them: Prince of Persia and Beyond Good and Evil.

Both were mostly action based titles with fairly fantastic settings.
Both recieved numerous 'Best in Show' awards and had a fair amount of publicity.
Both ended up being not just good, but excellent games.
Both were inexplicably released within two weeks of one another.

As you could have predicted one game, PoP, sold okay numbers and has since spawned several very successful sequels. The other, BG&E, had it's price cut by 60% before Christmas. All because of the Fourth Quarter Rush.

This year in particular I've dreaded Q4. Not just because even a rich guy probably couldn't buy all of the games I'm looking forward to, but because of the havoc it wreaks on the rest of the year. For huge stretches of '06 I was dying to play something, anything, new but there was nothing decent available. Now? More decent titles come out in a two week span than were released the previous seven months. I know that the fourth quarter is huge for retailers, but it's just plain stupid to release some lower profile titles then.

Take this November's Star Trek: Legacy as an example. While the Star Trek brand is still very well known, it's not what you would call a highly anticipated title. So what does it's publisher, Vivendi Universal, do with a title like that? Why release at the single most jam-packed time of the year, of course! Here are just a few of the titles being released within two weeks of Star Trek Legacy:

Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Phantasy Star Universe
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Call of Duty 3
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Gears of War
F.E.A.R.
Brothers in Arms 3

Eight potential AAA titles slated to drop within two weeks of Legacy, and that's just on the XBox 360. What did I forget? Oh, yeah: the two brand new consoles that will be hitting stores within that timeframe, with their attendant games and accessories. Sitting here in August I can tell you without a doubt that Star Trek: Legacy will be a commercial failure, and for the dumbest of reasons: impatience and shortsightedness.

In contrast lets take a look at the release calendar for February 2007:
...... {cricket}
Okay, how about June 2007:
....... {cricket}
So instead of releasing a promising title 3-6 months later (or 3-6 months earlier) when it actually has a chance to succeed or fail on it's own merits, it gets dumped between a whole herd of 500 pound gorillas, giving it no chance at all at success. Brilliant. I'll probably still buy it, but only after it inevitably drops to $20 in early January.

My advice to all videogame publishers:

Games CAN be released throughout the entire year!

If you have a sure-fire hit, by all means release it in Q4, but if you're not absolutely sure your game will sell huge numbers, be smart and hold it back a few months. If publishers took just a few titles out of Q4 and spread them throughout the year everybody would win. Gamers would have something new to buy during the dog days, retailers would have something to pull customers in outside of Christmas, and developers would have at least a chance at success.

Fall TV Preview Part 1 - New Dramas

2006-08-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

Today is one of those rare times of year when my bitter, jaded, cynical heart begins to feel the fain, unfamilar echo of hope. I speak, of course, of the upcoming television season. New shows still have promise and returning shows still have stable timeslots. Today I'm going to rundown my five most anticipated new dramas of the upcoming season. NOTE: For now I'm just touching on fall-debuting shows. Shows that debut after October will be covered in a later post.

Heroes - NBC Mondays @ 9
The Premise - A group of seemingly unrelated individuals begin to develop extra-ordinary powers.
The Promise - This is a lot closer to a prime time superhero show than any network has attempted in a long time, so the concept still seems fresh. It also appears to follow the Lost formula by showing connections between all of the affected individuals. NBC seems to be putting a lot of promotional muscle behind this show, and airing the day after Sunday Night Football can only help. In addition to having a hot lead in (Deal or No Deal) it also doesn't go up against any established shows.
The Problem - If it's percieved as being too much of a comic book show it'll never gain a following. If Deal slips in the ratings it won't have much of a lead in.

Jericho - CBS Wednesdays @ 8
The Premise - A nuclear disaster leaves a small Kansas town cut off from the rest of the world. The residents must deal with their isolation while trying to find out exactly what happened, and if anyone else survived.
The Promise - A very interesting premise for a show. It seems to have all the elements needed for an hourlong: action, drama, conflict and a hook to tie them all together.
The Problem - The thought of nuclear annihilation may be a little too close to the actual news coming out of the Middle East for some. When Skeet Ulrich gets top billing on a show you may have trouble reeling in the viewers.

The Nine - ABC Wednesdays @ 10
The Premise - Nine people are taken hostage in a bank robbery. Each episode sheds a little more light on what actually happened in the bank as the Nine struggle to come to terms with what they experienced.
The Promise - I love a good mystery, and this seems to fit the mold by asking one question "What really happened in the Bank?" You can't ask for a better lead-in.
The Problem - It sounds like it takes the least interesting part of Lost, the flashbacks, and made them the centerpiece of the show. It's got a rough timeslot

Kidnapped - NBC Wednesdays @ 10
The Premise - The efforts to find and save the kidnapped son of a wealthy man unfolds in a one-day-per-episode format.
The Promise - A less restrictive take on 24's real-time format sounds good. A very good cast on this one.
The Problem - A tough timeslot, a poor lead-in (The Biggest Loser) and a very similar show on another network(Fox' Vanished) give this show an up hill battle.

