I am kind of tired of seeing the Joker show up in non-Batman comics. Very rarely does it work, especially when he’s put alongside of other, much more useful or powerful characters. Writers tend to overstate his importance in the DCU, not because it makes any sense, but because the Joker is a popular character. Emperor Joker is the one exception because the entire point of that was showing what would happen if Joker truly did gain god-like power. Otherwise? Keep him in a context where you don’t need to artificially inflate his abilities for him to fit in or flat-out give him abilities he really shouldn’t have. (Disclaimer: While this argument could be applied to Batman’s position on the JLA, at least Batman already has abilities and resources that make him an actually valuable member.)

The incentive for this plea was the Salvation Run comic: It features two groups of villains, one led by Lex Luthor, the other by the Joker. Joker vs. Luthor? Too obvious, too forced. I don’t know how much of it is the writer(s)’ idea and how much of it is editorial mandate, but it doesn’t work. It’s pitting DC’s two most popular villains against each other in a context that doesn’t make sense. Luthor as a leader is fine, but Joker? Joker is insane. He doesn’t have much in terms of charisma or leadership skills and has nothing to offer beyond unpredictable, deadly craziness, so the writers need to jump through hoops to make him a prominent leader. Suddenly Joker is now a person who makes reasonable arguments. Suddenly everyone fears and respects him. Suddenly the human-hating Gorilla Grodd is taking orders from him for no real reason. Suddenly he’s able to kill Psimon with a rock. Come on now. I’m not a Psimon fan and I really don’t like arguments about the power levels of fictional characters, but the guy destroys planets. He killed Brainiac once. This really just doesn’t make sense and is only detrimental to the characters.

Speaking of Salvation Run, I wish they’d just gone with the original pitch and make it an Elseworlds. Seems like it would have been much more interesting.

Are Daredevil and Spider-Man the only Marvel or DC heroes with on-panel frontal nudity?

Spidey went frontal in Spider-Man: Reign (at least until an editor caught it) and Matt Murdock spent a decent bit of Elektra Lives Again with his netherbits out.

I’m just curious.

I think my first Cameron Stewart book was Seaguy. I’m pretty sure it was, anyway– I didn’t become a Brubaker/Stewart Catwoman fan until they were nearly off the book. I’m a little fuzzy on that point, though, I might be wrong.

Either way, the man is crazy good. Every book he’s ever done looks 2008% rock solid. He’s got a fun and expressive cartoony style. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the man’s ongoing webcomic at Transmission-X, Sin Titulo. Link to the first page here, as that previous link takes you to the latest comic. Whoops, should have warned you I guess!

Anyway, the comic is really good. Stewart has a pretty smooth writing voice and the story is really engaging, though I’m not sure where it’s headed. Plus, I can get my Cam Stewart fix once a week this way. That’s good stuff.

It’s funny, but I haven’t thought about Seaguy in a long while. In a very real way, Grant Morrison’s Seaguy and JLA Classified #1 were the reasons why I started blogging about comics around this time in 2005. My first comics blog was Guerilla Grodd (shut up it was clever back then). My first post was on JLA Classified #1. A few posts later, I posted the first of two explorations of Seaguy, with an imaginary third rounding out the trilogy. I really want to rewrite these. It’s been a while since I have really dug my teeth into a subject, not to mention reread Seaguy. I feel like I could bring a lot more to the table now.

Speaking of blogging in 2005, one of my favorite sites was Fanboy Rampage. It was a linkdump of all the best (worst) comics fans had to offer and run by one Graeme McMillan. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it was probably my favorite comics blog back in the day. Imagine my surprise when I move to SF this year and the guys are like “Hey, do you know Graeme?”

So, yeah, Graeme McMillan is cool people and I’m pretty pleased to call him buddy. He’s got a fun interview with Tom Spurgeon over at the Comics Reporter. Give it a look, all right?

Man, do you guys remember when comics blogging was all The Beat, Journalista, a little Warren Ellis (“The Bendis Board is full of rape-os”), Fanboy Rampage, Neilalien, and ADD? I feel like I’m leaving people out, but it’s late and my memory is bad. Casey and Fraction on the Basement Tapes, Augie on The Pipeline… Three years, man. Wow.

Controversial opinions–

–Have you ever wished for the death of a comics creator, be it an EiC, writer, or artist? Maybe an editor or colorist if you’re really into funnybooks? If you can answer yes, you probably suck as a person. It’s just comics, man. Chill out.

–The “comics fans are shut-ins/creepy nerds/worthless man-boys/fat/neckbearded/stunted” stereotype needs to be lost, stat. It doesn’t matter whether you’re explaining why comics are sexist, poorly written, racist, or whatever– lose it. It ain’t true, man. I know a bunch of people who read comics. I don’t know any shut-in creepos. Let those dudes do their own press– we don’t need to do it for them. Real recognizes real and they need to be invisible.

–Have you ever used the word “overrated” in a review? If you did, I probably didn’t finish reading what you wrote. Overrated is a stupid word that has no place in a review. It basically means “This is popular and I don’t like it so I’m going to diss everyone else’s opinion in an effort to make myself look smart(er).” You might as well be saying “as if” as far as I’m concerned.

–Seriously though– it’s just comics. It’ll be okay. Go read Kraven’s Last Hunt or Batman: Year One or Flex Mentallo or Casanova or something you haven’t read yet that’s generally well-regarded if comics right now are making you mad. If it’s getting your blood pressure up, back up off it. It ain’t worth it. It’ll come around.

–I’ve been listening to Lupe Fiasco, T.I., and Juelz Santana pretty much exclusively for the better part of a week now. It’s a weird mix of maybe 16 hours of music (9 of T.I., 5 of Lupe, and 2 of Juelz). T.I. for the south (deuces up, a-towns down), Lupe ’cause he’s a nerd, and Juelz because he’s sick at storytelling. “Gone” is dope.

