As of yesterday, Captain America had a heated conversation with Valkyrie. A conversation SO heated that Valkyrie’s been balling up her fist. Time for something actiony to happen.
Tomorrow, ManiacClown and I will be back for dragons, orcs, jungle folk, tigers, and post-coitus. See you then.
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!
Time for another go at TWiP, including a rare couple panels from Esther. Also, reader Space Jawa tossed in a panel from Thor and the Warriors Four. If you really dig a comic that you see we aren’t reading and want to toss us a scan, by all means. Email’s on the top right.
Tossed in the few Free Comic Book Day issues I’ve had time to read.
Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine #1
Jason Aaron and Adam Kubert
Atomic Robo Free Comic Book Day
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener and others
Welcome back for another round of edits. For those who don’t remember what happened in the first issue because they were distracted by Ultimate Red Skull suddenly crying about his daddy issues in Millar’s Ultimates comic, the Defenders have returned from obscurity with special powers and enhancements. It’s like that episode of Gargoyles with the Pack, but without that kickass Australian Dingo guy around. Dingo ruled. They stole Mjolnir from Valkyrie, Loki and an army of monsters invaded and Tony Stark introduced Carol Danvers to at least three STDs.
And now, we move forward.
Thanks to ManiacClown for warning me that having the pointing Captain America say, “Only you can prevent forest terrorism!” is a little too much of a stretch. We’ll be back tomorrow with more from Cap and Valkyrie.
But my point remains: Dingo ruled.
Day Two!
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!
I hate reality TV, and I don’t think I’ll be particularly interested in Stan Lee’s Superhumans, which will feature real people whose genetic differences result in seemingly-impossible abilities.
I have found, however, a deep repository of mean-spirited trashiness within me that I think they could tap.
If the people on the show have the last episode be a fight between the measurably-different people and all of those ‘indigo children’ and ‘crystal moms’ (or ‘indigo moms’ and ‘crystal children’), I’m in. I would buy a TV to see that.
Iron Man 2 has been released and I checked it out last night. Personally, I enjoyed it, but doubly after having read the Alexander Irvine novelization. Much like with going from the graphic novel of Kick-Ass to the movie Kick-Ass, the transition from a weak telling of a story to a strong telling of a story can make such a difference based purely on the comparison.
I always love doing this little experiment of checking out the novelization of comic book movies, then seeing how the final product compares. I’ve been doing it for the past few years and they’ve always seemed to be based on the full version of the story. The novelization is what the movie is like before the editor cuts off chunks. Sometimes this works out for the better (Incredible Hulk). Sometimes this works out for the worse (Spider-Man 3). There’s even the first Iron Man, where the second act had to be refilmed and edited around just to make the Air Force happy.
Iron Man 2 is a different beast, since it doesn’t appear to be based on the full version of the screenplay, but of an earlier, incomplete version. There are plotholes and loose ends riddling the story that the movie is nice enough to fix. Even better, some of the climactic moments are so ridiculously underwhelming that the final cinematic output is a godsend.
Let’s take a look at what was changed.
From Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal 2, with words by JT Krul and art by Geraldo Borges:
What do the judges say?
Swing and a miss, b.
I almost don’t want The Return of Bruce Wayne to come out. I almost want them just to release snippets of it forever. As anyone on this site knows, comics are incredibly frustrating. There are many more ways to disagree with someone’s take on a book, situation, or character than there are ways to agree.
And yet there are times when being neck-deep in comics trivia, continuity and drama pays off because it gives you the right background you need to fully experience moments of pure joy.
That’s pretty much how I feel whenever bits of The Return of Bruce Wayne are released. This psychotic little series makes me happy whenever I see it. I don’t usually care, even a little bit, about variant covers, but look at that one.
I just want to pinch his cheeks and say, “Arrrrr,” like some demented motorcycle revving up. Having the actual series come up seems like it could just spoil everything.
But before we begin? Anyone know how Batman got from charred corpse to flying in a metal spaceship?
Grant Morrison, Andy Clarke, Scott Hanna, and Dustin Nguyen’s Batman & Robin 12 reveals the identity of Oberon Sexton and sets up the next arc of Grant Morrison’s Batman mega-story. That’s nice and all, but what I dug most about the issue was something else entirely.
