Comics Of The Weak: Why Was Tupac So Mean To Larry Holmes Was It Because He Hated Him

Archie # 601
Written by Michael Uslan
Art by Stan Goldberg, Bob Smith--really? & Glenn Whitmore
Published by Archie

Archie doesn't have an age recommendation on it. It should. The age recommendation would be a limit, and that limit would be determined by this question: Do you know how babies are made? Because if you know that babies are made with things called "dicks and vaginas", you really shouldn't read this thing. Not because it shows the actual coitus--it doesn't, it's one of those panels with hearts exploding out of a closed door--but because Veronica is pregnant by the end of the comic, and that means that Archie--somehow, someway--ejaculated his semen into Veronica's body. That's something that happened in between the panels. Somewhere between pages 20 and 23, Archie's penis got hard, Archie put his penis inside Veronica, his little weird face contorted into a death mask as he pumped his pelvic regions toward the part of her body where the legs meet, and then he came inside her. And those actions got her pregnant.

That's really fucking gross. If you don't know how babies are made, you don't think about that kind of stuff when you're reading Archie 601. But if you do? You can't not think about it.

Pluto # 5

By Naoki Urasawa

Published by Viz

The thing about going dark is that you run out of ways to get darker, everybody knows that. They got some show on FX about gun-running bikers, so you know what they had to do to come up with villains? They had a bunch of Neo-Nazi types gang rape some guys mom. That's where you'll end up when you go dark--gang rape in a warehouse, with the guy who used to sing "TV Party" leading the charge. The other thing that happens is that going a completely other direction ends up being courageous, because it's so opposite what people's dollars seem to imply them wanting. And that's how we end up with Naoki Urasawa fighting with Amanda Conner for the title of "ballsiest", which is the real fight that 2009 has been all about. Amanda's spent the better part of the last three months doing a Supergirl comic that's working to redefine the medically allowable amount of cute, and Viz has responded. Here, they say. Pluto 5. Look upon this kitten. Read its meows. Ask yourself: can you handle this, you masturbating blood soaked comics reader? Can you handle the adorable? Because if you can't--well, shit. There's a whole world out there, and they'll find this kitten soon enough. And kittens? Kittens get people fucking laid. At the end of the day, that's where the next generation comes from anyway: people who do it. And when the biological clock starts buzzing, nobody chooses the dude who giggles at gang rape. Not if there's a suave cat into kittens 'round the corner.

Amazing Spider-Man # 605

Written by Fred Van Lente & Brian Reed

Art by Mike Mayhew, Yanick Paquette, Javier Pulido, Luke Ross & Mark Farmer

Published by Marvel Comics

If there's a worse Amazing Spider-Man cover this year, it'll only be because they're currently printing about seven hundred Amazing Spider-Man comics a month, counting all the fucking variant covers and second printing covers. But it's still gonna be a tough fucking battle, because this is some of the ugliest shit they've smacked on a cover in awhile, and barely any of 2009's Spider-Man comics have had nice covers. You gotta give them some kind of respect for the fact that it's a pretty accurate cover, in that the comic underneath it is 100% fluff, just page after page of the sort of soap opera shit that makes one grasp how difficult it must be to actually write a soap opera, because the twists and contortions of this nonsense are enough to make that cage fight season of the O.C. approach Shakespearean depth in comparison. There's a break for Spider-Man to fight some robot suit people who crowd him the same way all the ladies do, but they eventually decide he's a pretty proper dude. So maybe the message is some kind of bros before hoes, Parker just needs more bros, something like that? Yeah, maybe. Or maybe Parker just needs to get himself into a comic where the writers don't set all the women at the level of "shrill martyr".

