I’ve mentioned before that I tend to think of Grant Morrison as a relentless optimist. It’s an admirable trait and it makes his comics kind of a joy to read. The heroes, while not flawless, are heroes still, even when they don’t want to be or do not believe themselves to be.

I’m in the middle of rereading New X-Men. it’s been a while, so it all seems pretty new. I just finished the first hardcover and a couple pages jumped out at me. Well, a lot of pages did, but these are the two I want to talk about. Both are from New X-Men 122.

This is almost self-explanatory and a perfect encapsulation of Morrison’s optimism. The last time the X-Men fought Cassandra Nova, she laid waste to the team. It was only a last minute save by Emma Frost that took her down. Even then, Cassandra won. She jumped into Charles Xavier’s body and switched minds with him. She’s now in the body of the most powerful telepath on the planet. Shortly before Cassandra left Earth to take control of the Shi’ar Empire, she reduced Beast to a wreck and had him beaten nearly to death. Even while she’s been gone, her plans have been in motion. She’s poisoned the X-Men with nano-sentinels and booby-trapped her own body with a number of degenerative diseases.

In short, she’s completely played the entire team and she’s coming back to finish them off. Hank in particular is shaken up by all this because Cassandra tore him down to his basic elements. Jean’s response works to both reinforce Hank and to remind him that the X-Men don’t lose. It’s not even an option. It isn’t on the menu. For every negative that Hank brings up, Jean has an overwhelming positive. Can’t play the guitar? You can learn the drums! You’re afraid? You’re a hero to a kid who needs one. Blocked on creating something? It doesn’t matter. Keep trying. That is hope, and hope will triumph.

Another thing Morrison is big on is being true to yourself. The Invisibles dealt with this quite a bit, with King Mob trying to figure out who he is, Dane embracing the Jack Frost identity, Lord Fanny period, and the climax of Boy’s story arc. He’s got this whole thing about being radiant and true before you face down your big bad. This page is another perfect moment in time.

The Phoenix entity has a long comics history. It’s reached cliche status now, and it usually signals that something terrible is going to happen. Jean Grey could unmake the universe one day due to it… until now. She’s embraced her wings, strange eyes, and brilliant mind. It’s a new era. Hiding who you are in an attempt to fit in is the wrong way to go about things. Repression is wrong.

It’s hinted here that Jean only lost control because she was afraid and ashamed of her powers. Scott suggests that she go back to strict self-control, but what he’s suggesting is really self-limiting. It’s hiding all the things that are you in an attempt to fit in and be safe.

There’s an old saying. “Scared money don’t make money.” If you’re too afraid to take a risk, you aren’t ever going to get anything. Jean has taken a risk and embraced who and what she is and look- she’s better for it. “Do I look like I’m losing control?” She is in complete control of everything now. Herself, her powers, and her confidence.

This is really good stuff that isn’t always immediately apparent. Quitely’s body language says a lot here, too. Scott is hesitant and unsure. Jean? She’s in charge.

When he’s on top of his game, Morrison is one of the best. These two single pages just show a couple of his more enjoyable quirks. Even the end of The Invisibles features a hug and a reminder that good things are coming. “is allnow love,” and so on. He’s all about letting your freak flag fly.

If you’re curious, Geoff Klock has quite an interesting look at the issue here, as part of his ongoing look at the whole of New X-Men. Worth a read. He talks about all the things I don’t in this post.

There’ll probably be more later. NXM is a personal favorite of Morrison’s works, in part because it works with so many characters that I loved and grew up with in new ways. I think that there is a lot to be said about the way that Jean stepped up in the Professor’s absence to play the nurturer and carry the dream, as well. Even though it was Cassandra who left her in charge, she truly is the team leader, at least during the first year of NXM. Interesting, in that it’s usually Cyclops who is in charge, but he’s got so many issues that he is only on-point when he’s in battle. He’s flawless in space, for example, but a bit of a milksop when it comes to relationships.

But, wow, Charles Xavier is only 42 years old?