A preface: I’m not 100% sold on Batman & Robin. The art has been shaky when done by people not named Cameron Stewart or Frank Quitely. The story hasn’t been hitting on all cylinders. I’ve talked about this with David Uzumeri, the #1 Batmannotations guy on the internet, because I was confused. I like Morrison. I like Batman. I like Damian. This should be clicking for me, but it wasn’t. This issue, though, came the closest to the knock-your-socks-off spectacular I was expecting. And it wasn’t because of Oberon Sexton. It was this scene:
Damian, ten years old, just slightly older than his father was when he made a vow to avenge the death of his parents, has finally found a cause. His father, bleeding to death, said, “Yes. Father. I shall become a bat” and chose to honor his parents through his life’s work. His mother raised him to be a killer and run roughshod over the world. His father, and his father’s family, treated him with love and kindness. They treated him like a person. His mother is cold, distant, and considers him a tool.
Batman wants to fight crime. His biological son has a more focused target, a specific representation of crime. The son of the world’s greatest detective and the heir to the world’s foremost criminal empire has chosen a side: his father’s side. Damian’s cause is to be a worthy enemy for the daughter of the greatest criminal mastermind on the planet.
I also enjoyed this:
This is how you do fall-out from an event.
Hey, remember when I said this was going to be a 5-parter? Make that 6. I should really learn to count better.
In the first installment, we took a look at Marvel’s A-Team from the mid-80’s. The show faded away, but Mr. T remained Mr. T. While he did have some projects here and there, such as the ever-memorable Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool, Mr. T didn’t really enter the 90’s with any steady piece of media. If he was going to appear in a comic book, he wasn’t going to be B.A. Baracus or any fictional character. T would have to be T.
In the mid-90’s, the company NOW Comics was filled with a myriad of interesting choices for licensed comics. Green Hornet and Terminator? Not bad. Speed Racer and Ghostbusters? Unorthodox, but still fully acceptable. Three Ninjas and Married… with Children? Then you have to vocally wonder what the Christ. Not only that, but the Married… with Children comics included a miniseries where the Bundy family gets powers from cosmic radiation and become the Quantum Quartet. I get the douche chills just thinking about it.
Mr. T would also get some play from NOW with Mr. T and the T-Force. The series lasts a whopping ten issues, longer than any other Mr. T series to date. Well, ten issues that I know of. Wikipedia suggests that there were eleven issues and there were certainly more announced within the comics, but I haven’t seen any evidence of issue #11. Though there also appears to be an annual that came out during the series’ existence. I’ve found absolutely nothing on it online outside of a Scans_Daily post showing Mr. T fighting a dude who looks like a cross between Spoiler and Phantasm.
The series ultimately works like Marvel’s Nextwave in that each arc is done in two issues. Unlike Nextwave, each arc is done by a different creative team. That means there really isn’t any true arc to the comic. Just a series of subplots and callbacks to supporting characters.
The main problem with the series is how Mr. T himself just doesn’t seem to have anything going on. While he’s shown to be a landlord, he has no actual personal life. He just goes around stumbling across people who need his help. B.A. Baracus helped people all the time too, but he still had his own personal problems to deal with. The army was after him, he had to deal with Murdock’s nonsense and his fear of flying. In Mr. T and the T-Force, Mr. T’s life seems just a little too perfect to the point that they rarely even show him in any real peril. So much that whenever anyone pulls a gun on him, he disarms them at the snap of a finger every time. I’m going to keep a tally on that.
True story: Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is one of my favorite comics. It’s a great story, with fantastic art, and I’ve loved it ever since I first read it (which was as an adult). I like it so much that Boom! Studios’ rerelease of the series in a couple hardcovers has been tempting me
It’s the story of how Scrooge McDuck went from pauper to super rich fat cat. There are tons of real-life guest stars, all done up ducks-style, and it’s just a rocking good story. Boom! posted a few pages of the book on their press site and said that we can post them around. So, y’know, enjoy. I have fantastic taste, and believe me when I say that this is a classic book.
