Quick hits!

–Shadow of the DAMNED trailer is heat rocks. Suda51 is dope, Shinji Mikami is pretty straight, and Akira Yamaoka is cool, so I’m basically on-board day one, and I don’t even really care about video games any more.

Video Games | Shadows of the Damned | TGS 10: Debut Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

-Did anybody else look at that Shadowland: Blood on the Streets book the other week? I flipped through it, got to like page four and was like “nope.” Why?

Yeah, naw, I’m good man. You go on and take that somewhere else.

–Shadowland: Daughters of the Dragon is similarly wack. Look at the soft batch of an action scene in this preview. Everything about it is a turn-off–the way they just hop off the motorcycles, the stiff art, the absurd fight in a truck that is also a shapechanging warehouse, whatever whatever. Gross.

-I’ve been paying more and more attention to fight choreo in comics. It’s such a basic thing, and I’m growing increasingly certain that getting it wrong is absolutely ridiculous. It’s one-two-three-four–first this, then this, then this, and then this. A lot of superhero artists tend to do it the other way, pinup-pinup-pose-pinup, instead, and it looks like crap every time. It’s sequential art, right? Then it follows that the images we see should be in sequence, rather than a loose collection of images where people are maybe kinda sorta fighting/dancing. This is like drawing cross-eyed people or one leg noticeably longer than the other. C’mon, son. Do better.

-That new John Legend & The Roots? Wake Up!? It’s a cover album and it’s fantastic. That eleven minute version of “I Can’t Write Left Handed”, one of my favorite Vietnam songs, goes hard. Legend divas it up some, but I’m digging it. It’s basically a tribute to the ’70s, and Legend does really well.

-Grant Morrison wrote the superhero comic Bible when he wrote Flex Mentallo. I can’t even imagine why someone wouldn’t like it or what it says about cape comics and superheroes themselves.

-My launch PS2 still works and Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is still basically the illest game on the system. I’m playing it again after a break of a year and some change. I’m in Rise’s striptease dungeon, but I think that Kanji’s gay bath house takes the prize for greatest stage of all time.

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Stuff I Read, Stuff You Should Buy
-I got a big box of books from Vertical, and I’ve made it through 7 Billion Needles (review coming here soon), and Chi’s Sweet Home 1, 2, and 3. I’m currently reading The Crimson Labyrinth and I finished Parasite Eve late last week. They’re all good to great, which is astounding. I know I read a lot of Viz, and for good reason, but Vertical, Inc is pumping out some great stuff while nobody’s looking. Parasite Eve was deeply weird and I never thought I’d say this, but I definitely read a scene where mitochondria masturbated.

–Empowered 6, huh? How good was that book? Sistah Spooky is killing me over here.

-Guess what’s on sale? Scott Pilgrim is on sale! The entire series! For fire sale prices! Links: Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 2: Scott Pilgrim Versus The World (v. 2), Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 3: Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (v. 3), Scott Pilgrim, Vol 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim Volume 5: Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe, Scott Pilgrim Volume 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour

-Comics Alliance: we beat up on a crappy interview from The Atlantic, I review Empowered, Wildstorm is dead, and here’s some Marvel comics you should read.

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I read your comic, now I break weed up on it
“The Immortal” David Brothers, brother!: This week, there’s nathan, but penetra-er, I’ve got no comics this week, but I might buy Matt Fraction and Pasqual Ferry’s Thor because John Workman lettered it.
Miss Esthlizabeth: I tried to find a title that Esther’d never read, like maybe Prison Pit or Preacher, but eh… effort.
“Macho Man” Gavin Jasper: Green Lantern Corps, Justice League Generation Lost, Avengers Academy 04, Avengers 05, Deadpool Team-Up 889, Hit-Monkey 03, Hulk 25, Secret Avengers 05, Darkwing Duck 04

Anything worth reading this week?