Smith - CBS Tuesdays @ 10
The Premise - A gang of thieves pull of elaborate heists while still trying to live normal lives.
The Promise - I loves me some heist movies. A heist show with a great, big name cast? Sounds like gold to me, especially with The Unit as a lead in.
The Problem - The last two heist shows, Thief & Heist didn't do anything for me. It's got a brutal timeslot

Overall Themes? Lots of shows trying to ape, or combine, attributes of Lost & 24

Hanso Foundation Video on Youtube

2006-08-27T19:52:00.000-04:00

For those of you who, like me, couldn't be bothered playing the Lost alternate reality game. It's supposed to be most, if not all, of the little snippets of video you get plaing the ARG edited together into something resembling coherence. Enjoy

The Hot List

2006-08-27T11:24:00.000-04:00

DC
52 Week #17
Action Comics #842
All Star Superman #5
American Way #7
JLA Classified #26
Justice #7
Superman Batman #29
Teen Titans #38
Trials Of SHAZAM #1
Uncle Sam And The Freedom Fighters #2

Marvel
Cable Deadpool #31
Civil War Young Avengers & Runaways #2
She-Hulk 2 #11
Ultimate Fantastic Four #33
Ultimate X-Men Annual #2
X-Factor #10
X-Men #190

Battlestar Galactica #1
Fallen Angel Vol 2 #8 IDW

All Star Superman may be Grant Morrison at his best. The metatext and whacked out ideas are still there, but, unlike some of his other work, they take a back seat to the story. It's bright, primary-colored fun; silver-agey without feeling dated.

As far as I'm concerned Justice is All Star Justice League. It meets all of the criteria for an All Star book: A legendary character (or group) in it's most iconic form, done by a big name creator, that comes out sporadically.

Why, oh why can't Teen Titans come out on time? I gave Johns a pass when the book was late during Infinite Crisis, but this book is now a full 6 weeks behind schedule since the OYL jump. Combine this with Green Lantern being almost 10 weeks off since then and I may have to place Johns in the 'unable to keep a schedule' pile.

While not as off-putting as the constant delays other books suffer from, the constantly changing art teams on X-Factor prevents it from being great.

I loves me some Battlestar Galactica!

Transformers Hentai!?!

2006-08-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

I saw this on Marionette's blog and just had to say something. I love her blog, but I think in this case she missed the point. While making Transformers have to kiss girls in order to gain powers is strange (okay, really really bizarre) it pales in comparason to .... this.

I think my soul just threw up on my inner child.

I can live with Megatron as a dinosaur. I can live with him as a dragon. Megatron is a helicopter now? Fine with me. But Megatron with a giant penis-tentacle for a tounge! That crosses a line!

Oh God I feel dirty just thinking about it. Please, if you value your immortal soul, don't click on those links!

I'm going to scrub my eyes out with bleach, say the Rosary five times and pray I don't have nightmares.

Who's next for Astonishing X-Men?

2006-08-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

Alas, with time all good things must come to an end. With only 8 more issues of Joss Whedon & John Cassaday's sublime run on Astonishing X-Men still to come, I thought this would be a good time to handicap the field of contenders to replace Whedon as writer. (I'll discuss pencillers who can follow Cassaday at a later date) The list is far from exhaustive, but for brevity's sake I have left out any writers that are under exclusive contract with the competition (Geoff Johns), have poor relationships with Marvel (John Byrne), or have never before expressed interest in penning a comic (Chris Nolan).

Chris Claremont
Odds: 500-1
Claremont is one of the all time greats, and X-Men probably wouldn't be the 500 pound gorilla it is today without his seminal work on the title. But, as his last few runs on the core titles have show, he just doesn't have the magic touch anymore. That, combined with health problems that forced him off of New Excalibur & Exiles, pretty much rules him out. I think Marvel will give him an X-Title to shepherd for as long as he wants one, but his days as the main writer are over.

Brian Michael Bendis
Odds: 100-1
Even those fans that hate BMB have to admit that his books sell. That said, I don't see him taking over a core X-Men title. Putting him at the helm of both Avengers books is putting all of Marvel's eggs in one basket. Giving him an X-Men book as well would be insanity, especially since he still isn't as comfortable on team books as he is on noir-ish street level books.

