Sometimes DC gets it right:

HARLEY QUINN: PRELUDES AND KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES hc
Written by Karl Kesel
Art and cover by Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson
The Joker’s lovable partner in crime takes the spotlight in this new hardcover volume collecting HARLEY QUINN #1-7, written by Karl Kesel (SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL) with art by the fan-favorite team of Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson (WONDER WOMAN)! Don’t miss these beautifully illustrated tales of lunacy!
Advance-solicited; on sale January 16 • 192 pg, FC, $24.99 US

I wanted to toss in a “sometimes DC gets it wrong,” but I’m up against the wall of like three heinous deadlines.

More from Rock of Ages– Batman slipping a roofie to a (new) god.

Non-comics:
–I’m listed on Amazon.ca, which I’m kind of inordinately proud of
–My unofficial namesake died June 25, 2007
-I’m never going to find time to play Bioshock and Madden NFL 08 at this rate
-I’m spending way too much money lately and need to cut way back
-I’m rereading Y the Last Man (better a second time through, though some of Vaughan’s quirks are mad obvious) and starting Narcoleptic Sunday, a pretty cool OGN out of Oni. More on that later.
-I need to do reviews for Calavera Comics and another comics company that sent me PDFs. Cripes.
-There are not enough hours in the day.
-I went out and got a Twitter, because I just don’t write enough during the day.

Done by what could’ve been the sickest team on Earth?

Can you say “Brian Azzarello,” “Paul Pope,” and “Kamandi?”

Well, you almost did, but Pope went on to do Batman Year 100 and Azz to do Loveless.

Paul Pope’s Flickr. Take a look around.

Here is a very un-Pope Wonder Woman, save for the lasso. A very Pope Big Barda.

DC comics has just released the third teaser for their epic universe-spanning Countdown event to the men at 4thletter. This one appears to be a mishmash of villains and heroes, and has some surprise apperances by characters not many of us were expecting. What does it all mean for Countdown, Final Crisis and the future of the DC universe? Who knows, but it’s bound to be exciting! Just click the thumbnail for the full image:

Now, like with the previous two teasers, this image should not be interpreted literally. There’s obviously a lot of hidden meanings and metaphores going on here, so if you have any theories on what it could all mean, share them!

 And remember, you saw it here first.

In a couple hours, I’m going to be leaving for the weekend for my brother’s wedding. No computer access during that time, so the site is in the hands of the leader guy, the newbie and the guy who’s too busy doing real writing work.

Some quick notes before I go:

– The Dr. Strange movie is the better of the four Marvel animated movies (Strange > Ultimates > Ultimates 2 > Iron Man). The animation is better, the ugly shading is fixed and some of it is genuinely good. Unfortunately, it’s marred with goofy additions like having Strange, Mordo and the others fight by conjuring swords instead of straight sorcery. The ending is the absolute stupidest and laziest deus ex machina I have ever seen in any superhero movie, which is saying a lot. In conclusion, the movie is okayish.

– If you’re going to get the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters on DVD, don’t do it for the 80 minute deleted movie. It’s just an early version of the movie where the animation is only two-fifths done and the deleted scenes (which are available with full animation elsewhere on the DVD) are inserted. Though to its credit, there is a nice unused ending that involves Dr. Weird screaming at Meatwad, “Well, keep it down! I’m trying to fuck a tangerine!” a second before the end credits.

– Booster Gold #1 is fantabulous. It really, really is. The comic is about a muscular idiot in tights, his annoying robot companion and a guy who knows way too much about history banding together to repair the past and keep time stable. Hm…

I always thought this show needed a second chance. Thanks, Geoff Johns!

“I think the thing to do is produce the best material you can, and on a regular basis, so that your readers know you can produce on a deadline, no matter what. Yabs showed editors, I was told, that I could hit a new idea each week, in a different ‘voice,’ and maintain a certain level of quality. A ton of editors read it each week, and a bunch offered me a shot. All of which I turned down, but that’s another story!”

— Gail Simone giving advice to Gavok

The other day I started cleaning my place, trying desperately to sort my DVDs, games and comics for the first time in about a year. There’s a chair where I toss stuff I had just bought that had gotten so ridiculously cluttered that I discovered barely-read magazines from months back.

Having finally sorted out all my comic trades, it was shocking how many of them remain unread. Some don’t really count because they’re collections of stuff I’ve already read as issues, like All-Star Superman and the first two volumes of 52. The real deal stuff I stacked into one big pile, guarded by an unbeatable team.

Gentlemen… BEHOLD!

The Sentry has the power of a million exploding suns, which is why everything is so glossy. Really. That’s why. Shut up.

I work at a bookstore and when I get paid, I use the option of having my check cashed on the spot. When that happens, I get high on my cash and want to spend immediately. This leads to too many comics and that neglected stack above. By admitting my problem, I hope I can finally push myself into making this stack lighter.

