‘Tec 840 is the follow-up to the Resurrection of R’as al Ghul. A friend of mine said it had two good things: the penciller and inker. I’d expand that to three and get the colorist some respect, too.

But, that story was terrible.

First– The Globe. Dumb villain, dumb gimmick, dumber puns.

Second– R’as. You resurrect him just to throw him in Arkham under an assumed name and take him off the board? What was the point of that seven part crossover, then?

840 felt like a clipshow of bad scenes. Here’s Batman fighting a fat guy with a gimmick, here’s the new R’as, here’s a semi-clever scene, here’s Batman throwing a fat guy at ninjas, here’s Batman drugging R’as and sticking him in Arkham forever.

Terrible.

Myspace.com Blogs – EXCLUSIVE: 8 page preview of SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY!

Interesting stuff! McNiven’s art is beautiful and this is the first Slott script in ages that I didn’t hate. I’m still organizing my thoughts, though.

Spot the T-Mobile joke!

Lifestyles of the Rich and Ballin’ | Funnybook Babylon

Don’t worry guys, I’m going to put a stop to this.

I’m going to meet up with them at New York Comic-con and put them down like the rabid dogs they are.

What is that, Pedro, a sweater-vest? *smh*

-The Birds of Prey, and specifically Misfit, pretty much murder a few hundred people in Metropolis and the only punishment they get is a stern talking to by Superman? Whaaat?

Do you know what happens if I am playing with a gun and I shoot someone in the face? Prison.

What happened to Sean McKeever? His DC work has been mediocre at best and this issue of BoP made them crazy unlikeable.

“He doesn’t know. He wasn’t there.” Psh, Misfit pressed a button and killed a few hundred people. What’s to know, other than “Don’t press buttons in giant murder machines?”

-Is it just me, or was Ultimate Spider-Man 117 the best issue of the series yet? It hit on basically every single point. Wow. The last few pages were spot on characterization and really very touching.

Between this, the past couple arcs of New Avengers, and the Tony Stark scene in the latest Mighty Avengers, Bendis is back to hitting on all cylinders.

-On the same note– I liked the end of OMD, but I don’t have time to get into the whys and wherefores of it right now. I don’t like that the marriage is gone and the execution thereof, but honestly Spider-Man has been in a rut for a good while now and this seems like a proper shot in the arm.

I love love love that they gave back exactly what Spidey has always needed: a supporting cast. For the past few years he has had MJ, Aunt May, and his own guilt for a supporting cast. Now? Now he’s got his best friend back.

I can get behind that.

And honestly, I kind of feel like Joe Q has the biggest nuts in the world now.

-We’re gonna get 36 (at least, I’m not sure how they’re handling five week months) issues of ASM in 2008. That makes ASM 600 arriving in 2009. Boy oh boy, I wonder what’s going to happen in that issue…

-Brubaker’s Captain America and Ennis’s Punisher are still pretty much reviewproof. The quality has kept up, the action keeps escalating, and you can’t really say much beyond “Yep. Still great.”

-That BoP story is so stupid, seriously.

-Resurrection of R’as al Ghul was terrible. What a bad ending. “Welp, he’s back, banned from Nanda Parbat, and WHOOPS HE ESCAPED AGAIN oh and he had a son and a father”

-Morrison’s first issue of Batman, post RoRaG? Wonderful. It finally feels like his run is coming together.

-I kind of feel like Redman’s Red Gone Wild was overlooked this year. Reggie Noble is back to being dope again.

-There is a Whole Foods down on Haight with an homage/reinterpretation of the cover of Intimates #3 painted on the metal grate that comes down when it’s closed. Awesome.

I got no content for you today, but I do have this:

Iron Fist is awesome. I just wanted to be part of the magic, is all.

The current incarnation of 4l.net turned two years old back in late November! I forgot to blog about it, though.

Step 1: Hire a quality writer, one known for doing right by your characters.
Step 2: Pair him up with a T&A artist or two, neither of whom are known for their ability to convey emotions beyond Angry, Shocked, and Aroused.
Step 3: Hamstring the writer by making him tie into your crappy stories that have nothing to do with the book he’s writing.

What book am I talking about? JLA!

The latest issue of JLA is a tie-in to the Tangent stuff that McDuffie isn’t even writing, the first arc was a perfectly decent Legion of Doom story that was hampered by the fact that Ed Benes was wholly unsuitable for the story he was trying to tell and that it turned into a Salvation run tie-in. You know what that did? It neutered the end of the story.

I was super hyped about McDuffie on JLA, despite Benes and Benitez on art. Now? Now I have to struggle to care about it. Tangent comics? Isn’t that like doing a Bloodlines homage or something? Who cares?

DC Comics? You need to get some act right in your life.

Simon & Schuster is running a Create a Comic Book for 6 Sacred Stones Contest. You can create a comic (of no more than 20 pages) based on chapter 1 of the book via the free excerpt online. The winner gets to be included in the mass market edition of 6 Sacred Stones in 01/2009.

If you don’t know, mass market paperbacks are the small sized ones, what you generally think of as paperbacks. Trade paperbacks are taller.

Here is the full set of rules, and here is a video of the author!

Go take a look. Might be some fame in it for you.

Torchbearers is a new community founded by Cheryl Lynn. It’s an offshoot of the Ormes Society slash link dump slash info stash slash place to celebrate black people in comics.

I’m in.

Top 10 Graphic Novels – 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 – TIME

Chris Onstad’s Achewood beat out a bunch of other comics for top graphic novel, including Alan Moore’s Black Dossier and Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman.

My favorite Achewood strip:

A non-favorite strip, but one I love nonetheless:

Congrats, Onstad. You deserve it.

There were two, count ’em, two Marvel comics this week that featured sex tapes as a plot point.

One was Ultimates 3 #1, a comic so thoroughly bad that the only thing I can really praise is that there is an Ultimate Black Panther now, though he jobs like a chump to College Sophomore Eddie Brock in the Venom Costume.

I guess I can’t praise that at all.

Was the newly deAsianed Wasp honestly letting Captain America know that it’s the 21st century now and his pitiful 1940s-era brain just doesn’t get that incest is all to the good?

I mean, what was that all about?

Also it’s kind of awesome how Wasp goes out and buys Tony Stark’s sex tape and screens it in front of all his buddies for what’s apparently the first time they’ve heard about it?

“Hey guys, check this out! Tony Stark and his dead murdering traitor of a fiancee are getting it on! PS Tony what’s the deal with this tape I just bought?”

Great writing, that.

The other book is The Order #5, words by Matt Fraction and art by Khari Evans over Barry Kitson’s layouts.

In the words of one syllable: Wow. Two syllables: Holy wow.

My hands down favorite panel in the book is the one at the top of this page:

He draws the most beautiful sneers I’ve ever seen. The body language is so dead on, too.

Marvel? Push this guy. He is the next big thing. He’s got a funky style that isn’t too far off from the superhero standard while still being pretty awesomely distinct. His talking heads are wonderful, too. Give him a go on a Bendis-written Luke Cage series if you gotta. You know that Bendis would write that in a hot minute.

Do everything you can to make him a star, but please don’t let him draw anything Loeb or Millar writes because I’d like to enjoy the story as well as his awesome art.

Just give me (us) more of his art, that’s all I want.