All right, I was the very last person in the world to read Blackest Night, but as I was going through the explanation of all the different Lantern Guilds at the end of the book I stumbled across this:

The blue ring charges a green ring and de-charges a yellow.

Is it just me, or does anyone else hear a pair of dice rolling when they read a phrase like that?

I think that the various Lantern Guilds at war with each other would make fantastic role-playing games.

I’d like to start by thanking everyone for their responses to my post last week about how sexiness is used in the comics industry.

Believe it or not, that post was going to be longer.  I was going to add an extraneous bit about how Batman or the Joker would never be shown in the poses that Harley Quinn or Catwoman were in on the covers of those books, and how that was an example of sexism.

Now I can’t decide whether it is or not.  Not because I think that Batman would be posed the way that Oracle was on any of the covers of her comic, but because the artists, when drawing female characters one way and male characters another, are simply following the rules of society in general.

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I recently saw the solicit for Batman in Barcelona: Dragon’s Knight, the upcoming one-shot from DC.

When a string of bizarre murders hits Spain’s beautiful coastal city of Barcelona, The Dark Knight makes solving this crime his top priority. Full of international intrigue, high adventure and even higher stakes, BATMAN IN BARCELONA: DRAGON’S KNIGHT showcases The Caped Crusader in a different type of Gotham – but one no less dangerous!

Barcelona is like Gotham?  Because Gotham is an urban hellhole, plagued by every kind of crime, disease, corruption, poverty and natural disaster.  Has the Barcelona Tourist Bureau heard about this?

DC’s The Source blog put up a preview of the new Joe Casey/Chriscross joint, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance.

FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH: DANCE #1
Written by Joe Casey
Art by ChrisCross
Cover by Stanley “Artgerm” Lau
Japan’s Super Young Team wants nothing more than to be seen as heroes in the eyes of their adoring public. Unfortunately, their adventures during FINAL CRISIS have gone unnoticed, and they’ve been reduced to performing at public appearances and on various TV shows literally dancing for their livelihood. But the appearance of a new American teammate and a deadly threat complicates the motives of the team as they try and find what truly makes somebody not just a hero, but a sensational hero. Discover the path to greatness in this exciting 6-issue miniseries!

Even better, Brandon Thomas interviewed Joe Casey about the book and his other work. Casey is off Youngblood, so I’m off that book, too. Plus, he says something I agree with 100% on Obama comics:

JC: No way. That move is so played out. Let the guy be the President now, for chrissakes. I think he’s all through being a cheap marketing ploy, a shortcut to making a quick blast of cash in the Direct Market, don’t you?

I’ve been using Comixology to handle my pull list. They’ve got a pretty robust pull list feature going on, and it integrates with my comic shop, so it’s very convenient. Adding and subtracting things is just a matter of pressing a button. I dig it. Check it out, you might, too.

I pulled up my pull list to see how many books I’m regularly buying. This doesn’t count things I grab off the shelf, but it’s a pretty good representation of what I buy.

Marvel- Amazing Spider-Man #593
Vertigo- Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye #2 (of 3) (MR)
Marvel- Black Panther Vol. 2 #4
Vertigo- Young Liars #15 (MR)
Marvel- Amazing Spider-Man #594
DC Comics- Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1 (of 6)
Vertigo- Hellblazer #255 (MR)
Marvel- Amazing Spider-Man #595
Marvel- Immortal Iron Fist #26
Vertigo- Unknown Soldier #8 (MR)

That’s the entire month of May for me. Eight distinct franchises, a total of ten comics. That comes up to a hair over 30 bucks a month on average.

I pared my pull list down a lot over the past few months. I vastly prefer trades, and DC has done a pretty good job of chasing me away from a lot of books. In fact, I think I buy two main DCU books– Power Girl and Dance. I’m waiting for Batman & Robin to come back, and the Rucka/JHW3 Detective might pull me in depending on how the first issue goes. In fact, just looking at May… I’m not really bothering with the big events from either company. Final Crisis Aftermath counts, I guess, but I expect that to be good, unlike Battle for the Cowl or the other Aftermath books. It’s the only one that sounded appealing to me, anyway.