With a heavy heart, I have to announce that the next installment of Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings is on hiatus. Nobody is more shocked and outraged about this turn of events than former Intercontinental Champion Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.

I know, Nikita Koloff. I know. But I have a reason. A very good reason.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing too many updates lately. I’ve been using my free time to read through the latest Mick Foley autobiography, Hardcore Diaries. I loved his other two autobiographies, but this one left me sour. About as sour as Mick Foley comes across for most of this book. Interesting wrestling anecdotes take a backseat to stories of Mick meeting B-list celebrities, ragging on the President to the point that it gets real old, and telling countless stories about what a great humanitarian Foley is.

There’s something else I’ve been reading. Readers of the site might remember my acquisition of the first three issues of the Marvel WCW comic at the New York Comic Con. I decided that three issues wasn’t good enough. Not for me and not for you. Fortunately, I came across the entire run on eBay. Unfortunately, it means I own two copies of a comic issue featuring El Gigante. God help me.

I forced myself to read the series and it wasn’t easy. The Malibu Street Fighter comic wasn’t all that bad until the end. The Mortal Kombat comic was honestly pretty good in parts. Even Extreme Justice could keep my attention enough that I’d keep going on to see what could possibly be next. World Championship Wrestling, though, hurt. A lot. Once a friend got wind of what I was reading, he told me, “You could be doing literally anything else and it would be a better use of your time.”

But I can’t let you guys down. Deadshot’s Tophat can wait. I’m finishing up my last What If article (finally), but after that, it’s on. Me and the WCW comic. One-on-one. No holds barred. With hermanos barred from ringside.

Prepared to get Stingersized!

Have you guys read the new Marvel and DC solicits? I love comics, but those things are a bore and a half. It’s like they don’t even want you to read their books.

It’s cool, though. Here are the ones that are new and good and interesting. Jumping-on points only here, with one exception, perhaps. My pithy and vitally important commentary is in italics.

DC Comics is first since Marvel is better!

BATMAN #667
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cover by J.H. Williams III
The Batmen of All Nations reunite for a weekend of fine food and nostalgia, but an unexpected visitor has other plans for the gathering. Batman, Robin, and the rest of the Club of Heroes find themselves trapped and at the mercy of a dangerous madman on the Island of Mister Mayhew!
This is why I read Grant Morrison. Mad ideas that sound completely goofy. He’s Silver Age with a Modern Age sensibility. Plus, I hope the sweet Knight and Squire from JLA Classified 1-3 shows up.

ROBIN #163
Written by Adam Beechen
Art by Freddie E. Williams II
Cover by Patrick Gleason & Wayne Faucher
It’s Tim Drake’s first Father’s Day as Bruce Wayne’s adopted son, and he wants everything to be just right. Unfortunately, the justice-crazed supervillains known as The Jury pick that very day to go on a murder spree in Gotham City!
This is a great idea for a story. The “family” part of Bat-family doesn’t get looked at often enough. “The Jury,” though, conjures up images of a certain ’90s anti-Venom team.

BATMAN: HARLEY & IVY TP
Written by Paul Dini and Judd Winick
Art by Bruce Timm, Joe Chiodo and others
Cover by Timm
Paul Dini and Bruce Timm -two of the masterminds behind Batman: The Animated Series – join forces in this volume collecting the miniseries BATMAN: HARLEY AND IVY! Also included is the special: HARLEY AND IVY: LOVE ON THE LAM by Judd Winick and Joe Chiodo, plus a newly-colored story rom BATMAN BLACK AND WHITE VOL. 2!
It’s Harley Quinn, so shut up and buy it.
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What comics are you reading? Good stuff, I trust. Personally, I have impeccable taste. Okay, maybe not impeccable, or even good, really, but at least I don’t read Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose or Fantagraphics’ porno comics so shut up you pervert. :doom:

Anyway.

