Slight interruption of service!
I just started back college, so I should probably, uh, focus for the first week of class before I start back goofing off. I’ll be back to posting regularly probably on Saturday, but until then, you’ll have to scope out some low-content/no-content from the David side of things. Gavok may have some good stuff for you soon, though.
Til then, have an image from Casanova #1.
You can find the list, plus covers, over at Newsarama.
My commentary on the interesting books lies after the jump, and I’ve included the solicit text for them, too!
Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s some trivia for you–
Apollo and Midnighter were not the first gay couple in comics.
That honor goes to Donner and Blitzen of the Shadow Cabinent, back from Milestone Comics. Nobody likes to talk about them much, though, huh?
For the past week, I’ve been on vacation in Phoenix (hey, it’s a nice place), which explains the lack of What If updates. Thankfully, hermanos is an update machine. I was lucky enough to find a comic shop, where I bought enough new stuff to keep me occupied. Green Lantern Corps ended with one of the most hilarious ownings in recent memory. Ultimate Fantastic Four included a jaw-dropping two-page splash that’s more than worthy of being a wallpaper.
52 Week 15, on the other hand… well, that just gave me a new reason to be annoyed at DC. Let’s not mince words: Booster Gold is dead. I don’t feel too bad about spoiling this, since DC already spoils the crap out of it with the issue’s cover. Booster, in an attempt to make himself look better than his mysterious rival Supernova, blew himself up from absorbing too much radiation and has been reduced to a skeleton in futuristic threads.
Hopefully, the writers of 52 won’t hold out on the aftermath for too long. For all we know, the next issue could be Black Adam dancing the Charleston for 20 pages, followed by a two-page bio of Mirror Master. Still, we know that Booster is gone. No matter the reaction by his peers and the public, it doesn’t change that he’s as dead as Ted.
But what of Supernova?
This isn’t quite DVD-style commentary, but Mike Grell talks a bit about Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. He talks about the origin of the story, some of his ideas on how to do the solo series, and his stance on the scene with Dinah.
A paragraph back I used the phrase “could have been different”. Let me say, for the record, I never would have allowed such a thing. Dinah is one of my all-time favorite characters and she deserves better, but, frankly, she wasn’t the star of the show. Her motivations were never in question. So there was no need for a transforming incident in her life except as it related to her relationship with Ollie. I did what any decent soap opera writer would do — I started with a perfectly happy couple and then royally screwed up their lives.
The whole subject of Dinah losing her power came much later from another writer, because my mandate in the entire Green Arrow series was to place Ollie and Dinah firmly in the real world, where super powers do not exist. Someone felt it necessary to explain what I simply chose to ignore and things sort of went to hell in a handbasket from there.
There’s a copy of Longbow Hunters at my local shop. It’s a 13 dollar first edition TPB, I believe. I kind of want to buy it, as it’s been a good while since I first read the series.
He says that he’d write GA again in a minute. To that I say, bring it on. This may be damning with faint praise, but give me anyone but Winick.
Hey guys, quick note before I pop off to work.
I’ve mentioned that I do games journalism. The most regular work of mine appears monthly in Hardcore Gamer Magazine. It’s available at your local video game store, bookstore, and possibly even newstand. If not, ask for it by name. We offer subscriptions for 25 bucks a year, but you can also download each issue for free in PDF format from Luv2game’s download section. Give it a looksee, it’s a great mag. I’m pretty proud of it, at the very least. The new issue should go live on the site probably later this week. It’s already out on newstands. It’s got Disgaea 2 on the cover and the top-shelf previews and reviews you expect from us.
The name of the mag may or may not be ironic.
I’m going to be redoing my sidebar sometime soon (tonight, depending on how paying work goes) and I’ll be adding a gang of blogs and links to the site. I’d host the mag here, but that’d blow my bandwidth.
Speaking of bandwidth… since November 05, we’ve seen almost 11,500 people come through these doors. We’re averaging between 115-135 people a day now, which certainly sounds respectable to me. It’s enough to give me a happy feeling, anyway. Traffic has spiked over the last couple months, too.
So, guys, seriously. Thanks for coming to the site and keep coming back. I’ll try to keep feeding you content.We’ve got an RSS feed linked off the sidebar and a separate feed for comments as well. There’s also Livejournal syndication. There’s nowhere to go but up, hey? We can make 4l one of the big blogs if we keep at it.
Also, I’m always open to debate, comments, or even chatting. My AIM is ethiopiates, my e-mail is this website’s url (less the www and net) @gmail.com and it’s linked top right… if you don’t want to comment on the site, drop me a line. I’m very approachable and nice to a fault. Did I say something stupid/smart/awesome? Tell me!
That’s my bit of self-promotion for the day. Read 4l, read my mag, and keep on coming back. My promised posts are still in the works, though I may hit you with shorter ones (yeah, ’cause I totally write short posts…) in between.
Peace!
My first Spidey books were Amazing 316 and 317, a two-parter that brought Venom back into Spidey’s life. My second Spidey books, though I got them all at around the same time, were parts two and three of the Assassin Nation Plot. I still have the (well-read) originals of all of them, but I love the fact that I have them in trade form now.
I also bought the X-Men: Fatal Attractions trade. That’s right. Art by Joe Quesada, Adam Kubert, Andy Kubert, a cover by Bill Sienkiewicz, and words by Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza? It is just like reliving my childhood!
Guys, seriously. I think I may have bad taste in comics! I need an intervention!
Anyway, here’s a page by Toddy Mac from the Assassin Nation Plot. It tripped me out as a kid and it trips me out to this day. Spidey in a suit with a mask? He beat Deadpool to it, baby!