I made a decision a while back not to buy books I felt were mediocre. If I’m not loving it, or at least liking it a whole lot with a chance of love, I’m not buying it. Life’s too short to read bad comics, and if a comic isn’t pushing my buttons, that’s the very definition of a bad comic. The way my list is now, I really look forward to picking up my books. I know I’ll get a couple of books a week that’ll float my boat.

What’s your pull list looking like? Are you policing your stack by quality or price? I generally don’t buy 3.99 books as a rule, unless it’s genuinely extra sized, as in Amazing Spider-Man’s special issues.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how women are portrayed on the covers of various comic books.  I’m relieved to hear it because my frustration level, every week when I see the solicits, has been rising.  At least I know I’m not alone.  I’ve planned a longer post on this issue later on, but for now, I’ll keep it short.

I’ve seen many positive responses to the covers.  ‘Being sexy is good, not bad,’ and ”this is what sells’ seem to be the most popular.  Maybe they’re true.  But at the same time, they’re the ones that bother me the most.

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I was reading Secret Six #9, today.  In it three members of the six stop a kidnapping.  The kid in question is female, blonde, and in a pink dress, and who should end up holding her and taking her to her parents?  Bane.  Yes, the gigantic, awkward, spine-snapping collossus of the Secret Six ends up singing to the little girl and calming her down.  Looking at the issue made me think of all the other Big Gruff Guy, Cute Little Kid pair ups there are.  There’s Bane, in this comic, and to some extent Bane with Scandal Savage.  Cable got a baby girl a little while back.  Wolverine can’t pass a teenage girl without becoming a mentor to her for a little while.

And then there are countless movies, tv shows, and books that play off the same concept.  It’s cheap, obvious emotional manipulation.

I love it.

Of course I know that people are pandering to me.  So what?  What exactly is wrong with a story that is flat-out written for reader enjoyment?  Isn’t that what we pay for?  I realize that graphic novels can make subtle points and speak to our minds instead of our brain-stems, but at the same time, I think there’s an art to skillfully pushing people’s buttons and molding their emotions.  I also think there’s a certain integrity in deliberately giving readers the kind of stories that they enjoy most.  I don’t know if it’s customers service or consideration for one’s audience, but I like it.

The only real problem I have with accepting this kind of obvious maneuvering is it rips the self-righteousness right out from under me.  When certain authors set up one character as an incompetent, hateful buffoon so that their pet character can look cool by taking out an easy target, someone reading The Complete Works of Proust may be able to raise a scornful eyebrow and talk about cheap storytelling technique.  But I, gripping my copy of that Batman Adventures comic in which Batman has to spend a whole night crime-fighting while also taking care of a baby with nuclear codes imbedded in its DNA, don’t have a leg to stand on.

But at least I don’t have to spend my time reading The Complete Works of Proust.

The new teaser image for the next Batgirl comic is out.  I have several thoughts, which I shall put in no particular order.

• Is the mask, like, stitched to her face or something?  I want to read Batgirl, not Hellraiser.
• I want that utility belt.  I would rock that thing.
• I do kind of miss the blue and gold, though.
• But that only works on Babs.
• Oh, God, do I want it to be Babs.
• Or Cass again.
• Please not someone new.  Don’t have her cure Calculator’s daughter and train the daughter to be the new Batgirl.  I hate new people.  It takes me forever to get warmed up to them and by the time I finally do their book is cancelled.  So come on, DC.  Babs.  Or Cassandra.  Or Stephanie.  Not someone new.

I had a post all set to go for today.  You’ll see it tomorrow.  Today I would like to take a moment to discuss a very serious illness that I was recently diagnosed with.

It’s called Tie Up The Goddamn Villain Syndrome, and eighty percent of Americans experience it at one time or another.  Sadly, mine is an extreme case.