I’ve been really enjoying Ed Brubaker lately. Criminal was one of the best comics I’ve seen lately, and is proof positive that the Brubaker/Phillips team is the proverbial bee’s knees. They tell a tragic noir tale full of the usual twists and turns that you’d expect from both Brubaker and films noir, and then hit you with a downer ending that feels oh-so-right. His run on Captain America has revitalized the character and quietly done away with the story-arc focus that Marvel had a while back, when each story was modular. Here, the issues are composed of multi-part arcs, but each arc builds organically into the next. Bru’s first twenty-five issue all tell one story. It’s pretty impressive, and the quality of the work has been ridiculous.

Of course, you can’t talk Brubaker without mentiong Immortal Iron Fist, and therefore Matt Fraction. This book is practically perfect. The story promises us(and delivers) new insights into the Iron Fist lineage and manages to pull off the “long, lost X” angle very well. It nails Danny Rand as a character almost as well as David Aja is nailing the art. There’s a nine-grid in the latest issue, #4 I believe, of Danny flitting around the building that is just a perfect comics page.

Talking about Fraction dovetails into Casanova. I haven’t read the entire series, due to me missing out on two or three issues of the seven issue series, but what I’ve read, I have loved. It’s another nigh-perfect comic, from the words to the art to the back matter. Casanova Quinn is both a sympathetic and alien protagonist, but I love him nonetheless. Casanova, the book, is pure id on the surface, but there’s a scary intelligence working underneath. It’s whip-smart and clever. It wants to fool you even while beckoning to you. It’s passionate, and that may sound a little corny but it’s absolutely true. You can feel the emotion coming off this book. But then, you check out the back matter and you realize that with the things he says and the feel the book gives off that you’re reading an amazing book. It isn’t just id or ego, it is Fraction himself in those pages. There’s an amount of “This is cool, so we’ll do it,” but 90% of that book is about or mirrors Fraction, just like The Invisibles mirrored Morrison.

Kyle Baker’s Nat Turner cannot be praised enough. I’ve got volume one and I’m ordering volume two asap. It’s a tale I remember hearing rarely in school, and then it was always painted as something to skip over in class and unimportant. I’m rather fond of the story myself, and Baker has definitely done it justice.

This is going to sound dumb, but I really like Jimmie Robinson’s Bomb Queen. I picked up the first trade (Woman of Mass Destruction) the other day. On the one hand, its gratuitous nudity, language, and violence are exactly what’s wrong with comics today. On the other, this kind of winking-at-the-reader lowbrow humor just pushes all the right buttons. Jimmie Robinson’s official position is that it is parody, and I can see that at work, too. It’s charming, in a smutty, violent, lewd kind of way. Maybe charming is the wrong word?

Anyway, Bomb Queen tickles that same funny bone that Garth Ennis’s humor work does. Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, for example, is a completely non-serious book with really, really dirty jokes. There’s a bad joke in there about America still being a colony of England is funny just because of the earnest way that Hugo “Khyber” Darcy delivers the line. Plus, it’s a story about the most bungling bunch of soldiers this side of Beetle Bailey going after Hitler’s missing testicle, so how “mature” can it be?

The Authority: Kev cycle of four miniseries is another good example, and it blends a message into all the jokes about poop and people with hideous and/or hilarious facial deformities. How do you find the strength to march to the beat of your own drum? How do you become a better person than what you are? Kev, More Kev, The Magnificent Kevin, and A Man Called Kev almost all explore this while doing Ennis’s usual “Superheroes are jerks” and “guns are awesome” stuff. The first three minis are collected in two trades. Hopefully A Man Called Kev will hit soon, as it’s easily the best of the lot.

Speaking of Ennis, though, I finally own my most favorite of his stories. It even beats out Punisher MAX, which is quite a feat. It’s 303, the book he did out of Avatar with Jacen Burrows. It is about one man, empires, wars, costs of wars, and what it means to be a man. It is, of course, in Ennis’s He-Man, War is Interesting, Guns are Awesome, Mind the Gore, Luv mode. Quite a lot of people die. The story has a point, though, as one man begins a trek for, if not revenge, honor, armed with his 303 Lee-Enfield rifle. 303 says a lot about war and the effect it has on later generations. It talks about how history chews up and spits out people. I should stop now, as I kind of want to do a dedicated post to this book later on this week. Suffice to say that it is one of Ennis’s best works. If you’re an X-Men fan, it’s everything Wolverine ever said about duty and honor but failed to deliver on. It’s played completely straight, too. No jokes, no maimings, just drama. Well done.