Brave and the Bold # 27

Written by J. Michael Straczynksi

Art by Jesus Saiz & Trish Mulvihill

Published by DC Comics

It must be a real pain in the ass to go from working on something like 100 Bullets to this, to have to respond to the question "hey, what are you working on these days" and have the response be "a fucking Brave and the Bold issue where Batman gives his rough approximation of the scene from Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks croaks 'Earn this' while Matt Damon nodded his head". If only this could've been a little bit longer, and they could've included the Straczynski version of the scene where the old man stands in the cemetery going I tried so Hard I did I made babies and paid Taxes I hope that's what you wanted Guy Who Died omigolly Human Life is so precious and america and stuff now i gotta get back to a comic book blog's comment section to argue about health insurance and patriotism holy shit im so fucking valuable look how i use my time

Vengeance of Moon Knight # 1

Written by Gregg Hurwitz

Art by Jerome Opena & Dan Brown

Published by Marvel Comics

What does Moon Knight need vengeance for, exactly? He chooses to dress the way he does, he says things like "I wanna be on Broadway" without anybody putting a gun to his head...all his problems are his own fault, y'know? Does he want vengeance on the general comic book reading audience, who haven't showed up for his adventures in the amount necessary to continue publication of such adventures? He's got a butler, he's rich, he's crazy--what the fuck does he want out of people? For them to forget about Batman, the character who does all the same things Moon Knight does, albeit with less overall shittiness? If anybody deserves vengeance, it's Jerome Opena, because he really should be given better comic characters to illustrate. 

R.E.B.E.L.S. # 8

Written by Tony Bedard

Art by Andy Clarke & Jose Villarrubia

Published by DC Comics

Is there a rulebook somewhere that says that all spaceship stories have to involve some moment where a group of people do something to their ship or themselves that convinces a giant computer (or hive brain) that they are part of the alien overlords? You know, so that they can sneak onto the planet/mother ship and get down to the business of--whatever, fighting alongside muppets to blow up towers, shit like that. "Giving it a virus", like they did in the Jeff Goldblum movie. They should get some amendments to that rulebook, because anything that shows up in Jeff Goldblum movies--The Fly doesn't count, that's a Cronenberg movie--should never get re-used unless Goldblum's involved. Same reason Bret Easton Ellis shouldn't get to write anymore, because Goldblum in Igby Goes Down--that was the kind of Goldblum performance that rendered all future Ellis books moot. And Igby Goes Down wasn't even an Ellis book in the first place! That's the kind of power Goldblum's got. His mark never fades.

Daredevil The List # 1

Written by Andy Diggle

Art by Billy Tan

Published by Marvel Comics

Whereas the last two guys to handle Daredevil started off their run on the character by doing something "unusual" for the character, Andy Diggle's run gets the unhappy blight of having to do the one fucking thing that no comics writer should ever have to do with the character: a Bullseye versus Daredevil throwdown where Bullseye points out that not killing him is tantamount to helping him kill others. It's like giving Batman to somebody and then saying "oh, you gotta do Year One real quick, don't worry, nobody remembers that Miller/Mazzucchelli thing". But that's the hand Diggle got dealt, and he got "tie it into the current status quo" as well, which was the one thing that the Daredevil title hasn't had to do for what, like 200 issues? What's the last tie in thing they did in this comic? Fucking Secret Wars? Hell, they had Daredevil show up in Civil War and the regular comic chugged along just like normal. 

Was nice of Billy to do such a crappy job on art though. It's almost like he's trying to deflect attention from his brother or something.

Batman & Robin # 4

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion

Published by DC Comics

In the last issue, Damian was arguing that it would be more accurate to refer to the comic in which he appears as "Robin & Batman", and considering how ineffectual Batman is in this issue (especially cast against the much more effective, and funnier, Robin) there's some value to that little aside. That's good, that the little things have value, since that turns out to be the only thing memorable about this comic--the little things, like when Grant Morrison does his version of the Geoff Johns Read More Comics Reference by calling out to Frank Miller's All Star Batman. (Hey! Thanks for buying stuff! Let me get you more!) Otherwise, you're just trapped inside a comic where buckets of dark ink have been poured across the page, a dead, black world where Commissioner Gordon sucks his lower jaw inside his mustache and Alfred walks around with the back of his head nailed to something so far off panel that he looks like he's going to ask Eddie if he's okay. It's bad art, sure: that was expected. But it does a neat trick, something that Quitely either obscured or didn't have to deal with in the first three issues: this is another mechanical story about why Batman matters--he doesn't--and it's devoid of joy, lacking in ambition. It's weak, and it's old. Considering where Morrison started--with a hairy chested playboy who fell out of a sky of comic panels so that he could dance with manbat ninjas--that's a pretty sad left turn. Like him or not, the most valuable thing about Morrison's stuff has always been that he wrote comics that nobody else could. Like Ennis, Moore or Miller, you could pick Grant's work out of a blindfolded line-up--good or bad, they were different, they were personal, they were his. Batman and Robin # 4? This?