With a swift biweekly run, last week saw the ending of the miniseries Marvel Universe vs. the Punisher by writer Jonathan Maberry and veteran Punisher artist Goran Parlov. I was a bit wary on this mini when it came out, since Maberry’s Doomwar just wrapped up and I didn’t enjoy it like I hoped I would. I gave the first issue a try and it certainly paid off. I’ve seen multiple people agree with my sentiment: this comic is surprisingly pretty good!

The comic appears to be based on Mark Millar’s intentions for the original Marvel Zombies miniseries. The idea being that Frank Castle is the last man alive and plays the I Am Legend role by hunting down superhero zombies and trying to survive day-to-day. Robert Kirkman decided to go a similar route, only using Hawkeye, until he realized that it had already been established that Hawkeye was a zombie too. Then he went with the Black Panther/Silver Surfer plotline and the rest is history.

So what is it about this second attempt at this idea that makes it so enjoyable to me? Well, there are four elements. This is ignoring the obvious one of “a Mark Millar idea that isn’t actually written by Mark Millar.”

The series takes three existing Marvel stories with promising concepts, improves them separately and mixes them together. The first one is obvious in Marvel Zombies, where the infected Marvel superheroes and villains go tear apart and feed on the populace. The second is Punisher: The End, where Frank kills what’s left of the post-apocalypse. Then there’s Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe. I’ll get to the former two in the other elements.

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miscellany
-You know what’s weird? I’m actually kinda curious about X-23 this week. I like Marjorie Liu, so, y’know, maybe? But four bucks… ehhhh.

–Prison Pit: Book Two is this week. It opens with a dude pooping. The cover is blood-soaked. There’s a strap-on at some point in the book. I’m new to Johnny Ryan, but this book is repulsive and attractive and awful and fascinating all at once. It’s vile, man, and I’m ready to read some more.

-This week in Brightest Day, we find out what the deal is with Aqualad. I kind of feel like everyone who popped up with “Oh, so the black character can’t swim, huh? Way to be racist, DC Comics!” is feeling pretty dumb right about now, yeah? The presence of a stereotype is not necessarily an indicator of racism or stereotyping. It’s cool to throw a jaundiced eye at cape comics, but c’mon. Context and understanding is just as important as playing watchdog. I mean, his name is Aqualad, he lives in one of the driest places in the country, and has a mysterious past. C’mon, son. Y’all got to do better, this is basic.

-I bought Black Milk’s Album Of The Year and Rah Digga’s Classic today. Digga is one of my favorite rappers (Dirty Harriet is dope, miss me if you disagree) and This Ain’t No Lil Kid Rap is dope. The remix with Redman is hard, too. Black Milk is a dope producer out of Detroit, and his last joint was heat rocks, so Album of the Year was definitely getting purchased.

-The cover to Classic instantly shot up to my top five favorite album covers, too. It’s on par with Illmatic.

-I love how iTunes likes to just wipe my iPod without even asking me. I had it on manually manage for a couple weeks (which sucks) and flicked it back over to auto since iTunes 10 is New and Improved. Mistake, ’cause the first thing the all-new iTunes did was wipe my whole iPod right before I left for work. Thanks for that.

–Machete was dope.

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elsewhere
–I talk about how much of a piece of crap OMIT was and some crazies come calling, post a sneak preview of Darwyn Cooke’s The Outfit, and talk about Butch Guice paying homage to Kirby and Steranko in Captain America.

