Less than a year ago, Alan Moore went on one of his usual tirades. The kind where he goes on about how he doesn’t read a thing by Marvel or DC, but knows they suck just because. You know the kind.

Yeah, like that.

While ranting about the comic business is part of Moore’s Thursday routine, this instance was different. By this point, the comic industry had taken enough of his bitterness. For one, fellow scary bearded writer Jason Aaron wrote up a big essay on how he once idolized the man, but is now completely over him. DC Comics, meanwhile, seemed to take it just as personally. While they have no problem making money off of Moore’s old classics in trade form, he’s otherwise dead to them. In the past couple months, it seems DC’s making it their business to wipe Moore’s presence from DC continuity.

Sure, he gave us that comic with the naked blue guy and the creepy dude who’d always go, “Hurm.” He gave us that cool Superman story where he was all, “MONGUUUUUUL!” But those stand by themselves. When you look at it, in terms of DC continuity, there are three major impacts Moore has made. Four if you count the Blackest Night hoopla, but that was really just a minor aside that Geoff Johns mutated into something else entirely. Five if you count John Constantine, but let’s face it. There’s no damage DC can do to him that the movie didn’t already.

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I was initially very unimpressed with Flashpoint.  Not the many different worlds; I liked that.  The Azzarello Batman: Knight of Vengeance hit the Miller imagery harder than Miller has in the last twenty years, and that’s okay, because it makes for a fun few issues.  I like sampling the various variations.  The main story isn’t splashing over into the books I regularly read.  For a big summer event, I liked it.

No, the thing that left me initially unimpressed was the idea that the entire DC universe gets rebooted at the end of it.  Yes, when I hit the ground in comics, I hit the ground running.  And yes, I have thirteen boxes full of comics to prove that.  And yes, I just gave away an entire shortbox full of kids comics to my mom to cut it down to thirteen boxes.  But – I haven’t been reading that long in the grand scheme of things.  And in that time, the entire DCU has been rebooted at least twice.  The idea of another reboot just left me feeling tired.

But, true to form, just when I thought I was out, comics pulled me back in.  This re-boot is going to be a little re-bootier than usual.  It seems that DC, conscious of new readers being too intimidated by the mountains of continuity to pick up a single title, is going back to issue one, and trying for an iconic version of DC.

This means one of two things.  Either this one will stick a little more than usual, or it will be gone in a blink, leaving only even more confusing continuity in its wake. 

I hope for the former.  The last few decades of ultra-grim continuity have left me feeling a little poorly towards comics in general.  A clean slate, free of tragedy and its attendant moping, might be nice.  I feel like it would be good to step into a DC universe where not every single character has violently lost a child.  (Batman, Superman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Arsenal, Wonder Girl . . . I’m sure there are more, but I can’t take thinking about it.)

So here’s what I am scanning the headlines for:

1.  What happens to the Batfamily in general?

Well, of course I am.  I’m still me, aren’t I?  And I like most of the Batfamily the way it is.  I like Jason Todd (shut up) and Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown, and Damian (as a side character), so I’m hoping DC won’t lose them completely.  And yes, I saw that Barbara is Batgirl and written by Gail Simone.  I’ve gone on record with my opinions on Babs returning to Batgirl before – but I’ll do it again.  It’s a terrible idea, a regression for the character, and eliminating one of the most original characters in the DCU.  And I love it.  It’s Babs, and Babs is my favorite character, and I love Batgirl too, and I don’t care about anything else.

2.  What about the Blue Beetle?

It hadn’t occurred to me that anything would happen with either Blue Beetle – neither right now seems like a big enough character to be messed with.  I’d love it if they were both back, but I’m the ‘more is more’ persuasion of fan.  Which is why I have thirteen boxes of comics in my house.

3.  Lian Harper must live!

It was a creepy story and depressingly generic turn for the Arsenal character to kill off his kid and have him turn ‘dark’.  The overall story was so distasteful that it put me off reading comics in general for weeks.  A big re-set for the universe would be a good way to erase that.

–A reprint of an old post about The ‘Nam

–A preview of the Static Shock Special, which I had previously discussed in March. I wasn’t really going to pick up the special until I saw the preview. I’m still a little grossed out, to be honest, but it’s clearly a good faith effort on the part of the creators involved. Comics will make you feel weird about things you like, man.

–I wrote up Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Criminal: Last of the Innocent. It’s good. Buy it.

–Digital ComicsAlliance: this week, I tackle the DC digital pricing scheme with veiled drug references, overt drug references, and references to going on a blackout bender with friends.