Neil Gaiman
Odds: 85-1
After years of working pretty exclusively with his own creations, Gaiman has been involved in more and more projects set in Marvel's main sandbox. While my mouth is watering at the thought of him taking a turn with my favorite mutants, he doens't seem too eager to leap into such a high profile, continuity heavy book.

Warren Ellis
Odds: 50-1
While some of Ellis' earliest American work was on the satellite X-Titles, he's never gotten a crack at the core books. However, much like Gaiman, Ellis at this point in his career doesn't seem very intersted in writing books where he doesn't have near-total creative control. Unlike Gaiman, I think Ellis can be persuaded to take the job if he is given as much leeway as Morrison and Whedon got on their runs. Still he's something of a longshot.

Peter David, Dan Slott, or Fabian Niczea
Odds: 50-1, each
All three men are good writers with strong followings. All three are also thought of as 'fan favorites' with 'cult followings' which isn't a good thing in the eyes of management. They are also (fairly or unfairly) labeled as 'quirky' writers, which may not be what Marvel is looking for.

Robert Kirkman
Odds: 40-1
I think Kirkman is a tremendous writer. The thousands of fans that buy Invincible & Walking Dead religiously think he's a tremendous writer. Marvel's top brass? I'm not sure what they think of him. His highest profile main universe stuff has been Marvel Team-Up, a book which was quite honestly doomed from the start. He is penning the new Ant-Man book, which is a good sign, but I just don't think Marvel's braintrust is willing to give him such a high profile job yet. Yes, I know he's writing Ultimate X-Men. Two things. 1) He only got the job because Bryan Singer's run was delayed again. Whether this delay has to do with Singer's hectic schedule, or the fact that Ultimates 2 still isn't finished doesn't change the fact that Kirkman was a fill in on UX-M. 2) I don't think Marvel wants someone doing both Ultimate and Astonishing at the same time.

Unnamed Television or Movie Writer
Odds: 30-1
A lot of writers have made the jump from major outlet television to comics in the past few years. Allan Heinberg, Damon Lindelof, Mark Verheiden, even Whedon himself got their jobs in comics based on their work on the small screen. They also have one other thing in common: lateness. Astonishing has published only 16 issues in 28 months. The books of the other writers listed, other than Verheiden, are similarly tardy. While Marvel has worked around Whedon's schedule, it's unlikely they'd be willing to accomidate another 'tourist' the next time.

J. M. Straczinski
Odds: 15-1
JMS has, in just a couple of years, gone from a 'tourist' to one of the architects of the Marvel U. His reimagining of the Squadron Supreme has been great, and his run on Spider-Man...well lets say he has a 'unique' vision for the character and leave it at that. He does have a lot on his plate: FF, Amazing, Suqadron Supreme, Ultimate Power, Bullet Points and whatever DTV Babylon 5 movies get produced, but for the job on Astonishing I assume he'd drop something.

Mark Millar
Odds: 8-1
The preemminent writer at Marvel right now. Civil War, The Ultimates, Wolverine, everything he touches turns to gold. He has experience with the X-Men, having launched the Ultimate version of the book, BUT he almost never ships his books on time, and whoever takes over Astonishing has to get it out on a regular basis. If he can be paired with a penciller that can keep a schedule I think he'd be a good fit, especially since his run on The Ultimates is finally close to an end. However he's still battling Crohn's Disease and would benefit greatly from 6-12 months of light duty after Civil War wraps up. A contender, but not my odds-on favorite for the job.

Jeph Loeb
Odds: 4-1
Loeb returned to Marvel recently after becoming a megastar at the Distinguished Competition. He's already comitted to The Ultimates 3 & 4, Ultimate Power, Wolverine and an unspecified Spiderman project. That's a lot of work for a man that still writes for multiple television shows, including Smallville, Lost and Heroes, even if his rep for lateness wasn't one of the worst in comics. With all of those marks against him, why do I still make him the odds on favorite? Because, to use a baseball metaphor, he's a homerun hitter. He won't always make contact, but when he does it's going out of the park. In fact I think Astonishing was, along with The Ultimates, the book Marvel had in mind when they signed him.

This list also goes to show that while exclusive contracts may be good for the Big Two, they're bad for the fans. Guys like Geoff Johns, Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid would be great on Astonishing, but they are, for now, unavailable.

Review Time

2006-08-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

Astonishing X-Men #16 - About the only bad thing I can say about this book is the fact that it (for now) comes out bi-monthly. Rather than dragging the mysteries out, Whedon & Cassaday actually give us answers to two of the pressing mysteries of the book when we are told who will destroy the Breakworld and who Perfection is under the hood. Of course the answers bring up more questions, but the story never seems like it's on a treadmill. I won't spoil who Perfection is, but I will say that my two guesses, Magik & Phoenix, were of course dead wrong.