I’m slowly making my way through Sequart.com’s Modern Master: Grant Morrison: The Early Years. It covers Zenith through Doom Patrol, I believe, and it is pretty fascinating. I already knew a lot of it, but it’s neat to see someone else’s perspective on the same things. I’m making my way through the Animal Man section at the moment. Lit-crit applied to comics is so cool in such a nerdy way!

100 Bullets, Loveless, and Tales of the Unexpected are all obvious favorites, too. Loveless is building suspense, and genuine suspense at that, something that is rarely seen in comics. Things are heating up to a fever pitch, and Atticus, Ruth, and Wes are going to go from knee-deep in it to neck-deep in blood in only a few short issues. I can feel it. The Dr. 13 special in Tales is in a book that features Dave Lapham and Brian Azzarello both writing, which was sure to get my attention, but it’s so much better than I expected. I’d never heard of any of these characters before, save for Dr. 13, but he’s written a story that is both continuity porn and its polar opposite. I don’t have to know anything about these guys, since everything I need to know is there. Frankly, I thought he was making people up for the first few parts. I, Vampire? Infectious Lass? Seriously?

On a more sour note, Incredible Hulk‘s Planet Hulk is starting to lose me, I fear, which does not bode well for World War Hulk. I just kind of stopped caring about what happens to that planet. I’ll be mighty glad when these events are over and done with, but I do hope that WWH at least delivers on its premise.

What’re you into?

I’m going to level with you. This is not going to be an impressive group of characters. Remember how the last article had Captain America and Captain Marvel and shit? The most famous character here is known for having a cameo in X-Men 2 and a damn near non-existant role in the third movie. But we are going to delve into some really weird stories. Oh, yes.

God, I hate you, Wonder Woman.

CELESTIALS

Eternals #2 (1976)

The Celestials are mentioned a few times in the first issue of Eternals, but we don’t get to actually see one until the next issue. Now, bear with me on this because I don’t know the slightest thing about the Eternals and I’ve never really paid attention to the Celestials. The story here has to do with Ikaris and his archeologist friends fighting some Deviants until Ajak comes in on a spaceship and saves the day. All of the sudden, this guy shows up.

Sorry. Too much trippy exposition for me to follow.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN

Showcase #6 (1957)

I would barely even know who these guys were if it wasn’t for New Frontier and that one Amalgam story where the Challengers of the Fantastic fought the mighty GALACTIAC. Looking at it from the beginning, these guys have one cool origin story.

Rocky Davis, Professor Haley, Red Ryan and Ace Morgan are four different guys announced to be guests on a radio show dedicated to heroes. As they ride the same plane, they run into turbulence and crash.

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Too long, didn’t read version: 300 was a pretty rocking movie, but I still like the book better.

Short story long version:
I think that I may have mentioned this here before, but Frank Miller got me back into comics five or so years back. I usually attribute it to the Daredevil Visionaries and Dark Knight Strikes Again, but I’d totally forgotten that I’d read a different Frank Miller book a year or two before I’d read those.

This would’ve been back when I was in Madrid. Me, my mom, and little brother were at Hipercor, Supercor, or whatever the crap our local grocer was called. I was in the arts & crafts/books section (it was kind of jumbled) and I saw a book there. It looked familiar, and I realized it was by the Sin City guy! I probably begged Mom to buy it for me so I could read it.

It was the Norma Editorial edition of 300 and it was completely in Spanish.

That book is probably why I still remember so much Spanish nowadays. I’ve easily read that book a dozen, maybe a couple dozen, times. More than any other comic I own. I now own it in English and Spanish, but I remember all the good lines in Spanish. “Stumblios” is “Storpios,” “Barely a year ago” is “Hace apenas un año,” that sort of thing.