I read and reviewed this book while sitting in a room I haven’t slept in for four years. I took a trip back home for a week, and it’s been sorta weird. The first thing that happened when I got back into town, like right after I got off the airport shuttle, was that the lady at the desk recognized my last name, asked if I was related to a couple people, and told me about my aunt holding back on a recipe. The rest of the trip has been a whirlwind of sideways nostalgia, where everything is too small or out of place or weird or different from how it was four years ago/when I was a kid. (though small is almost definitely a metaphorical thing, now that I’m looking around my room and mentally comparing it to my apartment)

This latest Criminal is about a man coming home after five years away and being completely seduced by nostalgia for the way things were. The gap between then and now shakes him up early on, but later, when he’s conversating with old friends and having a good time, he starts thinking about how great then feels and how broken and corrupt now is.

This sort of stuff is basic, I think, the sort of universal emotions we all experience at some point. I just happened to read the book at the best/worst possible time to do so. Brubaker and Phillips came through with the execution, and the basic nature of the story (“Life was better then,” whether “better” is true or not) gives it a little extra punch. Widest possible area of effect, right? Even famous people feel that. (“Ain’t kill myself yet, and I already want my life back.”)

This is a good first issue for what will hopefully be the best Criminal yet. It feels very resonant; it’s easy to relate to. Well worth a look.

–Thor: Tales of Asgard is soft. Netflix it if you have to, ignore it if you don’t.

–Ten Marvel comics that are worth buying in August
–Here’s some free digital comics

–A quick look at Adam WarRock’s new EP

–A preview of Miners Mutiny from Stackhouse x Shahan

–More digital comics, but not free

Rozum’s contribution to Xombi is far from insignificant (the story’s pretty good, and I’m really very happy with how the series is shaking out), but Irving’s work is what I want to focus on right now. Off the top of my head, I’d say that the series rarely goes above five panels per page, which gives plenty of room for action and dialogue. Irving’s had a chance to show off some low-key acting (David Kim on the phone is #1 is great) and some large-scale action scenes (check out the panel progress from panels 3-5, particularly David’s head), and he’s done well with everything. At the moment, this is probably my favorite DC book. Maybe a tie with the Milligan/Camuncoli/Landini/Bisley Hellblazer.

(The colors are interesting, too. The series feels like it’s colored by mood [a burning, angry orange, a twilight blue, a calm, natural green] rather than traditionally realistic colors.)

Xombi is fairly free of metatextual commentary. Xombi isn’t a comic about other comics. Everything you need to know takes place inside the panels. This might be the first time the story in the comic breaks out of the panels. I like the extra punch it adds to the scene, though I feel like the lettering being over the action, rather than near, hurts it a little. But that right there, the blood splatter breaking out of the confines of reality, is a great touch.

As of today, I am no longer a man in my 20’s. I was wondering how to be all sentimental about such a change and decided that I would do a 4 Elements post on my favorite comic story. That’s a hard decision to make, really. What to choose? I love Watchmen and all, but I don’t know if I’d rank it that high. Hell, I love Kingdom Come more than I should, but even that rings hollow. Maybe there’s some Deadpool story buried in there that I should gush over.

In the end, I decided to go with a short story from a 90’s What If issue. Yes, I’m terrible. In fact, most of the issue is terrible. It’s What If #34 from the second volume, otherwise known as What If No One Was Watching the Watcher? Years back when I ranked the top 100 issues of the series, that one only made it to #57. Despite being a humor issue, it featured 19 pages of unfunny jokes and inane concepts. The only reason it ranked so high was because of the opening 7-page story.

The story, written by Scott Gimple and drawn my Tom Morgan, came out in 1992, only a month or so after the finishing of Marvel’s hit Infinity Gauntlet series. Now, I’m a fan of violence and fictional destruction, but strangely, there’s a major lack of it in this story. In fact, the only actual action comes from the first page as this reality’s Thanos gives the business to Galactus, Eater of Worlds.

Yes. My favorite comic book story is What If Thanos Changed Galactus Into a Human Being? Rather than imprison him in energy cubes like in the original story, the omnipotent Thanos punishes Galactus by sending him to Earth in the form as a human. In his naked, human form, Galactus finds himself in a Kansas trailer park. With no memory of his true identity, hungry and entranced by the sound of nearby music, he stumbles into the home of Gertrude Rebmann, a waitress, single mother and Elvis enthusiast. At first, she’s horrified that there’s a naked dude collapsing at her front door, but then we get a good look at Galactus’ human form and she’s even more shocked.