Justice League of America #1 - First, I like the new lineup. It's missing a few elements, but overall I think it's strong. Now, on to the story. Normally I would criticize a #1 issue like this for it's lack of action, but the whole Red Tornado storyline was so touching and well done that I didn't mind. One prediction on the villain of the book: Dr. Impossible. (inviso text on I think he's the Mr. Miracle of the new Earth 2. Father box, hush tube. It all fits. off)

Jack of Fables #2 - I'm surprised that Willingham, Sturges & Akins didn't make the enemy in this piece look like Walt Disney. If there was one person more responsible for the neutering and sanitization of our fables & fairy tales than Walt Disney I've never heard of them. The identity of the black janitor is tickling the back of my neck, but I just can't seem to grab it.

New Avengers #23 - The whole Spider-Woman double agent storyline, which has been a part of this book since it's start, is wrapped up in a single somewhat unsatisfying issue. Maybe I'm wrong; Jessica Drew sounds like a shoo-in for this book (the spy-stuff heavy New Avengers vs the widescreen Mighty Avengers) post Civil War, so this may not be the actual denoument, but it sure felt that way. Not a bad book, just disappointing.

Quick Hits
52 #16 - It just wouldn't be a wedding if someone didn't get shot!
Flash #3 - The art really improved in this issue. So did the story, but not as much.
Daredevil #88 - A breather from the breakneck pace of the past few issues that still manages to be better than 95% of the other titles on the shelf.

Review: Dead Rising

2006-08-23T17:48:00.000-04:00

Dead Rising is the classic example of a game getting the macro right and the micro wrong. The overall concept and execution is good, maybe even great, but the overall experience is dragged down by a few frustrating design choices.

Firstly the concept of the game; you play a photojournalist who investigates a reported riot and ends up trapped in a mall full of zombies. Sound familiar? Yeah it's pretty much George Romero's Dawn of the Dead in game form. You spend the rest of the game wandering around the mall killing zombies with pretty much anything at hand while attempting to learn why the dead have risen.

The Good
The core gameplay itself is a lot of fun. The sheer quantity and variety of weapons at yur disposal is just staggering. After only a few hours with the game I've sent the dead back to hell with hockey sticks, soccer balls, lawn mowers, construction drills and potted plants. While you spend the wast majority of your time doing the same things over and over, it's got enough variety and difficulty to keep you occupied for a long time. The boss fights, mostly against psychopaths that are trapped in the mall with you, are okay, but they can be so frustratingly difficult at times that it detracts from the experience.

In a move that is either novel or stupid, Dead Rising has you playing against a time limit. After 72 hours in the game (although it comes out to 12-15 hours in actual time), regardless of whether or not you've solved the mystery, you get an ending. You're then expected to restart the game, this time with all of the skills, levels and experience you amassed the first time through the game. While it seems a bit like Capcom trying to artificially inflate how long it takes to beat the game, the system still works.

The graphics are generally spectacular. The cutscenes, rendered in real-time, look incredible, and there can be literally hundreds of enemies on screen at one time.

The Bad
As I said at the top, the big things are great, but the little things that are inexplicably screwed up really drag down the overall experience. First thing, the text in the game is so small and blurred on standard definition screens that it's almost indecipherable at times, and I sit only about 4 feet from my 25" set. The text is apparently fine on HD or widescreen TVs, but this is an inexcusable screw up on Capcom's part.

Secondly, the save system. Now I wasn't expecting Dead Rising to use Oblivion's save anywhere at anytime system, what they use is just plain stupid. You get only one save slot per profile, and the save points are few and far between. On at least 3 different occasions I accomplished something significant, but since at that point there were several hundred hungry zombies between me and the save point I died.

Third, the mission system. You recieve mission info, or 'scoops' as they are called in the game, from a janitor named Otis over a walkie talkie. What's wrong with that? Well for some reason while you're answering the damn radio you can't do anything! You can't fight, heal, open a door or even jump while listeing to Otis ramble on about getting a new ensemble in the style court. I thought the weapon-or-flashlight choice in Doom 3 was stupid, but the walkie talkie system in Dead Rising is even dumber.

The flaws in the game are small, but since those flaws so permeate every facet of the game they are magnified immesurably. Even worse these flaws could have, and should have, been identified and fixed during playtesting. A great game brought down by laziness is more of a tragedy than a mediocre game.

Overall - 3 out of 5

Looking Forward - Marvel's November Solicitations

2006-08-22T18:04:00.000-04:00

Once again we hop in the wayforward machine to see what delectibles the House of Ideas will be dropping on Turkey Month.