I’m just trying to set the stage here. I’m a big fan of the book, and though I haven’t read it in a while, I’ve read it enough that I basically have a lot of it memorized, which probably colored my opinion of this movie.

I’ll sling this behind a cut, since there’ll probably be some (fairly light) spoilers.
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(Images have been added to the post! Scroll all the way down.)

Have you ever had something take you utterly by surprise that, in hindsight, is completely obvious?

That happened to me with Annihilation. I had no idea that Annihilus was the villain of Annihilation until the end of the Annihilation Special. No duh, right? I’m usually pretty good with picking out plot twists. I bet watching tv shows or movies with me sucks, since sometimes I just can’t help going “That guy’s the traitor, his wife is the hero in disguise, and that little one-liner about being good with explosives means he’s going to fake his death.”

But, I’ll still miss some completely obvious things.

So, pull up a chair and check this out. I’m probably going to spoil the ending of Fantastic Four: The End for you in the process. That’s still a few paragraphs down, though.

Just for clarity’s sake– FF: The End is the first of two (!) FF: The End projects. The upcoming one is being done by the team of Stan Lee and John Romita Jr. The one I’m talking about here, though, is the recently concluded FF: The End by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. As usual, Farmer inks while Davis pencils and writes.

The last project I remember Davis and Farmer collaborating on is JLA: The Nail and JLA: Another Nail. They were Elseworlds tales about Superman being raised by Amish farmers, rather than the Kents, and the differences that brought out in the world. They weren’t perfect stories, as I seem to remember Jimmy Olsen somehow getting superpowers or something a little ridiculous like that, but they were great fun. JLA: Another Nail actually had the best Green Lantern ever. A deceased Mister Miracle escaped from death on Apokolips and into a GL ring which was worn by Big Barda.

A husband-and-wife Green Lantern. Awesome.

Davis has a lot of strengths. Costume design, for one. Another Nail is full of pretty sweet redesigns, and FF: The End is no different. He is kind of overly fond of raised collars, but he comes up with a cool in-story explanation for why so many Inhumans wear masks, so it evens out. Another is that he’s the original Bryan Hitch. Hitch used to be a Davis imitator, and his inker Paul Neary is well known for working with Alan Davis. Both of them have a great eye for detail and realism, which means that disaster scenes and low-key scenes both hit with appropriate impacts.

What I’m trying to say is that Alan Davis is an awesome artist. With FF: The End, he becomes a good writer, too.

FF: The End is set after the Mutant Wars, and after Reed Richards has finally put his mind toward improving the Earth to its fullest potential. He’s extended the lives of everyone on the planet exponentially. Lives are measured in the centuries now, which also provides a convenient reason for all your favorite heroes to show up still youthful, though Doc Strange missed out on the treatment. Crime is essentially gone, and there are heroes all over the solar system. The solar system itself has been quarantined, shut off from the Kree, Shi’ar, Skrulls, and most other Marvel space aliens. Marvel is finally a utopia.

That’s not to say that it’s been a bloodless advancement. The prologue shows that Franklin and Valeria Richards died in the FF’s final battle with Doctor Doom. We fast forward to twenty years after that, and the FF didn’t manage to stay together. Ben Grimm retired to Mars with Alicia Masters, his longtime girlfriend, and they have a handful of kids. Ben can turn from monster to man and back again, as well. Johnny Storm goes by John now, and he’s a bigshot hero in his own right. He’s extremely well-respected, to the point where he’s the top dog in the Avengers. His is the only new costume that I’m not really digging, but he thankfully gets some FF duds part-way through the series. Either way, the hothead has grown up into a true hero. Sue has buried herself in archaeological research and is hunting for various esoteric objects all over the Earth. She’s also sporting a boyish haircut that is pulled off amazingly well, and speaks to Davis’s sense for character design. Reed? Reed is alone on a satellite, cut off from human contact nine times out of ten, tinkering with his inventions and looking to keep pushing forward. Marvel’s First Family aren’t much of one any longer.
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It’s a tale as old as time. (Pardon the slight Beauty & The Beast reference.)