-Over Moviefone way, I talk Marvel and Pixar.
comics are for children
Black King David: Amazing Spider-Man 643, Hellblazer 271, Joe the Barbarian 7, New Mutants 17, Thunderbolts 148
Esther Waller: Tiny Titans 32, Birds of Prey 5
White King Gavin: Azrael 12, Joe The Barbarian 7, Astonishing Spider-Man Wolverine 3, Avengers And The Infinity Gauntlet 2, Deadpool 27, Incredible Hulks 613, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher 4, Shadowland Power Man 2, Steve Rogers Super-Soldier 3, Thunderbolts 148

(Gavok note: On the heels of Marvel announcing What If #200, it’s fitting to take on the topic of alternate reality stories. Truth be told, the idea of doing an Elseworlds list much like how I did one with What If has been a looming menace hanging over my head and for years I’ve been afraid of forcing the other shoe to drop. Thankfully, Fletcher “Syrg” Arnett was inspired enough to fight the dragon in my stead and has offered to do a series of guest articles on the subject. You might remember Syrg from his fantastic take on the comic disaster Marville last year. If you don’t, go read it anyway. He’s good people. I plan to throw my hat into his series here at least twice before he’s finished, since there are a couple Elseworlds that I feel the need to talk about. This includes one that I’ve considered to be the worst comic I’ve ever read that I’ve been putting off writing on for years. But enough about me. It’s Syrg’s show. Enjoy.)

Marvel has their What If…?s, and DC has their own brand of “But what happens if we take X and change Y?” tales, called, depending on when you ask, Elseworlds/”Tales of the Multiverse”. (Juuuuust kidding. I don’t think anyone aside from Dan DiDio has ever used that last one seriously.)

The thing is, though, Marvel’s usually (I added the qualifier for a reason, Gavok, I know about that Timequake crap) come from a formula of “take big event/origin of character, change outcome slightly, go from there”. DC runs a little looser with the format, like that one where Bruce Wayne is an amnesiac immortal and Alfred is actually Merlin. Or the time the Justice League had to mount an assault on the Planetary Organization to break their shadowy hold over the planet. Maybe you know the one where Lex Luthor, singer-turned-record executive, sold his media empire to Darkseid?

Elseworlds are almost always entertaining, intentionally or not, because before 2010 and a run of titles like Rise of Arsenal and that other trainwreck I forget the name of*, you never thought you’d be buying a DC book where Superman got turned into a gender-swapped nazi centaur. (We’ll get to that one. Later.) Point is, the fact that so many of these are out of print and forgotten is a damn shame, and so just like Gavok running through all the What If…?s in the world, I’ll hit every damn Elseworld I can get my hands on, and probably a few other eccentric DC projects that didn’t earn that banner, usually because they were written too early or too late.

There’s going to be a lot less order to this than Gavok’s project. For one thing, I don’t think there’s any way to come up with a coherent set of criteria/checklist to hit for all of these, and I’m unsure as to what the “Peter Parker Dies” of Elseworlds is. Probably “Martian Manhunter Out of Fucking Nowhere”, that dude shows up a lot in the otherwise-grounded stories (and it’s usually to inspire Superman to go use his goddamn powers, that guy takes pacifism way too seriously in these).

Also: no order, no rankings. Some of these are books I haven’t even looked through since I picked them up, and this project is good motivation to finish looking at the beaten-down copies of a couple. There’s no way I’ll be able to come up with a full scale to judge them on and pick a favorite. (Even if I did, people would bitch at me forever because technically, Kingdom Come is an Elseworld, and lord knows the kvetching if I put that below something like Speeding Bullets.) In fact, let’s just say it: I’m skipping a lot of the big ones. Kingdom Come/The Kingdom, Red Son, Destiny (since Gavok covered it a while back), Dark Knight Returns/Strikes Back. (I want to skip True Brit because it’s rather awful, but I suppose I’ll play canary in the coalmine for people who might go “John Cleese? Sold!”) I leave myself wiggle room on this as I go, but rest assured I’ll give you more than those and then some in extras by the time we’re done.

This is getting to be a bit text heavy. Let’s dive into the first book, Elseworlds: Superman’s Metropolis.