Complete cosmic coincidence, Galactus had been transformed into a form that looks and sounds just like Elvis Aaron Presley. Gertrude is sure it’s him and spends the next few hours feeding him, playing him Elvis records, reading his life story via magazines and showing him some of his movies. Since Galactus has amnesia and he’s a complete match – even down to the singing talent – he agrees that he is indeed Elvis. He doesn’t understand it, but he knows he has a second chance and he intends to do it right this time.

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I’m sure you have figured this out by now, but I’m a man who loves a good cheesy movie. That’s the reason why the 70’s and 80’s are so great. Give me a choice between watching the English Patient and the Warriors and I’ll choose the latter every time. I think a great cheese movie is a lot like an expensive comic. You can’t force it. It just happens. Nobody knew that Action Comics #1 would be such a big deal years later, but it is. You can TRY to make your new movie as cliché and silly as possible (hello, Shoot ‘Em Up), but most of the time you’re going to just get another forced product like insisting Doomsday killing Superman is going to be a major collector’s issue. Got my sloppy metaphor out of the way, so let’s continue.

I guess there are just some movies that are too weird to exist and when you get wind of them, you can’t rest until you sit down and watch it. Like the day I discovered that there’s a Japanese monster movie about a 50-foot-tall Frankenstein’s monster fighting a giant lizard. Or a movie about a samurai Buddy Holly walking through the desert and fighting Death so he could one day become the king of Lost Vegas. Or whatever the hell Santa Claus Meets the Ice Cream Bunny was about. I’m compelled to watch them.

Several years ago, I came across a clip on YouTube of one hell of a grindhouse movie trailer. It was a movie from the early 1980’s called Kill Squad.

I feel like the guy from the Maxell commercial when I see that. They really just tried to convince us that a throwing star blew up a car via different footage cut together! They don’t even try to give you any semblance of a plot. They just show you that it’s nothing but ridiculous fighting and the world’s greatest tagline. I’m in!

Unfortunately, Kill Squad is so obscure that it isn’t even on DVD. Believe me, I’ve spent the last few years checking up on that again and again to find no progress. Then fortune struck. I was showing that trailer to someone the other day and I saw a shocking link on the sidebar: “Kill Squad 1/8“.

SOMEONE HAD UPLOADED THE ENTIRE MOVIE ONTO YOUTUBE! IT’S A VERY LATE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

I sat through the movie and came out a better man. It isn’t a good movie by any means, but the world is a better place for the fact that it exists. Also, the trailer was right. There is a loooooooot of fighting. In fact, I’m going to keep a running tally.

The movie is directed by Patrick G. Donahue and stars a bunch of guys who don’t appear in any other movie. B-movie mainstay Cameron Mitchell is also credited as the villainous Dutch. There’s a really hilarious and interesting notable actor in the movie, but I don’t want to make this review too top-heavy. I’ll go back to it down the line.

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Excluding Gargoyles, Darkwing Duck was always my favorite part of the Disney Afternoon. I always felt that although Disney is great at showcasing their many properties, Darkwing got the shaft. Sure, it got an NES game, but when the cartoon ended, so did the franchise. Darkwing fell into obscurity, only to become a piece of nostalgia years later.

But what a show it was. Funny and filled with adventure, it acted as the way lighter comedy counterpart to Batman: The Animated Series. It had plenty of character to go around. Not only with our egomaniac mostly-competent hero, but they stole the best character from Duck Tales for the sidekick role and the youthful ward seems to have more gusto than the title character himself. If a superhero is defined by his villains, then you can see the reason the show was so great through the likes of Darkwing’s rogues gallery. Except for that one walrus guy. He kind of sucked.

I never expected to ever see Darkwing again. Whenever a new Kingdom Hearts game came out, I’d half-heartedly hope that maybe we’d get some kind of return appearance, but no. He doesn’t rank with the feature film big shots. Alas, he’d only live on in Toon Disney reruns.

That is, until BOOM! Studios announced a Darkwing Duck miniseries. I was jazzed! Eventually, the idea became so popular among the masses that the company turned it into an ongoing. I was more jazzed! Then I read the first issue. That made my jazz flux levels go even higher! I even got to do an interview with writer Ian Brill one time! My jazziness… it… I… I was pleased, okay?