For example, when people around me discuss Pan’s Labyrinth, and how it’s such a breathtaking visual achievement paired with a dark, fairytale-like story, all I can think about is how I wished the murderous bastard of a captain had won, because when that idiot maid incapacitated him temporarily she didn’t Tie Up The Goddamn Villain.  For that alone, he deserved to win, and I don’t even care that he knocked a guy’s teeth out with a whiskey bottle.

I have to bite my fist to keep from shouting at screen in every Die Hard movie except the first, because John McClane won’t just Tie Up The Goddamn Villain.

And Dollhouse?  The series I started watching out of loyalty to Joss Whedon, and continued watching because it got pretty good, and then got excited about because it got really, really good, just completely tanked in my eyes, because oh my good god, just when the heroine knocked out the villain, and all was won, she wandered off to take care of something else and then acted shocked, shocked!, when it turned out that unconsciousness was a temporary state.  And so, I leave you with my final reaction to the series. Read the rest of this entry �

The Battle for the Cowl so far is comprised of three main books, numerous associated mini-series, and a few scattered one-shot tie-ins.  I’m not strongly affected either way by most of these, but this week two of those one-shots loom large in my mind.

The first is an example of the perfect tie-in.  It shows us something we never would have seen if we were following a conventional narrative, and offers us something truly different from the norm while still maintaining the tone of the world for which it was created.  That one was Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum.  Written by David Hine, it takes us on a tour of Arkham Asylum, and for once focuses on the less gruesome aspects of the institution.  Jeremiah Arkham narrates the story, not in the usual hard-boiled tone taken by the Gotham crowd, but with sincere sadness that he hasn’t been able to help the inmates. 

While we sense that he is somewhat unhinged himself, he’s an eccentric and an idealist, not the usual film-noir lunatic.  He finds picks a few inmates who pose no threat, and leads them out of the ruined structure.  In the end, before the final, worrying sting, he expresses the hope that he can rebuild the asylum so that it lives up to its name – so that it can be a true asylum for those who are unable to survive in the conventional world.  It’s refreshing, it’s sobering, and it’s creative.

Sadly, I only really got to thinking about how excellent it was while reading Battle for the Cowl: The Network.  Well, now I know something about myself, at least.  Pissiness is a bigger motivator than honest admiration.

So let’s get to it! 

Well, first thing’s first.  Huntress’s costume has been changed back to a glorified bikini.  And why?  Because the promotional poster for the event, drawn by Tony Daniel, has her back in her Jim Lee costume.  I don’t see why this would necessitate a costume change in the actual book any more than the ‘The Real Power In The DCU’ poster would necessitate putting every woman in the DCU in a white evening dress, but I guess that’s how they’re going to play it.

Honestly?  I didn’t even notice the costume change.  A girl fighting crime in a bikini doesn’t catch my eye anymore.  What made me notice was the characters in the story can’t stop picking at the new outfit.  Batgirl, still with a perfect command of the English language, mentions it once.  Oracle mentions it later.  Both talk about how impractical it is.

I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s a jab by writer at a mandated costume change.  Maybe he’s was trying to have his cake and eat it, too, by putting Huntress in a two-piece bathing suit and still snarking about it.  I’m not sure who made the decisions to regress Huntress sartorially. 

I just know that the decision was also made to regress her personally.  When the villain announces that he will start murdering two hostages if the heroes don’t murder one, Huntress pulls her crossbow and is about to take a hostage out when Batgirl knocks her aside.  This is the deal-breaker for me.  Cass is back on the moral high ground, but she had to knock Helena off it to get there.  Never mind that in continuity we haven’t seen Huntress kill in years.  Never mind that we’ve never seen her kill that casually.  In the end, the plot of this book involves the worst mistake a team book can make: cutting off one character at the knees to make another character look good.  That’s never the way to go.

In short: Buy Battle for the Cowl:Arkham Asylum.  Leave Battle for the Cowl: The Network on the shelf.  And stop making women fight in swimwear.