ULTIMATE POWER #2 (of 9)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Pencils and Cover by GREG LAND
The Squadron Supreme has invaded the Ultimate Universe seeking revenge, and Earth strikes back with its biggest guns! It's the smackdown of the year as the Squadron Supreme go toe-to-toe with the Ultimates, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spidey himself. And neither world will survive unscathed. You cannot miss it!
While I'm really looking forward to this series, I think putting three different writers on one 9 issue mini may have been a mistake.

ONSLAUGHT REBORN #1 (of 5)
Written by JEPH LOEB
Pencils and Cover by ROB LIEFELD
50/50 Variant Cover by MICHAEL TURNER
Every time I see this project mentioned I expect to see Joey Q leap out of the shadows and yell "Fooled Ya", or that this is something Warren Ellis wrote to parody the industry.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #19
Written by JOSS WHEDON
Pencils and Cover by JOHN CASSADAY
50/50 Variant cover by JOHN CASSADAY
"UNSTOPPABLE!" Part 1 (of 6)
Strap yourselves in, folks! It's the beginning of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's final arc on Astonishing X-Men! After the shocking and brain-smashing events of last issue, the X-Men are off to protect the Earth from its destruction at the hands of the Breakworld. And when it's all over, nothing will ever be the same! No really, we mean it! Whedon & Cassaday prove they are more than Astonishing: They are UNSTOPPABLE!
My favorie cover this month. But does it confirm that they're really changing Cyclops' powers?

UNCANNY X-MEN #480
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by CLAYTON HENRY
Cover by JOHN WATSON
"THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SHI'AR EMPIRE"
The foundations of the mighty Shi'Ar are shaken! Vulcan is here! His first test, the Imperial Guard! It's Vulcan vs. Gladiator. The victor will decide the fate of an entire galaxy! Part 6 (of 12)!
We had an example of a good (maybe great) cover, and now we have an example of a bad cover. Note to publishers: Not all cover painters are good!

As I was picking solicits to highlight/mock I thought the list seemed a little light, then I rememberd the Great Civil War Delay pushed close to a dozen books out of November. No Amazing, no FF, no Frontline, no Civil War. Makes for a short list.

Looking Forward - DC's November Solicitations

2006-08-21T17:44:00.000-04:00

It's once again that magical time in which we look into the Crystal Ball at comics slated to come out in November but we still likely won't see until Christmas

BIRDS OF PREY #100
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Nicola Scott & Doug Hazlewood
and Paulo Sequiera & Robin Riggs
Cover by Jerry Ordway
It's time to bring in new blood! Who will be asked to join Oracle in her all-new Birds Of Prey? Who will refuse, and who will fly the coop for good? Plus, a backup story following Black Canary and her new role in the DCU!
Well this solicit makes it pretty clear that Black Canary isn't going to be one of The Birds after this. 100 issues and Black Canary has appeared in (I think) every one. A new era begins.

UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS #5
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art and cover by Daniel Acuña
The covert agency SHADE unleashes a new metahuman threat that leaves the Freedom Fighters powerless! Can Uncle Sam save his team from certain doom?
That is a cool cover!

TEEN TITANS #41
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Tony Daniel & Kevin Conrad
Cover by Daniel
The explosive "Titans Around the World" story concludes with the team finding Raven! Will she bring back a Titans who died?
Another "guess the blacked-out new member" cover? It's a nice concept, but it's approaching overkill at DC.

P.S. - I'm guessing the top silhouette is Miss Martian and the bottom one is Red Star.

WILDCATS #2
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cover by Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Variant cover A by Erik Larsen
Variant cover B by Jim Lee
A deadly super-villain escapes from a prison space station - by leaping to Earth. The Wildcats must use all their cunning, strength and brains in order to capture him and still maintain their covert status quo. All goes according to plan, except for one little hiccup - he kills them all on live television!
Wow do the heroes actually die in the second issue of a major revamp/reset?

The Hot List

2006-08-21T16:43:00.000-04:00

I'm may need to sell a kidney to afford this week's haul. At a minimum I'm probably going to spend more than I ever have in a single week.

DC COMICS
52 WEEK #16
BATMAN #656
BIRDS OF PREY #97
BLUE BEETLE #6
FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #3
JACK OF FABLES #2
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1
SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #21
WONDER WOMAN #2

IMAGE COMICS
FEAR AGENT #7

MARVEL COMICS
ASTONISHING X-MEN #16
DAREDEVIL #88
ETERNALS #3 (OF 6)
EXILES #85
HEROES FOR HIRE #1
NEW AVENGERS #23
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #99
ULTIMATES ANNUAL #2
WOLVERINE #45

While the roster of the new Justice League may have been spoiled, I'm still waiting with bated breath for the first (real) issue.

