Can I do 29 of these a month? Who knows. I bring the food for thought, you do the dishes and think it over.
John Henry meets Nat Turner.
If only we could get a vegan black villain! At the Secret Society of Supervillains monthly buffet dinner he can be like “Well, who says all black people like chicken? And who says we don’t like watermelon!? Pile that plate up high! Mmmm-mm! I shol’ do love it! Haha, a little period humor for you, there!”
Ha! Ha! Ha!
-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.
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.
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.
Who is doing all the blogging on race? I know there is Rich Watson, Cheryl Lynn, and Bahlactus.
Is that it? Seriously? What am I missing? Who else is there? I want to read more.
With the first Essential Luke Cage collection so fresh in my mind, it didn’t take me too long to finish off his solo series. Essential Luke Cage, Power Man Volume 2 covers from issue #28 to #49, plus an annual that Chris Claremont wrote. That’s good, since we’re cheated out of an issue. Power Man #36, which claims that “Chemistro is back! And deadlier than ever!” is really just a reprint of #12, the only Chemistro appearance up to that point. The nerve.
On the subject of them messing with us, the back cover of this book promises a guest-starring role by the X-Men. Bullshit. The closest we get is one panel of Iron Fist saying, “I just met the X-Men the other day.”
Except I didn’t read this for the X-Men cameos. I read this because back in the 70’s, the blaxploitation man-tank named Luke Cage was a ridiculously fun protagonist who beat up any jive sucka that looked at his metal tiara the wrong way. The last trade ended with a wacky, but somewhat heartfelt story about a dumb wrestler with a terminal blood clot who finds and drinks a random can of Super Soldier Serum and temporarily reaches his peak physical condition. It’s weird, but it has it’s right at home with the rest of the series and keeps the momentum going into issue #28.
There are so many reasons people wished they could have Superman’s powers. The strength, the flying, the speed, the eye-lasers, the x-ray vision… er… Pretend I put “x-ray vision” in there a couple more times. It’s always funnier that way. Anyway, one of the cooler things about Superman’s powers is his ability to slowly storm forward as criminals empty clips into his chest and continue firing in horror and futility as the bullets keep bouncing off his body. I’m sure Batman wishes he was from Krypton just so he could do that every other hour. Superman doesn’t even need to do it! He could zip over and steal the guns if he truly wanted. He only does it for the kicks. That has to be the most gratifying thing you can do as a crime fighter.
Luke Cage exists for the sake of doing this bit whenever he’s in a bad mood. He also exists to show that black people can have bad fashion sense too, but that’s beside the point. Luke Cage’s main superpower is walking forward while armed bad guys shit themselves. The difference is that he loses a lot of shirts. Really. Luke Cage goes through more shirts than Bruce Banner.
Heheh. I wonder if he knows that in 30 years, that’s going to be a stinging insult.
Hey, you know who was kind of a cool character? Orpheus.
Black Mask slit his throat and wore his face as a mask during War Games. He hasn’t been mentioned since, I don’t think. It’s been three years.
His buddy Onyx? She got stabbed by Jason Todd. No word on if she lived or died, because she also hasn’t been mentioned. It’s been a couple years on that front, I think. It was pre-IC.
How many reviews have you seen online for Percy Carey and Ron Wimberly’s Sentences?
I’m thinking again.
I’ve written 25+ pages this weekend, and I should really put in some more work before I duck out this evening for a meeting, but I’ve got to share something.
I took a break from writing a little while ago and picked up my copy of Percy “MF Grimm” Carey and Ronald Wimberly’s Sentences. It’s an autobio comic out of Vertigo, if you hadn’t heard. Grimm is a rapper who’s been around for a good while.
I don’t know if I could do it just right now, but I want to review this book. I’ve only seen a few reviews online for it, none of which are from the comics press or blogosphere. It deserves the attention.
You see, Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm is one of the best books I’ve read this year and my official front-runner for Book of the Year. It’s completely awesome.
Review coming as soon as I can block out some free time. The only thing I’ve got to say right now is “Buy this book.”