There is a child, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, with a hidden talent and a good heart. They may not recognize this talent at the beginning of the story, but others see this potential in them and attempt to nuture it. Outside forces discover this talent and attempt to either take it away or control it. Eventually, the child realizes his or her worth and takes control of that power.

There are a lot of reasons why this story is so old. It speaks to the idea that we’re all special, and if only we can find that special thing inside of us, we’ll be happy forever. It’s a cautionary tale from parents to children, warning them to stay on the straight and narrow. It’s a fun adventure romp about a relatable person doing great things. It’s a morality play, will you or won’t you abuse that power? There are dozens of interpretations.

This is a classic story. It’s straight out of Campbell. It’s Spider-Man, Superman, Star Wars, Snow White, and a thousand other stories. It’s a story we all know and can appreciate, and a story we’ll likely be telling for hundreds of years to come.

This is also the story of Blokhedz.

First, some info and errata. (I’m trying out these new Amazon links and info formatting. Good idea, bad idea? They seem a little large, which could make formatting a pain.)

Title: Blokhedz #1: Genesis
Creators: Brandon Schultz and Mike and Mark Davis
Homepage: Blokhedz.tv
Publisher: Street Legends Ink/Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books
ISBN: 1416540733
Book Info: Blokhedz #1: Genesis collects Blokhedz #1-4, originally published in 2004 by Street Legends Ink. It is going to be released on March 20, 2007, and will be followed up by a straight to graphic novel volume 2 in Fall 2007.
Misc. Info: Interview with Format Magazine. Publishers Weekly article on the move to Pocket Books.

Extra special thanks to Ed Schlesinger at Pocket Books for getting me one of the last comp copies at New York Comic-con last weekend!

Blokhedz is the first offering from Pocket Books’s graphic novel line to my knowledge, and it’s a good start.

The hero of the book is Blak, a young black kid in Empire City. He’s extraordinarily skilled at rapping, both from written rhymes and freestyling. The book opens on him telling the story of a tragic shootout. From the first scene onward, it’s clear that he’s torn between two things. Is he going to be a smart rapper and speak the truth, or is he going to play dumb and rap about things he was never involved in? Is he going to be true to himself or is he going to “keep it real?”

The person he was rapping about is his older brother Konzaquence, who cautions him to stay true. He doesn’t want to see his little brother fall down the same path he did and gives him his lion medallion as a kind of contract between the two of them.

The hook in the book is that the words in rhymes can alter reality. It’s a little bit Dr. Strange, a little bit Biblical, and, to me at least, a little bit Invisibles. The first time this power is shown is when Vulture, a rival rapper and gangster, has his crew attack Blak. This causes Blak to lose his medallion and pride, but gain new abilities. His words become reality.

Blokhedz #1: Genesis is an engaging read. The story is familiar, but tilted to a new angle. Blak has to dodge the allure of gangs, thug rap, and life in the city in order to survive. His older brother has been there, done that, and did the time for the crime, literally. One of his brother’s old running buddies has gone from drug-dealing to running a rap label, bringing to mind Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves, wherein Mr. Large, the guy who runs all the crime in the city, also dabbles in rap management. He courts Blak and, unbeknownst to him, uses his rhymes to create Crypt, a drug that hits the streets hard.

It’s about choices. Blak is torn between good or evil, God or the Devil, and vengeance or justice, but he must choose one side or the other. Both sides are tempting, but Blokhedz presents one side as being right. Good and evil are clearly delineated in the book, even down to the bad guys looking sinister. Vulture, for example, looks more than a little like his namesake and behaves worse than that. It’s simplistic, but it works. It’s also kind of refreshing in today’s comics landscape to see this kind of black-and-white viewpoint, particularly when pulled off without being either preachy or overly adult.

