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.

Once again, Geoff Klock’s blog is the place to be, as there’s a great discussion of Morrison’s Batman vs Frank Miller’s Batman.

I really liked this comment, in fact:Voice of the Eagle said:

Gonna go out a limb and saw it off:

Between this and DKR, Miller not only has the definite Batman, but the definte Joker.Yeah, better than Moore’s.

It occurs to me that he switches the traditional readings of these two characers even as early as DKR- Batman is the laughing lunatic and Joker is the grim, “sane” one.

I can’t go into detail on it now, but I’ve got a foolproof way to make Misty Knight a Marvel heavy-hitter ala Luke Cage or Daredevil. I’ll save that for another post. I’m going to give those in the know a big hint on how I’d approach it, though.

Who want to battle the Don?
I’m James Bond in the Octagon with two razors
Bet y’all didn’t know I had a fake arm
I lost it, wild and raw before rap, I was gettin’ it on

Ghostface Killah Lands Cameos In ‘Iron Man,’ ‘Walk Hard’ – Movie News Story | MTV Movie News

“I jumped in there for maybe 12 or 16 bars, nothing too major,” Ghost downplayed before describing his scene with the film’s star. “It was a good look for the kid because Robert Downey Jr. recognized me as soon as I seen him. He was like, ‘Yo, Tony!’ … For him to recognize me, I was kinda surprised by that. I didn’t know he even knew about the kid. … We called each other Tony onscreen. I’m like, ‘Tony Stark, I got your jet, I didn’t mess it up.’ He was like, ‘I got the Bentley for you, I laced it up.’ I had two girls with me, I was like, ‘That’s you [pointing toward the girls].’ I sent two birds at him. It was a wrap for that scene. He’s a cool dude and funny. Big up to Robert Downey Jr.

This Iron Movie cannot possibly get any more awesome. Yes.

How many comic characters have come up with recently revealed/brought back into play children?

Wolverine has Daken and X-23, kinda. Agent 13 is preggo with Cap’s baby. Namor had that son show up in his mini. Superman has Chris Kent. Batman has Damian. Hulk has Skaar or whatever. Corsair had Vulcan, though that’s kind of stretching the timeline a little. Punisher’s got a tyke.

That’s eight in, what, just under two years?

Anyway, Christos Gage is one of my new favorite writers. His Union Jack was the bomb, his House of M Avengers was mostly recap/revamp for Cage fans, but good, and so on. He’s got a couple books dropping soon. Iron Man Annual #1 and T-bolts: Breaking Points. Both are one-offs.

Tony Stark as James Bond + Bruce Wayne is a brilliant move, seriously. Why hasn’t anyone done this before? It’s totally Tony Stark. Danny Rand is Kung Fu Billionaire, Tony Stark should be Mecha James Bond. I want to pick up both books now. Gage generally does good.

But yeah, there’s something else in those previews that I noticed. Check out this image and think back a few months to the Mary Jane statue thing.

I laughed.

My question is– is this a knee-slapper with a knowing wink or a face-slapper with a mean glare? It’s kind of obviously presented as something that isn’t altogether kosher or positive… my money is on wink.

Geoff Klock is one of my favorite bloggers, and his three part dissection of JLA Classified is a good read. One, Two, and Three.

JLA:C 1-3 are his most favorite superhero comics of all time… and I’d be hard pressed to disagree with him. They’re pure, outlandish, and fun superheroics.

Go give it a read.

NEWSARAMA.COM: JLA WEDDING SPECIAL #1 PREVIEW

Dwayne McDuffie’s first page is twice as good as Meltzer’s full run.

I’m psyched.

Blah blah blah, I like Jubilee. You know this refrain. verse one and verse two.

In a comment on that latter post, Julian Lytle linked this Jubilee redesign that I kind of dig. It’s funky. He’s got a flickr here with some extremely awesome art inside. My favorite is probably the Jubes sketch, but I really dig the design on the Guns’n’Honey ones. Go check it out. I’m way overdue on this link.

My favorite X-Men eras are the Jim Lee era and the Grant Morrison era, in that order. Lee’s X-Men was just incredibly fun and out there, and this Mojo story was short, stupid, to the point, and entertaining. I wish X-Men 1-11 were all in a trade as like “X-Men Legends” or whatever. I’ve got 1-7 or so in a trade (Mutant Genesis?), but I want the entire Lee run. (That last image? My new desktop.)

Also, Wolverine as mewling weak coward-type? Scott Lobdell and Jim Lee’s version is better than the PIP PIP OH DEAR! one from Astonishing X-Men.

Oh yes

I went there.

(“I… I ain’t never backed down to a skirt” is just like the ultimate in Wolverineisms. The perfect encapsulation of who he is and what he does. Which, obviously, is not backing down to skirts.

He’s fond of chiffon.)

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.

I think I mentioned this way back around NY Comic-con time, but here’s Read a Book, part of BET’s new slate of animation. I was there when they showed this and you can kinda hear the reception to it on the video: busted guts and hurt sides.

It’s just as funny the second time around. Thank heaven for YouTube, huh?

I promise, I’ll quit this linkblogging stuff soon!

My homey David Uzumeri has a very good (and plausible!) look at who wrote what for 52. A brief excerpt:

I’ve been hiding this in my back pocket for a while, since I didn’t want to jinx DC putting up more of Keith Giffen’s breakdowns. One of the most hotly-debated topics in the creation of 52 was very simple: Who wrote what? The writers, and DC, have been very cagey about providing answers… but it turns out they were there all along.

So, I’ve been looking at Keith Giffen’s breakdowns on 52thecomic.com, and I noticed that different scenes have different font and numbering styles on the cues (like “13 BOOSTER:” as opposed to just “BOOSTER:” in a different font) in different scenes. So I took a look at it, and it seemed kind of obvious that the different writers use different cues.

Geoff Johns: Times New Roman, “1. CHARACTER”
Greg Rucka: Times New Roman, “1 CHARACTER”
Grant Morrison: Arial, “CHARACTER”
Mark Waid: Courier? (a typerwriteresque font), “1 CHARACTER”

This is what I came up with. The final tally:

You’ll have to visit Funnybook Babylon for the final tally, I’m afraid. I can’t ruin all their fun.

I guess this’ll fuel your “I knew Grant Morrison/Geoff Johns wrote all those parts I didn’t like!” arguments, huh?

Pardon the short post, but a Brothers is packing up boxes like mad. After I’m done, I’ll definitely have something interesting/nerdy/horrible for you, though.

Tangent: I just got hit with a summary of what’s been going on in New X-Men recently and it easily sounds like Marvel’s worst book. They went from nice, kid-friendly but still quality stories to all but three of the original team being killed, kids being tortured, and all this crap?

Plus, Prodigy is dead and I am not happy!