Darkwing Duck has finished up its first year via twelve issues (three story arcs) and an annual that featured a short story by the series creator Tad Stones. The main series is written by Ian Brill with James Silvani killing it on art. In a time when my favorite characters like Venom, Deadpool, Juggernaut, Booster Gold and Luke Cage have their own fantastic comics going on (by “Deadpool” I mean Uncanny X-Force. Sorry, Daniel Way), I can still tell people with a straight face that my favorite comic series being released today is Darkwing Duck. I get a lot of skeptical looks, but I stand by my claim. With those twelve issues plus one released, I’ve found myself blown away thirteen times in the past year.

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Last Wednesday saw the release of Alpha Flight #0.1, the first in what appears to be a second wave of comics in Marvel’s Point One Initiative. Revealed first in late October and making its debut on the shelves in February, Marvel decided to start focusing on certain issues of their various series as jumping on points. It’s similar, at least to me, to DC’s One Year Later comics that existed after the events of Infinite Crisis half a decade ago, only without the shakeup factor of it all. They simply give us a bunch of $2.99 comic issues that claim to be a great place for a new reader to start with and move forward.

I’ve seen people review the Point One books in batches, comparing what worked and what didn’t. I even thought of doing that myself, but then I took a second to notice that it would be pretty unnecessary. What reason could I possibly have to review those? For instance, I read Jeff Parker’s Hulk as is and enjoy the hell out of it. So of course I would love Hulk #30.1. I’m already on board for the series. To me, it’s just another great issue. I’m not the intended audience for such a review.

But you know who would be good for this kind of thing? People who would read Hulk #30.1 despite never reading the 29 prior issues. Same for Avengers #12.1 and Wolverine #5.1 and so on. If this is Marvel’s attempt to bring in new readers, I need to get me a hold of some new readers! Namely, I need a crew from the DC side of the tracks. It was a long and tortuous search (fifteen seconds, give or take), but I figured on a perfect trio for this experiment.

First up is Esther Inglis-Arkell, the Clobberella of the 4thletter! New Justice Team. Since she and I have had shockingly minimal interaction over the years on this site and she stands firm on DC ground, Esther was ideal for this. Joining Esther is Was Taters, a friend to this site for all the work she regularly does for This Week in Panels. Lastly, I introduce my real life good buddy Andrew, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the past five and a half years.

Before we get started, let’s hear from our guinea pigs.

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If David can post about music every week, and Gavin can talk about wrestling, then I figure I can bring up my own little causes from time to time.  This one is getting posted here so I don’t bother my friends with it for weeks.  Plus, it involves the news, and since the news is pretty much entertainment these days, we might as well include it.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, a man named Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a maid at the hotel where he was staying.  Naturally, everyone in the world braced themselves for a wash of idiocy, and not a moment too soon.  One infuriatingly stupid contributor to the flood was Ben Stein, with a post that there is no way in frozen hell I’m going to link to.  He publishes several defenses of Strauss-Kahn, some valid, some utterly moronic.  Many of them are based on classism and add up to tautologies – people in high positions shouldn’t be seriously suspected of sex crimes because if they were suspected of sex crimes they would never manage to be in high positions.  And around we go.

But here’s where we get to the most off-putting part of the argument.

What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman’s word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker’s is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it’s done.

This is why I love the age of the internet.  It’s possible that, back in the day, this paragraph might have passed under the radar.  Now, we’ve all seen pages and pages of internet commenters using just this form. 

“I like black people.  I think they’re great.  On the other hand . . . ”

“I’m not sexist, but . . . ”

“Some of my best friends are Jewish!  But I’ve had some terrible experiences with . . . ”

If you have to state that you don’t have a problem with a certain person, or group of people, you are moments away from behaving in a way that indicates exactly the opposite.  No one has to add a disclaimer when they’re making a statement that is honorable and accurate.  No one has to tell their audience that they don’t hate someone unless they’re about to do everything in their power to show that they do hate someone. 

Stein could have simply said that the woman’s statements should have been more thoroughly investigated before any action was taken.  Depending on the facts of the case that could be debated.  He didn’t say that.  He pointed out that the woman was a maid.  Then he made the disclaimer, lest anyone think he had a problem with the fact that she was a maid.  Then he listed several terrible things that maids did to him over the years, mentioned that some maids were “complete lunatics” and thieves.  He finished off by implying that the police should doubt the maid’s word.  Can anyone name a group of people who they ‘love and admire,’ but who they would talk about that way?

So I’m going to take away the disclaimers, and re-write the first half of the paragraph the way Ben Stein actually meant it.  “The woman was a maid.  I don’t like maids.  I don’t respect them or trust them.  I’m sure this woman isn’t any better than the rest.  I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me.”

