Huh huh. Week 69.

Very DC-centric week this time around, mainly because Was Taters contributed more panels than even me. Not that she’s only into the DC stuff. For instance, she also reads Thor: The Mighty Avenger and that’s Marve–DAMN IT, that’s canceled, isn’t it. Anyway, thanks to her as well as David Brothers and the man known only as luis.

I’m certainly going to need the help of any interested readers for next week because I have an entire three comics I plan on picking up (Green Lantern Corps, Avengers Academy and Deadpool MAX). So if there’s something you’ve been reading that you want represented, by all means. Now on with the chlorophyll.

Batgirl #17
Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez

Batman and Robin #19
Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel

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Welcome back to another week of panels. Again, I’m joined by my usual panel of panel panelists in David Brothers, Was Taters and Space Jawa. Pretty full week this time around so let’s get to it.

Azrael #15
David Hine and Cliff Richards

Batman, Inc. #2
Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette

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-It’s Christmastime! So what better things do we have to talk about beyond:
-Superheroes!
-and!
-Religion!
-We dig into adherents.com for a free-ranging conversation about superheroes, religion, realism, yadda yadda.
-But first, Gavin got Esther a present.
-Later, we mention this cover:

-Shortly after that, I mix up Naif al-Sheikh, the awesome no-nonsense political dude from Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s excellent Justice League Elite and Talib Beni Khalid from Greg Rucka’s pretty good Checkmate.
-I remember wondering why Rucka didn’t just use al-Sheik when Checkmate started, but I guess they ended up being pretty distinct characters.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

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This week I’m joined by Was Taters and Luis. Luis insists on sharing a panel of Amazing Spider-Man, which he most certainly hated.

As for that Avengers Academy panel, I can assure you that that is not Metamorpho.

Amazing Spider-Man #650
Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos and Neil Edwards

Avengers Academy #7
Christos Gage and Tom Raney

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-This is the best cold open ever.
-We start with a summary of Jean-Paul Sarte’s No Exit to kick things off.
-We argue over the ethics and logistics of Johnny Cash’s “I Shot A Man In Reno.”
-It gets surprisingly complex.
-Then we get to the point!
-This week’s show is about superheroes, settings, and the way they fit together.
-Sometimes the setting is a help to the hero, sometimes it’s a hindrance.
-Esther sums it up as “Let the hero fit the setting.”
-What heroes work well in certain genres?
-What heroes don’t work well in other genres?
-True story: a couple times during this podcast, my sink made noises like the blog was coming out of it.
-This made both of us go :O and turn our heads toward my kitchen.
-There was nothing in the sink, though, which I actually found more troubling than the noise itself.
-Regardless, I edited most of that stuff out, but maybe if you listen closely, you’ll get lucky.
-Maybe it’s due to the Ghostbusters II-esque bubbling, you can consider this the revenge of the Digressioncast.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

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We got a lot of good panels from me and David and Was Taters and Space Jawa. Shockingly, not one of us included a single panel from Shadowland/Daredevil. That’s too bad.

Great week for me, though. For one, there’s more WWE Heroes insanity. Taskmaster has concluded, finalizing that it’s a depressingly great miniseries. Then there’s a mundane What If issue featuring an amazing backup story that I’ve included for its own panel. Even still, there are three more parts to it!

Oh, and Taters was late in reading last week’s pile, so there’s a Thor: The Mighty Avenger in there.

Action Comics Annual #13
Paul Cornell, Marco Rudy and Ed Benes

Ant-Man & Wasp #2
Tim Seeley

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-It’s been a long time, we shouldn’t have left you
-Without a Batman-focused, digression filled Fourcast! to step to
-Grant Morrison’s big Batman arc is done! The second phase of it, anyway.
-Good a time as any to catch up on the franchise and see where we’re at.
-Recorded this one the weekend before Batman Inc dropped, if you were wondering.
-You know the drill. Put it on your iPod and listen.
-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music.
-See you, space cowboy!

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Why, hello there! Feels nice to be doing a post that for once isn’t about guys in tights fake fighting. Wait, shit.

David Brothers and regular contributor Was Taters each have their share of panels to throw into the pile. Remember, if there’s a series you read that we don’t, always feel free to throw a panel my way. Email’s to the side.

Sorry for the lack of a good starter image. I like JRJR most of the time, but his Avengers work is really turning me off. In a way, NOT having to see his rendition of the Hood makes for a better panel.

Avengers #7
Brian Michael Bendis and John Romita Jr.

Azrael #14
David Hine and Cliff Richards

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overload
-If you’ve gotta buy a Batman comic this week… buy the one Yanick Paquette and Michael Lacombe drew. Finch’s stiff, ugly, overly gritty work does absolutely nothing for me.

-Paquette is ill, though. I’ve liked his work since Bulleteer, and I hope he sticks around for the long haul.

–Sean Witzke vs Matt Seneca vs Steranko. Read it.

–My man Ray the Destroyer gave Kanye’s new album a thorough review. I liked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but wow, dude went in. I hadn’t thought of half of this while listening to the album, but it all makes sense. It’s nice when somebody breaks down exactly why you like something.

-Sidebar: The last joint on Kanye’s album features Gil Scott-Heron. I sort of miss when you could pick up a rap album and hear something political from The Last Poets, Poppa Wu, or Big Rube. “Who Will Survive In America” is the sort of thing that almost re-contextualizes the whole record, I think.

-Via Matt Maxwell comes a link to Jay-Z and Cornel West. I’m listening to it as I write this. What’s up with Decoded not dropping in ebook format until December, though? I hated on the book when it was first announced because it sounded like an annotated rhyme book, and I cannot think of anything more boring. If it’s more of a memoir than a cheat sheet, it might be interesting.

-Did you know they recolored Superman vs. Muhammad Ali? I wasn’t expecting that. I’m still not sure how to feel about it.

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overload, overload
created: I like this Usagi Yojimbo preview, this Amazing Spidey recap, and this review of Adam WarRock’s debut album.

(Writing about music is weird for me. I don’t have the technical background that a lot of people who are good at it, but I have an okay understanding of history and context. Play to your strengths, right?)

consumed: Not much. I read Jormungand, Vol. 5 in one sitting, and it’s still plenty enjoyable. It’s still good and still about child soldiers. I’ve been in a holding pattern lately, but I’ve got The Night of the Hunter, Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre and Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso’s Vampire Boy to take in. Also on deck is Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond Vizbig 9, which may be my pick for fight scene of the year, just from flipping through the volume. Six hundred pages, Miyamoto Musashi versus the entire Yoshioka school.

Most comics simply can’t compete with Vagabond.

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coming on to the
David: Batman, Inc. 1, Hellblazer 273, Thunderbolts 150
Esther: For definite: Batman Incorporated 1, Tiny Titans 34, Superman/Batman 78. For maybe: Batman 704, Batman: The Return, Power Girl 18.
Gavin: Azrael 14, Batman Incorporated 1, Batman The Return 1, Green Lantern 59, Green Lantern Corps 54, Avengers 7, Chaos War Chaos King 1, Chaos War Dead Avengers 1, Daken Dark Wolverine 3, Hulk 27, Thunderbolts 150, Darkwing Duck 6

It’s ThWiP time. This week I’m joined by regular contributors Was Taters and Space Jawa. Jawa sent in something for Thanos Imperative, but I didn’t use it since it went against my “full page spreads are not a panel” rule. Also, David handed me a couple panels, but skipped on Amazing Spider-Man because it “became unreadable overnight.” Yikes.

Ant-Man & The Wasp #1
Tim Seeley

Assassin’s Creed: The Fall #1
Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl

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