Youtubes, which are probably nsfw if only for lyrics and the fact that they’re youtubes:
Lupe Fiasco: I Gotcha, Dumb It Down, The Cool (Music only)
T.I.: Big Things Poppin’, Hurt, U Don’t Know Me
Juelz: Oh Yes, Dipset Anthem, Gone (Music Only)

Man, I love that sample on Oh Yes. “Wait a minute mister mista mista mista”

Check out this “Tribute to Stan Lee” artwork at the Gallery 1988. There’s a lot of awesome stuff there, although the fanboy in me gets annoyed when I see art of characters Lee had no hand in creating or writing. Credit where credit is due, you know? Still, I want some of these on my wall.

     

PETE WOODS: TO INFINITY – NEWSARAMA

I love Pete Woods, and it’s nice to finally see him on a book that looks good in writing as well as in art. I’ve been fighting against buying the Amazons Attack hardcover, but Woods’s art makes it hard to miss.

Plus, there’s this:

While most of the locations have been established for the book, we haven’t seen much of them, so there’s plenty of wiggle room as far as design goes. Steelworks is the most exciting of those. Here we have John Henry Irons- the Tony Stark/Reed Richards of the DCU- who knows what sort of weird bleeding edge tech he’s got sitting around. The possibilities are endless…

John Henry really is, isn’t he? He’s Superman’s go-to gadget guy. Hopefully Milligan plays with that some. All we need next is for the redesigned Eradicator to make a comeback and I’ll be happy.

‘Tec 840 is the follow-up to the Resurrection of R’as al Ghul. A friend of mine said it had two good things: the penciller and inker. I’d expand that to three and get the colorist some respect, too.

But, that story was terrible.

First– The Globe. Dumb villain, dumb gimmick, dumber puns.

Second– R’as. You resurrect him just to throw him in Arkham under an assumed name and take him off the board? What was the point of that seven part crossover, then?

840 felt like a clipshow of bad scenes. Here’s Batman fighting a fat guy with a gimmick, here’s the new R’as, here’s a semi-clever scene, here’s Batman throwing a fat guy at ninjas, here’s Batman drugging R’as and sticking him in Arkham forever.

Terrible.

Batwoman was in Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of BloodThe Question #3 last week. It’s the first time I thought this version of Batwoman was kind of cool, and it’s generally a good comic that you should be reading. Anyway, I noticed an interesting thing: Matthew Clark made some sly but noticable changes to her design. It’s an improvement.

On the left is Alex Ross’ original design. On the right is Batwoman from the issue in question (hehe), as drawn by Matthew Clark. Note the streamlined cowl, the more realistic gloves, the actually functional looking utility belt, the lack of superfluous and poorly placed bat-symbols and best of all: The ridiculous high heels appear to be gone.

Pretty cool huh?

Lifestyles of the Rich and Ballin’ | Funnybook Babylon

Don’t worry guys, I’m going to put a stop to this.

I’m going to meet up with them at New York Comic-con and put them down like the rabid dogs they are.

What is that, Pedro, a sweater-vest? *smh*

Hey, did you hear? Monarch is badass.

Over the past month, DC has been releasing Countdown: Arena. In it, Monarch has been planning for his war against the Monitors. Why is he at war against the Monitors?

Read the rest of this entry �

-The Birds of Prey, and specifically Misfit, pretty much murder a few hundred people in Metropolis and the only punishment they get is a stern talking to by Superman? Whaaat?

Do you know what happens if I am playing with a gun and I shoot someone in the face? Prison.

What happened to Sean McKeever? His DC work has been mediocre at best and this issue of BoP made them crazy unlikeable.

“He doesn’t know. He wasn’t there.” Psh, Misfit pressed a button and killed a few hundred people. What’s to know, other than “Don’t press buttons in giant murder machines?”

-Is it just me, or was Ultimate Spider-Man 117 the best issue of the series yet? It hit on basically every single point. Wow. The last few pages were spot on characterization and really very touching.

Between this, the past couple arcs of New Avengers, and the Tony Stark scene in the latest Mighty Avengers, Bendis is back to hitting on all cylinders.

-On the same note– I liked the end of OMD, but I don’t have time to get into the whys and wherefores of it right now. I don’t like that the marriage is gone and the execution thereof, but honestly Spider-Man has been in a rut for a good while now and this seems like a proper shot in the arm.

I love love love that they gave back exactly what Spidey has always needed: a supporting cast. For the past few years he has had MJ, Aunt May, and his own guilt for a supporting cast. Now? Now he’s got his best friend back.

I can get behind that.

And honestly, I kind of feel like Joe Q has the biggest nuts in the world now.

-We’re gonna get 36 (at least, I’m not sure how they’re handling five week months) issues of ASM in 2008. That makes ASM 600 arriving in 2009. Boy oh boy, I wonder what’s going to happen in that issue…

-Brubaker’s Captain America and Ennis’s Punisher are still pretty much reviewproof. The quality has kept up, the action keeps escalating, and you can’t really say much beyond “Yep. Still great.”

-That BoP story is so stupid, seriously.

-Resurrection of R’as al Ghul was terrible. What a bad ending. “Welp, he’s back, banned from Nanda Parbat, and WHOOPS HE ESCAPED AGAIN oh and he had a son and a father”

-Morrison’s first issue of Batman, post RoRaG? Wonderful. It finally feels like his run is coming together.

-I kind of feel like Redman’s Red Gone Wild was overlooked this year. Reggie Noble is back to being dope again.

-There is a Whole Foods down on Haight with an homage/reinterpretation of the cover of Intimates #3 painted on the metal grate that comes down when it’s closed. Awesome.