The ‘few minutes of investigation’ is clear hyperbole, so we’ll leave that behind.  The Riker’s Island reference leads back to an earlier point  in which Stein said that Strauss-Kahn’s ‘lifetime of service’ to the IMF merited better than putting him in a common prison with other common prisoners who were suspected of awful things like . . . sexual assault. 

I don’t know who’s guilty or who’s innocent.  What I do know is that Stein’s piece is the most lightly-coded way of saying, “the rich, powerful, and connected deserve better justice than the poor and obscure,” that I’ve ever seen.

this was going to run elsewhere, but didn’t, so now it’s here instead. i’d have done it different if i wanted it up here, almost definitely (this reads stilted to me), but hey, i wrote it, so it’s probably worth reading.

The assembly line nature of mainstream comics has allowed for a few alchemical relationships between members of a comic’s creative team. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby turned Fantastic Four into one of the best loved franchises in comics, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley revolutionized how comics were printed in Ronin, and Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely, and Jamie Grant made All-Star Superman and We3 among the most beautiful comics out. I’d like to add another team to that list: Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, and Dave Stewart, creators of today’s Hellboy: Being Human.

Pick your poison: Mignola, Corben, or Stewart. Stewart is one of the best colorists in the business, an Eisner winner, and a guy you can count on to make any comic book better just by showing up. Mike Mignola is one of the best success stories in comics, having spun off a silly idea he had once into two of the best series in comics and a couple of solid movies. And Richard Corben… he’s been in the game for over forty years, knocking out classic comic after classic comic. Together, you’ve got a powerhouse team that can do anything. "Anything," in this case, is "some of the best Hellboy stories ever."

The team has collaborated on Hellboy on five, six with the release of Being Human, separate occasions. The first time was 2006’s Hellboy: Makoma, or, A Tale Told by a Mummy in the New York City Explorers’ Club on August 16, 1993. This story took Hellboy to Africa and, in the cultural tourism that has made Hellboy such a fascinating series, through African folklore. In The Crooked Man, Hellboy takes a trip to West Virginia for a taste of good old fashioned Appalachian horror. The Bride of Hell sent Hellboy to France, and the flawless Hellboy In Mexico (Or, a Drunken Blur) sent Hellboy to (wait for it) Mexico (read our previous coverage of that classic here). Finally, Double Feature of Evil sent Hellboy to haunted houses and murky museums.

The easiest way to show why Mignola, Corben, and Stewart are so special is to spotlight their best work: Hellboy in Mexico. As far as I’m concerned, this was the best single issue of any comic released in 2010. It is, in essence, every Hellboy story. Hellboy‘s casual sense of humor, big action, folkloric inspiration, intense attention paid to atmosphere, and heartbreaking sadness are all in effect here. Mignola structured the tale as something Hellboy was telling his partner Abe Sapien, giving it a very personal and conversational feel. This isn’t someone recounting a happy time in their life. This is a bad memory and a source of emotional trauma for Hellboy.

Corben and Stewart (and letterer Clem Robins) handle the art chores, and the results are predictably fantastic. Corben’s Hellboy is straight out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, with a bobbly, goofy looking head and jaw and a brawny physique. His monsters are even creepier, with their desiccated skin, disgusting claws, and missing chunks. The thick, doughy figures have real weight, and are pleasingly exaggerated.

Dave Stewart gets a chance to do some interesting rendering, thanks to Corben’s detailed pencils. Hellboy gains definition that he doesn’t have under Mignola or Duncan Fegredo’s pen, making for an entirely different reading experience. Mignola and Fegredo created a world littered with shadows and gloom for Hellboy to stride through. Stewart and Corben pull Hellboy into the realm of pop comics, thanks to Hellboy’s bright red skin tone contrasting with the muted, dusty palette of Hellboy in Mexico.

In short, Hellboy in Mexico is what comics are supposed to look like: a peek into another incredible world. It’s incredible, and this week, the team is back together for another shot.

Hellboy: Being Human features Roger, the homunculus Hellboy met fairly early in the run of Hellboy stories, on his first field mission. Here’s the solicit text, courtesy of Dark Horse:

A horrible witch and her zombie servant host a dinner party for a family of corpses, and Hellboy and Roger turn up to blast them all back to hell in this team-up story from Roger’s early days at the B.P.R.D.

This one’s a simple, personal tale of horror, showing us an early glimpse at how Roger and Hellboy grew to become friends and how hate can twist a life into an ugly mess. Being Human refers to Hellboy, Roger, and the witch who menaces them. What’s it mean to be human? Do you have to be homo sapiens, or is it something more?

Check out the preview below.