This is a good read, and a pretty good book for kids, despite a little bit of salty, but censored, language. There are a few gaffes, such as a handful of main characters appearing on-screen and having speaking roles without actually being introduced. I didn’t know the name of Essence, the spoken word poet and inner city crusader, until a chapter and three scenes after she was introduced, if memory serves. The focus of the book is on Blak, of course, but it would be nice if his supporting cast didn’t feel quite so not-there. A brief introductory bit of dialogue, or even a caption presented with the same flair and style found in the rest of the book would be great and enhance the read. We get that Blak has friends, but they’re a group of friends, rather being distinct individuals.

Still, this is a great start. It’s easy to read and the art is quite attractive. It’s a blend of American and anime-inspired art and it works really well. The characters can convey emotion easily. The book looks a lot like a cartoon, but in a good way. I’ve got to give them props for the backgrounds, too. Even in Marvel or DC produced comics, the “Big Two,” the backgrounds tend to be pretty bland, nondescript, and sometimes even nonexistent. These backgrounds are busy. They’re cluttered. They’re almost completely covered in tags. They have character. You really get the feeling that Empire City is a genuine city thanks to this attention to detail.

Blokhedz #1 is a good showing, and it’s cheap, too. It’s well worth a read.

Firestorm has had a rocky run recently, but the quality has never wavered. Jason Rusch’s coming of age tale has been smart, interesting, and well-drawn. I even got Jamal Igle to sign the Firestorm trade I bought at the con that collects the One Year Later story arc… and is also the only collection out.

Yes, lads and ladies, DC’s crap trades department put out a trade of a series 20-odd issues in and are going to cancel the series with #35 in April. A few trades earlier on and Firestorm could’ve built an audience. C’mon, DC! You’ve got Time Warner backing you. If Marvel can trade every series ever, including Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects, you can do it, too! The bookstores are the future!

No biggie, though! There’s nothing wrong with buying canceled books, especially ones that look as good as this. Stuart Moore and Jamal Igle had a great run, but Dwayne McDuffie and Ken Lashley are on tap for the final three issues. Here’s the solicit for #33.

The superstar creative team of Dwayne McDuffie (JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, STATIC), Dan Jurgens (Superman, Captain America) and Ken Lashley (The Flash) bring Firestorm to bold new heights! Jason Rusch and Prof. Martin Stein just want to get their lives back to normal, but the New Gods have other plans! When Orion comes looking for Prof. Stein, you can bet a throwdown’s not far behind! Guest-starring the Seven Soldiers’ Mister Miracle!

C’mon, now. You’re a comics fan on the internet. I know that you liked Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Dwayne McDuffie was behind a lot of the cool stuff on that show, so Firestorm #33 is pretty much guaranteed to deliver a good-sized bang for your three bucks.

Still not convinced? Look here for an interview and a quick preview. Jason Rusch is growing up, gaining confidence in his powers, and is still rookie enough to make Orion mad.

It drops today, it’s got New Gods, super-science, and a quality protagonist. We may not be able to save the series before it’s canceled, but we can read a good story along the way.

I caught three awesome panels today– Make Me Laff with Kyle Baker, Black Panel, and BET Animation panel. I’ll have thoughts on them later fa sho, but I just wanted to put this out there. I don’t think that Newsarama or CBR have covered either of them.

The BET Animation panel was, in a word, incredible. They’re doing extremely big things, and they showed a couple shorts that blew my mind. Hopefully the trailers will hit the net soon. I got to speak with Denys Cowan, who is an extremely nice guy, after the show, and I remarked (paraphrasing here) that, like a lot of the hip-hop I grew up with, these shorts are extremely subversive and, for lack of a better word, revolutionary. I told him that I’m in the Jay-Z generation, but I grew up on Rakim and PE and KRS, and each and everyone of them was subversive.

His response? “Exactly.”

Yes. This is good.

If you folks see any coverage of either the Black Panels or BET Animation panels anywhere, or discussion, can you drop me a comment? I really want to see some other reactions. BET hasn’t had a complete Road to Damascus moment, but they’re getting there.

More later. I’m completely out of it. I’ve got to say that this con has completely revitalized my interest in blogging and writing.

Also, the Marvel and DC panels pretty much universally blow. Vertigo was good, but blah on the rest.