Superman’s Metropolis is an interesting book for a variety of reasons. It’s why I started off with it. But first, let’s look at the stats:

Superman’s Metropolis
Focuses on: Superman (for now)
Self-contained/Multiple books: Multiple (trilogy)
Published in: 1996
Central premise: Superman and cast as placed into Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
Martian Manhunter Out of Fucking Nowhere? No

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So many times, when I read Secret Six, I wonder why on earth I’m reading that kind of book.  This is not a slam of Secret Six, which has a devoted following and has been a consistently good book.  It’s just that, from the start, it’s been the kind of book that just isn’t for me.  It’s got torture, murder, despair, tragedy, and a bunch of people being mean to each other for kicks.  Every single story arc has the Six turning on each other in some way or another.  It never, ever fails.  I should not be liking it.

And yet I do.  Part of it is the creative stories and the constant quips, courtesy of Gail Simone.  The book is also loaded with multi-dimensional, smart, fun, and different female characters.  Pretty much all of them manage the difficult trick, in fiction, of being female but acting human.  No dumb blondes, no mindless seductresses, no personality-less token tough girls, just a bunch of nutty characters, just like the men.

Most of all, though, I like Secret Six because it’s a team book in which the team very clearly cares about each other.  And I like it because it’s not a generic ‘caring’ the way most team books do it.  The Six don’t get along, they don’t understand each other, and they don’t understand reality outside of their insane world.  They do, however, want to make each other happy, and when they try, it leads to wonderful moments.  One of those moments is in Secret Six #25. 

Black Alice is a teenage girl who can steal anyone’s powers by looking into their eyes.  One day she used her powers on her father.  Shortly afterwards, her father got cancer.  She joins the Six to make money in order to treat him, even though she’s clearly out of her depth.

Floyd Lawton is Deadshot, a member of the Six, and a character who was obviously created back when Floyd was a common name.  He, along with the rest of the Six, hears about this in one of the issues.  Not much is made of this.  In issue #25, he goes to Alice’s father’s doctor, and threatens him with a gun until the man tells him all about the case.  When the doctor confirms that Alice was probably the cause of her father’s cancer, Floyd picks up the phone and tells the doctor that he will call Alice and tell her that he knows what caused the cancer and it definitely wasn’t her.  He will also tell her that everything is going to be okay.

There is at least on thing practically wrong with this plan.  Morally, there are many things wrong with it, depending on your particular moral compass.  The point, though, is that Deadshot sees the girl suffering, decides to help, and does it in a crazy way.  David and I have talked before about really good relationships between people who antagonize each other but also love each other – Cassandra and David Cain would be one of those.  The unimaginative writer writes them as at each other’s throats until such time as one of them is about to do something too brutal, at which point they suddenly stop because they care so much about each other.  Secret Six does it right.  It shows a bunch of relationships in which people who are imperfect, trying to help each other in imperfect ways.  It gives you both a warm feeling inside and a better understanding and appreciation for the characters.  I really wish there was more of it, but I love what I’ve got.

I picked up Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge yesterweek. It’s Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins following up on the run that got me into the Flash.

Here’s something I liked from it:

Bastard cape comics are weird. On the one hand, you can watch Captain Cold in cartoons on TV. On the other, he murders people as needed. There’s such a weird disconnect there, but I think I’m done trying to reconcile it. Who cares anymore, right? Love it or leave it alone.

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Amazon stuff: Not much this week. I messed around and ordered Gotham Central one and two on a whim. Went back an hour later to cancel them since I already have the trades and whoops too late, son. I ordered them because I don’t have all of the trades, so I figured the HCs would be a good pickup. Then I realized that I could just buy the trades I’m missing, which is a functional, if less handsome, solution, but c’est la guerre. The end result is that my mom’s getting more books by Greg Rucka free of charge. She likes Queen & Country, and she likes mystery/cop novels, so maybe these will float her boat. (I should start charging her for all the books I give up, this is just absurd.) But yeah: uncharacteristically light Amazon week for me.