I can's decide which is the best comic not published by the Big Two: Walking Dead or Fear Agent. Either way they're both at the top of my read pile.

Astonishing X-Men. Droooollll.

Daughters of the Dragon was one of my favorite stories of the year, and I think Heroes for Hire will be just as good.

Flops on a Plane

2006-08-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

Wow. I didn't see this coming at all. According to Box Office Mojo, Snakes on a Plane made only $13.8M in it's opening weekend. That's a little more than half of what I thought it would make. Snakes had one of the best grassroots hype machines I've ever seen behind it and still it couldn't do as well as your typical J.Lo romantic comedy. I mean this was a fairly low budget film that, despite that handicap, still got promo time on all the major TV networks, and it didn't help one bit. It did no better than an anonymous action movie or thriller.

Review: Shin Chan

2006-08-20T10:02:00.000-04:00

For a few minutes last night I thought I had actually lost my freaking mind. I was sure, certain beyond a reasonable doubt, that I'd broken my brain and had slipped into blissful insanity. Why would I think that?

Because I watched Shin Chan on [Adult Swim].

The show is almost indescribable. It was like a firehose of wierd blasting out of my television. Superheroes, schizophrenics, wierd little children and a cat car are just some of the elements of the show. Oh yeah, and it's pretty adult as well, with lots of sexual innuendo and humor. To be honest I'm not quite sure what happened in the episode; everything was just so random and strange and oh so Japanese, but it was still fun to watch.

Apparently the show, known as Crayon Shin-Chan in Japan, has been on the air since 1992 and is considered by some to be Japan's answer to The Simpsons. While I'm not yet ready to make that comparison, Shin Chan looks to be a great addition to the [as] family.

RANT: Civil War Delays

2006-08-19T10:31:00.000-04:00

As I'm sure you've all heard, Civil War has been delayed. Now when I first heard this, I was more disappointed than angry. Civil War has, so far, been a great read, and the tie-ins have been mostly (GASP!) both intersting while adding something to the overall story. As I said, a little angry, a lot disappointed.

That is, until I started to read some of Marvel's excuses for the delays. Now, I'm pissed off.

I'll start with Mark Millar:

Steve had virtually no lead-time on Civil War and a title with a million characters has proven much tougher than he expected.

So howsabout instead of giving an unproven penciller such a short lead-time you, oh I don't know, delay the start of the mini a few months to give him the lead he may need? I know there was a proposed summer event that was scrapped when Civil War was pitched, but why couldn't they just make Civil War a fall event? You can't tell me that in 2006 a quality series would sell in the summer but not the fall.

Next we move on to Bryan Hitch (who is the foremost expert on late books)

Two of my favourite re-reads in collections are Dark Knight and Watchmen. Nobody now remembers that each was late at the time of the original periodicals but that was a blip, a couple of years in each's 25 year publication history and these will STILL be published 25 years from now.

Now Hitch isn't the only personen making this point, in fact this comparison was so prevalent in comments from Marvel personnel that I suspect it was distributed by management as a talking point to all involved. While this may be true (Dave Gibbons claims that Watchmen only shipped one issue late and the delay was very short) it's also a terrible comparason. DKR and Watchmen were both stand alone stories set outside of DC's main continuity and had no direct bearing on other titles. Civil War ties into (by my count) about 60% of Marvel's main continuity regular titles, most of which will be delayed significantly by this. You want to compare this situation to Infinite Crisis? Fine, it's a valid comparason and it illustrates why Marvel doesn't want to use fill-in artists. But to draw a parallel between Civil War and Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns is assinine, just as comparing Civil War to 52 would be equally stupid.

My final, and biggest, complaint is with this statement from Marvel editor Tom Brevoort.

The only reason our industry runs on a thirty day cycle is because it’s a holdover from the days when comic books were newsstand-oriented periodicals, and everybody’s used to that. But if you look at the entire field over the last five years, you can see that starting to change. And, like with any change, not everybody is going to be equally comfortable with it.

We put out monthly comics because that’s the way we’ve always largely done it. But the reason for why the comics are produced monthly in this format has kind of fallen away–and because of this fact, you’ve begun to see a metamorphosis in the way the industry operates, in my opinion.

So you don't think comics should be done on a monthly schedule anymore? Then why are you soliciting them as such? If you feel that way then announce that from now on all Marvel books will come out on a when-it's-done basis. You know why this won't happen? Because it would be an unmitigated disaster for the House of Ideas. Comics generally come out on a monthly basis for the same reason television shows come on at the same time each week: Because consumers are creatures of habit. A book that comes out sporatically, unless it's an absolute masterpiece like The Ultimates, won't be successful. Want proof? Look at the early days of Image Comics. They put out some okay books that were absolutely killed by a complete lack of scheduling. Brevoort knows all this, but he's trying to spin the delays as some kind of prescient look at the future of the industry.