Here’s the what’s what of my far-too-tall tower. What are the books? Why did I buy them in the first place? If I bought them, why the hell haven’t I read any of them? We’ll start from the top and go down.

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About a month ago, CHIKARA did an awesome show in Conneticut called Showdown in Crisisland. You’d think they’d do one of their comic-based DVD covers, what with “Crisis” being in the title. Instead, they passed over it by doing a meh cover based on the least entertaining match on the card.

It’s all right. Two weeks later, they did another show in Philly called Maximum Overdraft. Now they’ve released the DVD cover for that and it makes up for their previous folly.

Based on Avengers #4, the famous issue that brought Captain America to the present, the main image of the cover includes Tim Donst, Jigsaw, Shane Storm and Moscow the Communist Bovine. With them is popular referee Bryce Remsburg. In the opening match, these four wrestlers teamed up to take on the team of UltraMantis Black and the Southern Saints. Great opener.

Having Moscow wield a hammer and sickle is absolutely brilliant.

The Black Tiger made a special CHIKARA appearance, where he went up against Mike Quackenbush. Quack had recently acquired the NWA Junior Heavyweight title and decided to defend it here in his own fed.

The show is pretty stacked and worth looking at. La Parkita, a skeleton midget, fights a normal-sized guy named Payaso del Futuro (Clown from the Future) in what can only be described as a drunken trainwreck of a match. Ring of Honor’s tag champs the Briscoe Brothers visit CHIKARA to take on their tag champs Team F.I.S.T. And also, I almost got ejected during the third match. Heel Eddie Kingston and I got into a wacky little confrontation prior to his match and he asked that I be thrown out of the arena. One of the security guards thought he was serious and really did want me gone. Luckily, I talked him down. Hopefully that shows up in some form on the DVD.

Like always, you can get your CHIKARA shows at Smart Mark Video. They’re having a couple shows this weekend, but I have a wedding to attend. I’ll definitely be around next month, September 21st, when they go back to Philly for their next show called Lettuce Entertain You (And Other Puns).

So, yeah, this isn’t exactly a real comics post, but I think it’s worth it. I just dropped 66 bucks on four monthly comics, something that I hate the very idea of. I hate the idea of paying more than retail for comics, man.

But, now? This evening? I won an auction for Flex Mentallo 1-4.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah like Young Jeezy, man.

The next step is getting this thing bound!

My peoples over at Funnybook Babylon have a pretty great series of articles up. Downcounting: A Guide for the Perplexed is a series of articles by one Chris Eckert. They’re bitingly funny, they’re incredibly mean, and they’re also extremely on point. Honestly, some of the best stuff I’ve read online in ages. Now that the other guy who was blogging Countdown quit out of disgust, this is pretty much it, too.

I mean, I realize that these are kind of long, but they’re worth it and are, in fact, better than reading Countdown itself. Just look at this:

And tell me that it isn’t genius.

Go check it out.

The Contest of Champions paved the way for the event miniseries that Marvel and DC have become dependant on. The star-studded scavenger hunt wasn’t the greatest story in the world, but it was still memorable and classic for being the first step. Naturally, there would one day be a sequel.

If you can call it that.

When I think of Contest of Champions II, I think of the Infinity Gauntlet. Bear with me on this. Infinity Gauntlet was a popular Marvel miniseries starring a bunch of heroes that was eventually used as the basis for Marvel Superheroes, a very good arcade fighting game. While the game did include characters like Psylocke, Magneto, Juggernaut, Blackheart and Shuma Gorath (that still boggles my mind), the gist of the story was that it was supposed to be a retelling of Infinity Gauntlet, only the heroes aren’t useless.

What does this have to do with Contest of Champions II? Marvel Superheroes was a fighting game based on a Marvel miniseries. Contest of Champions II is the opposite. It’s a Marvel miniseries based on fighting games.

Funny thing about fighting games is that there aren’t many variations of the story out there. For the most part, every fighting game’s story is based on one of two concepts. Sometimes it’s just about a quest where different characters run around with a goal, meet each other and fight. Marvel Superheroes was basically this. The other, more popular one, is the tournament. It’s the easiest reason to have different warriors from different walks of life battle each other, especially when there’s no animosity between some.

The tournament stories are occasionally straight-laced and legit. That’s boring. Many others would have the tournament just be a front. In actuality, the host of the tournament is trying to use this as a way to kill off all threats to his or her plans for world domination. Maybe the host plans on using the beaten warriors as zombie cyborg soldiers. A lot of the time, all the fighting is just a way to unleash some long-imprisoned monster god thing to wreak terror on the lands.

This is pretty much what Contest of Champions II is.

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