This could've been written by Bruce Jones.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[david brothers]

Your review of Brave & the Bold reminded me that I've never seen Saving Private Ryan.

"Ask yourself: can you handle this, you masturbating blood soaked comics reader?"

But but but it's that icky manga business with the schoolgirls and speed lines and things! It can't possible be as good as this! It has kirby dots and gore!

[Chris Jones]

That Archie review was one of the funniest things I've read on this site, and that's saying quite a bit.

I gotta say, though, I found the Batman issue to be a pretty wonderful satire. And who else but Grant Morrison would feature a tiny panel with a flesh-eating villain named the Flamingo screaming "EEEIIIII" inside of a private pink jet as it flew along?

[John Pontoon]

Lotsa talking about babymaking this week. If Nina is in a family way, you're leaking the information sideways.

Repo Man's soundtrack is the greatest album ever, right?

[MarkAndrew]

Bruce Jones? The guy who did all that stuff for Warren and some halfway decent Ka-Zar and a Rip in Time with Richard Corben? (Which was, officially, the greatest thing ever.)

I... I don't see where you're going with this. Did Batman have big, beautiful, fuck-off awesome dinosaurs just eating the crap out of everybody?

[Tim O'Neil]

Ann Nocenti worked obligatory Inferno and Acts of Vengeance crossovers into her run. The Acts of Vengeance story - wherein Dr. Doom rebuilds Ultron and sends him to kill Daredevil - as actually one of the highlights of her run. Doom screws up the programming on Ultron and instead of the normal killer robot, his version is a multiple personality robot who tries to build a new religion or something out of his former heads. It was weird-ass shit, but awesome.

[Tim O'Neil]

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5136/163640276.jpg

[Mike]

You could have put a spoiler warning on how babies are made, you know.

[Tucker Stone]

I gotta read those Nocenti Daredevils.

[david brothers]

The Inferno crossover was really good, too. It came right in the middle of the Typhoid Mary stuff, too. It goes from Daredevil completely losing it over Mary and getting thoroughly destroyed to him waking up in a Hell-infected New York City. It feels almost like she planned it.

Two more things about the Inferno arc- one, the next to last issue is a Ditko throwback story that has nothing to do with Inferno. Total inventory story, but a huge "Whoa, what?" when reading.

Second, after Daredevil spends an entire issue fighting demons and having a demon give a Garth Ennis Life Sucks Welcome To New York, You Bastard while Daredevil beats the tar out of him... DD goes to a bar and a guy hands him a beer like "Rough day? Buy you a beer? How about a toast? To New York, greatest city in the world!"

And Daredevil smiles.

Killer comics. Marvel needs to hook up a Nocenti omnibus.

[Sean Witzke]

Hit the nail on the head w/ the B+R review there, Tucker. Dude's going tone deaf.

[Kenny Cather]

"Like Ennis, Moore or Miller, you could pick Grant's work out of a blindfolded line-up--good or bad, they were different, they were personal, they were his."

I would add a few more names to that list - Millar, Ellis, and Gaiman - but yeah, you pretty much hit the point there. There aren't many guys who write comics in a distinct voice.

I didn't know Supergirl was going the cute route. That's *awesome*! It's about time a superhero comic tried something other than over the top drama.

[Abhay]

I'll third that Inferno issue. If I remember it right (which might not be the case), she keeps Daredevil at arm's length, and shifts the POV to bystanders, so it makes the "demons invading New York fighting a guy in a devil costume" premise-- it gives it a little zazz. Plus, JrJr was in my favorite phase of his career around there and that first X-men run-- past the rough early stuff, but much rawer than the stuff now, less pretty.