Me: A bit of talky-talk on DC Comics, a preview of the new Charlie Huston/Shawn Martinbrough Punisher joint, and an exclusive (clue clue clue) ten-page preview of the next volume of Adam Warren’s Empowered. I’ve read it already, and I need it to come out and all of you to buy it, please. I want to talk about it with somebody. It’s great. The comments section on that post is great, too, Empowered fans rule. If your shop doesn’t carry it or you forgot to order it, check Amazon.

Not me: Kalinara reacts to something I wrote with some points I can’t really deny, Cheryl Lynn talks out her buying habits (I like seeing people talk about why they buy what they buy/don’t buy, have you noticed?), and Tucker Stone delivers the reviewing equivalent of a blunt laced with bubble kush and PCP. Go on. Get wet.

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@hermanos: Amazing Spider-Man 641, Amazing Spider-Man 642, Punisher Max: Hot Rods of Death 1, Weird War Tales
@estherschmester: Definitely: Batgirl 14 Maybe: Batman #703, Batman and Robin 14, Doc Savage 6, Red Robin 16
@Gavin4l: Batman And Robin 14, Booster Gold 36, Green Lantern 57, Justice League Generation Lost 9, Welcome To Tranquility One Foot In The Grave 3, Daken Dark Wolverine 1, Deadpool Corps 6, New Avengers 4, Ultimate Comics Avengers 3 2, Irredeemable 17

Anybody reading Shadowland? You want to do me a favor and quit that? You’re only hurting yourself.

WWE Heroes is not a good comic book. It really isn’t. It’s stupid, silly, incompetent and can’t be described with a straight face.

Yet I find myself buying it every month and it’s always the very first comic that I read. Probably because of those exact reasons. It’s enjoyably ridiculous and unlike most bad comics, I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth without being at the expense of another comic or the characters within. It’s ultimately a harmless series. It isn’t going to ruin characters for anyone or mess with continuity. It isn’t like that comic where the paragon of virtue is walking across the country and acting like a total douchebag to everyone he passes. It isn’t killing a bunch of beloved characters and negatively screwing with so many status quos for the sake of one writer’s hackneyed vision. It’s a wrestling comic and wrestling comics are inherently dumb. I say this as both a fan of comics and wrestling. When you mix the two together, you’re asking for trouble.

Not that it’s impossible to write a good comic with a wrestling license. The issue of World Championship Wrestling where Sting gave a kid the spirit to fight cancer was overall pretty decent, as was Dwayne McDuffie’s Ultimate Warrior story in WWF Battlemania. It’s just that if you’re saddled with a project like this, you have to know your chances of success and go to town. Writer Keith Champagne is no dummy. The guy has written some fine stuff over the years, such as Ghostbusters: The Other Side and his short run on Green Lantern Corps. His miniseries Countdown: Arena was undoubtedly terrible, but you’d be hard pressed to blame it on him when DC editorial set him up to fail. When given the WWE license, the guy obviously decided to have fun with it and be as outlandish as possible. Who can really blame him?

So far there are six issues out, getting us through the first arc. The art is by Andy Smith, a longtime veteran of the comics game. This creative team has worked together several times before, including an issue of DC’s World War III miniseries. There must be some kind of WCW joke I can make in there… eh, fuck it. Oh, they also collaborated on Dean Koontz’s Nevermore. There must be some kind of Raven joke I can make in there… eh, fuck that too. Hey, they also teamed up to do the miniseries Armor X! There must be some kind of… uh… shit, I got nothing. Moving on.

Before I get to the first issue, I should mention issue #0. #0 was released as a free iPhone app and my memory of it is fuzzy due to reading it off my buddy’s iPhone a long while ago. Here’s a promotional video that shows the first few panels.

WILL BIG SHOW STRETCH? WHY IS JERICHO WEARING BROKEN CHAINS ON HIS TIGHTS? IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO DO A HEEL VS. HEEL MATCH AT A “TRIBUTE FOR THE TROOPS” SHOW? Download the app and find out!