All of the above mentioned bothered me, but not nearly as much as what wasn't said: We're Sorry. The first thing out of Quesada & Brevoort's mouths should have been mea maxima culpa, instead we get justifications and excuses.

'Wanted' Casting News

2006-08-18T10:37:00.000-04:00

Mark Millar has done a lot of great stuff. The Ultimates, The Authority, Wolverine, but to me his best work was Wanted with J.G. Jones. Because he wasn't playing in someone else's sandbox he was able to let loose and do all the evil perverse shit he always wanted to do. What we got was a book without heroes. Not the traditional comics 'anti-hero' who kills but is fundamentally good, but flat out evil villains made up the entire cast of characters. It was lewd bloody and oh so much fun.

Some time back Wanted was optioned as a movie. I yawned. Come on, there was no way this would actually hit the screen! I may have been wrong. According to The Hollywood Reporter (h/t Newsarama) a guy by the name of James McAvoy has been cast as Wesley Gibson, the star of the series. Now while this doesn't necessarily mean the movie will be any good, it likely means that we'll at least get to see it at some point.

Remakes That Should Not Be: Last House on the Left

2006-08-17T19:11:00.000-04:00

I've seen a lot of horror movies over the years and while several have scared me, very, very few have disturbed me. The Last House on the Left was one of those films. Taken individually sex, gore and violence really don't bother me, but Last House..'s confluence of the three actually made me uncomfortable. It's a movie that I know is good, and is rightly considered a very influential film, but I just don't enjoy watching.

So it comes as no surprise that the creatively destitute Hollywood machine has decided to remake Last House on the Left. Honestly, it was probably inevitable. Both Saw & Saw 2 were fairly big hits and they were obviously influenced by Craven's early work. Rouge pictures could have taken the time and effort to find a the next young horror master and let him or her work their magic, but it's a lot easier to just remake Wes Craven's back catalog. Let me make sure Rogue Pictures, and the rest of the Hollywood studios understand what I'm saying.

STOP REMAKING CLASSIC HORROR MOVIES! THEY ARE ALMOST UNIVERSALLY TERRIBLE!

House of Wax, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, Amityville Horror, The Omen, When a Stranger Calls. All good or great originals. All excretable remakes, the majority of which were financial failures to boot. Dawn of the Dead was good, but it still wasn't as good as the original. Classic horror movies were mostly indie flicks with a minimum of studio interference. Modern remakes are neutered, butchered and focus-grouped to death. Please let the giants lie. Honor them, revere them, but for the love of God, don't try to make them 'better'.

Review Time

2006-08-17T14:58:00.000-04:00

Robin #153 - A fun trip through the booby trapped hideouts of Batman's rouges as Robin and Boomerang Jr. try to find the Joker's nuke. Boomerang offers to bury the hatchet, but Tim just isn't ready to be friends with the son of the man that murdered his father. One gripe: how does Owen know Robin's identity? Hawkgirl knowing Batman and Robin's IDs I can buy, she's been a hero for a while now, but who would tell Boomerang something like that? I know that he's been a white hat for at least some time, but he was still a member of The Rouges & The Society as little as year ago DCU time. Batman may be kinder and more trusting than he was pre-IC, but this is a bit of a stretch.

Nextwave #7 - This may have been the best single issue of the year. We get the secret and convoluted origin of The Captain's name. Monica and Else discussing whether or not Captain America is gay, and how much they wish he was. And what may be the best exchange ever.
Tabitha - "They shot their muck all over me!"
Aaron - "Like that's never happened before."
Tabitha - "Shut up and die, Robot face."

Ion #5 - Hal & Kyle try to interrogate Nero, but he's crazy and doesn't know squat about what's been happening, so Kyle goes to confront the Guardians. That's about it. Yeah there was a fight with Nero, and the mute girl from the artist's commune in #1 finds a Thanagarian ship, but nothing really happened here. Combine that with mediocre art, and I'm jumping ship.

Civil War: X-Men #2 - So the Sentinels are freaking Gundams now? After Evangelion-lite appeared in the Sentinel series, and another Sentinel in this issue looks like an old Decepticon? I know American comics are trying to attract manga readers, but this is assinine. Other than that, it was an okay issue that lays the groundwork for mutants re-entering society.

Quick Hits
Shadowpact #4 - It's too early in the series' run for a single character one shot.
Runaways #19 - Two Runaways deal with Gert's death by bumping uglies. While believable, it was still a little shocking to see, even in tame form.