What comics do you love?
New headers are up! I’m going to direct link them to save some time. If you made one of these, let me know! If you want to make one, just give me a 700×200 jpg of cool art with the word “4thletter!” somewhere on it. Make it cool, funny, whatever, but also pretty much worksafe, okay?
Man. I need to check and see my bandwidth usage just to be sure that I don’t go over.
This is from Big Ass Comics 01. This one is by Elfbot.
This is from a Madman comic, but I dunno which. Also by Elfbot.
Another by Elfbot, this time from Kill Your Boyfriend. Words by Grant Morrison, art by Philip Bond.
The rest of these are by me or Gavok as far as I know. A few of them have the fonts way too small, but oh well. The art is good. Enjoy!
Daughters of the Dragon Part 1
Daughters of the Dragon Part 2
Daughters of the Dragon Part 3
Daughters of the Dragon Part 4 (can you guess what I was reading when I was doing these new headers?)
99% sure that this is from a Justice League Unlimited Comic.
From the Waid/Kitson Legion of Super-Heroes comic.
Spaaaaace Ghooooost
Ultimate Extinction
Loveless, by Azzarello and Frusin, colors by Trish Mulvihill.
From an early issue of 52.
LoSH once again.
Brainy at work.
Ultimate Cap vs Ultimate Moondragon-clone.
This one isn’t new, but I love it anyway. Kara Zor-El laying down the law. More content later, kids!
I’m not dead!
I’ve basically been grinding for the last week on a game for work. Check out Games Radar this weekendish for my Dead Rising guide. I had one short short deadline, so I went Quick ‘n’ Dirty with it. It’ll get you through the game and show you the highlights. Getting 100% is up to you.
Now that I’ve got this bear off my back (though I have another arriving in the mail later today! hooray for getting paid to play games!) I can get back to my labor of love: comics!
What happened while I was busy? Looks like Marvel let Civil War slip hard, pushing the ending back to Feb 07 at the earliest. Mark Millar says it’s McNiven’s fault and that he only had a few weeks lead time.
“So, what?” say the fans. “Why didn’t you launch later?”
Tom Brevoort gives an interview about it and says this interesting piece:
The whole infrastructure of comic book retailing is changing, and I think what you’re starting to see is the beginning of the movement away from a monthly magazine publishing model over to something more akin to a book publishing model. This is very distressing to a lot of people who’ve grown up with the monthly model as a bedrock concept. But ever since we retreated almost wholly to the Direct Market in terms of the basic comic book product, there’s no compelling reason for the monthly release schedule outside of the need for retailers to have a predictable cash-flow that allows them to keep their doors open.
Insult or nugget of truth? Probably both! I’d have no problem with Marvel switching to trades only, with multiple teams releasing multiple books staggered so that you get a new 128-144 page story every couple of months. It’d effectively kill megacrossovers, but you could still do event comics.
Make the comics industry behave like a real publishing industry and we’ll be on better ground.
And what’s this? Mark Bagley is leaving Ultimate Spider-Man with #110? Bags is one of the top three Spidey artists, easy, so I’m sad to see him go. USM has always been a good looking book and he’s leaving behind some huge shoes to fill.
I’ve got two drafts in the works. First is an examination of Superboy #91 and the second is my list of Top 5 Black Women, to go along with my list of Top 5 Black Men. Also on the docket is my love of Jim Lee and the X-Men. Gavok’s off for a week, so I need to throw 4l on my back and keep up regular updates! His What If countdown, which you should be reading if you aren’t, will return when he does.
However, I recently got the final volume of Ed Brubaker’s Catwoman. It’s the last book to feature Cameron Stewart on art and it’s called Catwoman: Wild Ride. Give it a look, if only because it features this classic scene from Catwoman 22 reproduced below (and without permission, I’m sorry!) with Robert Mitchum Slam Bradley. I tell you what, man, it’s the cigarette throwing what does it. Slam has style. If you like this scene, do yourself a favor and check out the rest of the series. It’s beyond excellent.
In the meantime, check out Slam going toe-to-toe with Batman and I’ll probably see you tomorrow once I get some sleep!
(There’s a couple guys out there who’ve offered me guest articles… hop to it! I’d be glad to run them. Hoatzin/Rad, I’m calling you out, man. We need some Scrooge McDuck up in here! If anyone else wants to talk, the e-mail is at the top right!)
I think I’m out of intro fodder. Let’s just get to the meat, then.
85) WHAT IF THE VISION HAD DESTROYED THE AVENGERS?
Issue: Volume 2, #5
Writer: Jim Valentino
Artist: Jim Valentino
Spider-Man death: No
Background: When the Avengers first met Wonder Man, he was secretly dying of a rare radiation disease. Baron Zemo offered to cure him if he helped destroy the Avengers. Appearing as a friend, Wonder Man led the team into a trap. Soon he had a change of heart and sacrificed himself to save Thor. Giant Man recorded Wonder Man’s brain patterns in hopes that he could live on. He did, later on, in the form of the Vision. While an android, Vision’s personality was based on that of Wonder Man’s. Some time later, Wonder Man did return from the dead, but that’s beside the point. What if Wonder Man had his change of heart before luring the Avengers into a trap?
Wonder Man tells the Avengers that he’s supposed to trick them, but can’t due to how they’ve treated him with such dignity. Giant Man talks with Reed Richards about a possible cure for Wonder Man’s condition as Wonder Man fights alongside the Avengers. After the brawl with Zemo’s forces is over, Giant Man gives him the cure and saves his life. Wonder Man is granted membership into the Avengers.