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–Links! There’s this thing going on that’s kind of a big deal I guess, have you read it? Of course you have. I have more thoughts, specifically on the point of legacy heroes, but I am at work, starving, and trying to bang this post out in ten minutes so I can go and grab some lunch. Hopefully my fellow 4liens aren’t buying several dozen comic books for me to format…

-Comics Alliance: I wrote some stuff. Stuff about Rafael Grampa being dope, One Piece selling 20 milli, Matt Bors going to Afghanistan, the death of Satoshi Kon, Deviant Art beefing with inkers, what it’s like in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the manga industry (slight exaggeration), rappercomics, the ten best Marvel books for November, and influential manga pioneer Moto Hagio. I also talked a little about how the comics industry just needs to get it over with and cheat on retailers with digital comics already. There’s nothing wrong with creeping, and really, digital comics are all about it. Just, y’know, go back behind the bleachers or into the janitor’s closet or something.

–Reading: A lot. I’m getting ready to start banging out reviews of all the books I’ve been reading, so look forward to that. Maybe I’ll group that under a series of posts or something, I dunno. Anyway, I haven’t hit a comic shop since the last time I did one of these, so I barely even know what’s new.

-The Only Amazon I Care About Is .com: I had to order another set of the best pair of headphones I’ve ever used because I messed around and lost an earbud on my bike ride home yesterday and didn’t realize it until I’d gotten home, done some laundry, and then went to plug in my iPod. I read Takehiko Inoue’s Real 7, Kenichi Sonoda’s Gunsmith Cats Revised Edition, Volume 1 over the past couple weeks (among others) and the UPS guy just brought Peyo’s The Smurfs #1: The Purple Smurfs over. I’m pretty excited about The Purple Smurfs, even if they should be black and crass racism turned them purple because what a smurf can’t be black i’ll smurf you up you smurfing–

–Buy Stuff To Keep Us In Hookers and Coke: Pardon my capitalism, and also tell me if this stuff bugs you, but Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid (one of the top three albums this year, How I Got Over and Sir Lucious Left Foot…The Son Of Chico Dusty are the other two), UGK’s final record UGK 4 Life, Freddie Gibbs’s Str8 Killa EP, and The Gorillaz’s Demon Days are five bucks this month on AmazonMP3.

Janelle you should know by now, but she’s exactly the kind of Black Future… what, icon? Person? Personality? That I pimped here back in February. Her album is smooth as silk, and I absolutely love the way it’s been mixed. UGK 4 Life is the final UGK album, and I dunno if you’re from the south or not, but UGK is an institution. It can be pretty racist/sexist/violent/etc, but I mean… I grew up on these guys. Gangsta Gibbs is a lot like UGK in a way, but he’s from Gary, Indiana, and one of the few emcees I’ve ever heard that’s clearly profoundly influenced by Tupac without being a wack copycat. But yeah, he can be pretty questionable in terms of content, too. I’m still praying that him and Pill drop an EP stat, though. That would be the gangsterest thing since Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to JFK. (“Girl, my wife is right here…”)

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David Yesterday: King City 11, Unknown Soldier number whatever it was last week
Estherella: Definitely: Secret Six #25, Maybe: Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #2, Batman Confidential #48 Almost no chance, but perhaps: Red Hood: The Lost Days #4
Super Vok (the best one of the three!): Secret Six #25, Deadpool Pulp, Franken-Castle, Gorilla Man, Hawkeye & Mockingbird, Incredible Hulks, MU vs. Punisher, Taskmaster, Young Allies, Incorruptible, WWE Heroes

Why can’t I work with comics snobs like me who secretly hate all comics? This took forever. And if King City 11 didn’t actually ship this week I am going to cut my own throat and pull my head off on live tv. :negativeman:

Black people! Comics! It’s been a while, but I’m back for my crown.