Wii for $170?

2006-08-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Nintendo has said for months that their Wii console would be shipping this year for less than US$250. IGN recently pegged the price point at US$229. Now, according to this article, the Wii may ship for as little as US$170 in Japan.

A few caveats. First, this is an analyst report predicting a game console price point, which means it's likely about as accurate as throwing darts at the multiplication table. Second, even if the cost of producing the CPU are less than estimated, the cost of all of the other electronics are notoriously volatile. Finally, and contrary to my first two points, consoles and other hardware tend to be more expensive in Japan than in America. My guess: $199 with one Wii-mote, a demo disc and no full games when the system launches in early November.

H/T - Evil Avatar

Maybe They Should Change the Name to "Hundred Year War"?

2006-08-15T21:14:00.000-04:00

It's official. Marvel's Civil War #4, originally slated to ship Wednesday, August 16, will now ship on September 20th! Think that sucks? Oh, wait, it gets even better: Civil War #5 won't be on shelves until November 15th. Marvel's biggest mega-event in God knows how long, and they're only going to ship one issue between mid-July and mid-November. Worse, this forces a dozen or so tie-in titles to slip as well.

DC took a lot of criticism when Infinite Crisis fell behind schedule, even after a boat load of artists were added to the mix, but the final issue shipped only 2 weeks after it was originally scheduled to. This puts MCW at least two months behind and that's assuming that no further delays pop up in the meantime. I can't even begin to imagine what this means for all the other titles in the main Marvel U. The worst part? A lot of creative teams that DID meet their deadlines are going to have their work ship late through no fault of their own.

Whose fault is this? Millar? He's been the writer of a lot of late books, so he likely has to bear a lot of the blame here. McNiven? He may have to go into the Jim Lee, Frank Quitley, Phil Jimenez, Bryan Hitch class of pencillers that can't be trusted with a monthly book. Quesada? Ultimately he's the boss, so he has to take the blame. Either way there are too many books that don't ship on time now, and sooner or later it's going to kill the industry.

technorati tags: comics,

The Hot List

2006-08-14T17:13:00.000-04:00

DC COMICS

52 WEEK #15
CHECKMATE #5
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #3
ION #5 (OF 12)
MANHUNTER #25
ROBIN #153
SHADOWPACT #4
TESTAMENT #9

MARVEL COMICS

CIVIL WAR X-MEN #2 (OF 4)
IRON MAN #11
NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE #7
RUNAWAYS #19
THUNDERBOLTS #105 CW
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #32
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #2

This week's list may be more interesting for what isn't on it. As of Saturday Justice League of America #1, Wonder Woman #2 and Flash #3 were all scheduled to come out this week, yet none are on Diamond's final list. All three issues of Flash have been delayed, albeit slightly. Wonder Woman #1 came out, what 7-8 weeks ago? We may not see #4 before the end of the year at this rate. And Justice League #1? A first issue that's been in the works for almost a full year is late? Ridiculous.

I've loved the first few issues of Rucka's Checkmate. I know a lot of people are turned off by a comic that centers around espionage and realpolitik but it's a great read. A worthy sucessor to Ostrander's Suicide Squad series from the 80's.

Manhunter. Good. Save book.

Thunderbolts seems like a team book from the 80's, but in a good way. The whole team doesn't really get along with one another, and it's not trying so hard to be 'realistic' that it forgets to be fun. And it almost always ships on-time, which fewer and fewer good books do now.

technorati tags: comics, TheHotList,

Genpets. Both Creepy and Brilliant

2006-08-14T10:32:00.000-04:00

Genpets. It may be the most disturbingly ingenious thing I've ever seen. Genetically engineered pets, packaged like action figures or consumer electronics. They come in 1-year and 3-year configurations, and their emotions can be controlled via their special nutrient packs.

Now before anyone gets upset, it's not real; the whole thing is an art project by a guy named Adam Brandejs. It is still one of the more fascinating art projects I've ever seen. It's a science fiction satire of modern consumerisism that isn't obnoxiously pretentious. It makes it's point subtly but powerfully and, most importantly, without making the subject feel stupid. Let's be honest, this little troll-looking thing would sell like crazy if it actually existed. It's hairless, allergen free, can't run away and you only have to feed it once a week. It's like a goldfish that you can hold like a baby. A creepy Gollum looking freak baby, but a baby none the less.

technorati tags: technology, art, scifi,

Download Classic DC Comics for Free!

2006-08-14T10:26:00.000-04:00

I found this on Digg today and it blew my mind. Hundreds, thousands of old school DC Comics to download, complete with the original ads! I have a feeling that the site may not be long for this world, so get em' while they're hot!

technorati tags: Comics, technology,