There’s tendency in comics to write pretty generic black guys. You occasionally get the Samuel L Jackson Fight the Power Angry Black Fella types, but more often than not, you’re looking at a slightly watered down version of that same type. Sanitized Shaft. Diet Dolemite. Toothless Tommy Gibbs. Put Bishop (pre-mega murder spree), most depictions of John Stewart, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Mr. Terrific, and Steel in a room together. First, note their hair. Second, note their personalities. They’re all kind of really moral, upstanding human beings… but with an edge. Maybe they used to be mad at the man. Maybe they sometimes have flashy nods to whatever standard of blackness they were born into. Who knows, who cares, but a bunch of black dudes with basically the same moral compass is boring.

(Fully half of black women in cape comix, excepting Storm who has been kept in safety away from all things black up until recently, tend to pop into the snakecharming neck, nuh uh I know that chick didn’t just do what I just saw her do, tell me I didn’t just see that, super ghitto around the way girl stereotype a little too easily. The other half of black women in comics is Vixen, who is like Animal Man, but stuck in boring stories.)

There are no rules for writing black people in comics, and anyone who’d tell you otherwise is someone not worth listening to. In my family alone is a vast range of characters, some less than positive and some exemplary. Everything counts, everything is true. The thing is, sometimes people trip into pitfalls when writing black people, and black guys in particular. You could easily make a list of mis-steps.

One is slipping in slang. Slang is an intensely regional thing with several outside factors. I don’t talk like people from New York talk, but we do share some slang because of shared history or culture. Have you ever seen somebody write “crunked?” I can almost guarantee that person isn’t from the south, because “crunk” is its own past tense. You didn’t get crunked last night, you got crunk. Slang shifts and warps depending on where you are. You wouldn’t catch me dead saying “hella,” but I can’t quite scrub “might could” or “one more ‘gin” from my vocabulary. You seriously can’t just urbandictionary this stuff and expect to get it right.

Another way is by showing how ROUGH and TOUGH these guys are by throwing in some of that old “urban flavor.” Since they were raised on the streets they’re a little harder than some milquetoast whiteboy like Spider-Man! So they’ll slang it up, call somebody a @#$&()&, and then fist bump another guy right before hitting a villain with a yo mama joke or something. And sure, there’s that thing black people do where they nod at each other on the street (don’t front like you haven’t seen it and/or don’t do it on occasion) which makes our white friends ask “Do you know that guy?” in a hushed whisper. I can see how that’d cultivate this crazy idea that there’s a quiet coalition of people with a thug just waiting to jump out of their skin. But (wait for it) not everybody is from the cold, hard streets. Some folks are from the suburbs. Some folks are country.

The biggest offender in my mind, though, is something that probably got widespread appeal back during the blaxploitation era, resurrected by Snoopy Doggy Dogg, and then it caught fire and died when Destiny’s Child dropped a single. I’m sure you know it–some variant of a guy going “SAY MY NAME!” It’s raw dog alpha male braggadocio, a way of humiliating someone by forcing them to acknowledge the fact that you’re better than them. If you’ve ever played Madden NFL 2004 and broke out an eighty yard run to TD off a ridiculous quarterback sneak with Michael Vick, you know exactly what I’m talking about because you’ve done it yourself (I know I’m guilty).

It’s corny, it’s stupid, it’s cliche, and people do it, but I don’t necessarily want to read about it. It’s shorthand for Cool Black Guy, which really just means Black Guy Who Threatens People Other Than Me And Maybe My Friends, and that’s offensive, Mr. Charlie.

But.

Thunderbolts 147. Jeff Parker, Kev Walker, Frank Martin. Here’s two pages and the two spreads that follow them.

And well… they did my least favorite thing and they pulled it off. It’s not forced, it’s not awkward, and it’s honestly the most flavor Cage has had since the Azzarello/Corben CAGE mini from almost ten years ago. The setting, the timing, the violence, all of this is dead on. It’s perfect, it’s believable, and it’s fantastic. It’s not just “Hey, by the way, this guy is black, remember?” It’s a show of authority, it’s a big dog showing his charges exactly who the alpha male is around here.

I like Cage, but I haven’t like liked him in ages. He’s been pretty bland and neutered under Bendis’s run. It’s not that I want the old Cage, the Kurt Busiek/Jo Duffy Cage back, but I kind of do. This thing that Parker and Walker are doing here, though, is the best of both worlds without ignoring either of them.

Every story is true. But, if you’re going to tell some of them… at least put in the work and get it right, like these guys did.

All right? Peace.

Stuff What I Wrote: SLG needs legal help, Deathlok demolishes, and BPRD brings Hell to Earth.

Music What I Bought:
Curren$y – Pilot Talk: I like Spitta, but dude seriously needs to start switching up his flow and subject matter some. I like weed, slow flows, and other people’s (pause) as much as the next dude, but an album full of it was unexpectedly draining. Curren$y varies from into it to lethargic from song to song, and sometimes the production vastly outshines him. This one isn’t bad, but I’m not sure if I’ll still be spinning it in a couple weeks. I think what it is is that I don’t like it as much as How Fly, his mixtape with Wiz Khalifa. Still, the production is dope, the guest spots are ill… this album is straight. Video: King Kong.

Kassin+2 – Futurismo: I’m fully unqualified to actually discuss this album in terms of technique or artistic merit, but The +2s are dope and make this kind of really funky, relaxed, hype, dance music. That doesn’t make any sense, but listen to “Ponto Final” and a few other cuts. You can sit around reading to this stuff, or shake it like a salt shaker. Kassin+2 also did the music for Michiko e Hatchin, one of the dopest shows out that has yet to actually get licensed for release.

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach: I bought this one on Graeme‘s recommendation and was left pretty pleased. I liked the Gorillaz in high school (though apparently the song goes “I ain’t happy,” not “Iiii’m happy”) and this kicked off this whole thing where I’m spending all of my time listening to the Gorillaz and figuring out what I like about it. Right now, it’s “I like the range and versatility.” Later, it may be something else. I’ll tell you what, though. I’m really interested in theatricality and gimmicks and narrative, and Gorillaz are all of that rolled up into one. Video: Stylo (with Mos Def and Bobby Womack [!!!!])

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack): Do you know how often I buy movie or tv show soundtracks? Almost never, that’s how often. I liked the music in the movie enough to grab the soundtrack, though, and I left pretty dang pleased. I hadn’t heard Metric before, but I like the way that sounds. The in-movie stuff, the Sex Bob-omb songs? Those sound great, too. “Garbage Truck” is fantastic. I could do without the chiptunes song, tho. Bleah. Black Sheep (featurette)

Stuff What I Been Reading: Shade (finally started book 3 after a few false starts), other stuff

Stuff What We Gonna Buy:
David Days: Amazing Spider-Man 640, Atlas 4, Hellblazer 270, King City 11, New Mutants 16, Thunderbolts 147
Esther Planet We Reach is Dead: Tiny Titans 31, Streets of Gotham 15, Power Girl 15
Don’t Gavin Lost In Heaven: Authority The Lost Year 12, Azrael 11, Green Lantern Corps 51, Age Of Heroes 4, Atlas 4, Avengers Academy 3, Avengers And The Infinity Gauntlet 1, Deadpool Corps 5, Deadpool 26, Marvel Universe vs The Punisher 2, New Avengers 3, Secret Avengers 4, Shadowland Power Man 1, Thunderbolts 147, Darkwing Duck The Duck Knight Returns 3

Stuff What Is A Drag:
This OMIT story in Amazing Spidey. Extremely pretty, but extremely who cares. Should’ve just kept on going with the status quo instead of explaining something boring.