"it's one of those panels with hearts exploding out of a closed door"

I thought that said *closet* door at first, like the love scene was some kind of kinked-out metaphor. So, now I'm a little disappointed Archie didn't impregnate Veronica inside of a closet. That's how I get to spend my day.

[Matthew J. Brady]

I'm pretty sure Tucker is referring to the Bruce Jones who wrote that awful Hulk run around 2001, and took over Checkmate after Greg Rucka, and probably did some other shitty stuff. And hell, maybe it's the same guy, but Tucker was still referring to the later version of him.

Ha ha ha, that Spider-Man cover is hilarious; at first glance, I thought somebody drew a really fucked-up off-model version of him. Actually, I suppose they did, but on purpose. Also, I get confused because the guy in the heart on the lower right looks like James Franco, but he can't be Harry Osborne, because he's over there on the left with his stupid hair (which, by the way, needs to stop already. Just because Ditko drew it like that back in the 60s doesn't mean you can't make him look like a real human now. And quit with the dumb-ass jokes too. This week's New Avengers has like four different characters calling Norman Osborne "Brillo-head" or some dumb shit like that. Just stop). Is the other guy supposed to be Peter? And I would ask if I should care, but I obviously should not.

[Tucker Stone]

Yeah, that guy Matt's talking about. Did Jones do other, awesome comics that I haven't read--probably. He had some neat tricks in his first few Hulk books too, although I think everybody hated that comic? But he's done nothing but generic let's-get-grungy since.

And that's B&R 4 for me, pretty much. It's a new Azrael vs. Prodigal Punisher Red Hood team-up crossover, and I just don't really give a shit about the Gmo jokes. Damian's still great, I'd read a morrison Damian comic in a second. But the rest can just go away forever. Moore's right in that interview--there's so little newness on the bone in some of these things, and Soldiers, Seaguy--there was newness in those comics. They thrived on it, and it filled me up. Even FC had some choice bits, amass the sea of cliches and navel-gazing Kirby approximations. This--i've read it a hundred times before. It wasn't good when Barry Kitson drew it, and it's not good with Tan drawing it now. I like that Chris likes it. He should, because Chris isn't me, and he's not buried in a stack of Bat-memories of Adams and Aparo that clang across the page everytime he reads one of these things. There's a lot of people that dig this comic, and I'm glad they do. Like--that Archie comic? If you like that, you got fucking problems. You gotta get fucking help if you like that shit, because there's panels in that comic where they actually draw Veronica's eyes sliding off her face.

B&R4? I can get behind digging that. It makes sense to me that people would. I don't. So what?

[Kenny Cather]

About the Moore interview - yes!! He was absolutely right - there is not much new under the sun in superhero comics. Wednesday Comics - I'll admit, I don't get the appeal, but at least Charillo(?) is trying something new by getting interesting people to riff on superhero comics in different ways. (I changed my tune on Wed Comics after talking with Lugh & Matt.) I was sent the FCBD Blackest Night comic with a book I ordered last night and as I was reading it, it just seemed so similar to everything before it. Once you divorce yourself from caring about the characters - I think you do that by not having a clue about current continuity they're referring to - it just reads like a generic "this is bad, this is really, really bad" brooding comic. I read a bunch of those already, I'm bored by those now.

I was telling a friend recently say what you want about the Kirkman/ Larsen school of comics, but at least they're fun and different from everything else out there. Continuity from 25+ issues ago is maybe acknowledged with a wink and a nod, if at all, and the stories just sort of rocket along like the best of the Silver Age.

I could go on about this topic forever....

[Tim O'Neil]

Well, I dunno . . . continuity is actually really thick on the ground in Savage Dragon. I mean, I've been reading since pretty much the series started, and *I* have trouble keeping track of all the different Stars and where Mako was at what point, etc etc.

[JTN]

Much as I love Leinil Yu, the guy sure draws a hell of a lot of guys shooting guns in that same pose.

(I'm only assuming it's Yu doing MK that cover, of course, but... still)

[Kenny Cather]

Hey Tim,

I've only read like 3 issues of Savage Dragon, so I could be all wet on that one. From what I read, I just assumed it was like Invincible in that the book might give a nod towards something from a long time ago, but the vast majority of an issue is concerned with something from maybe 3 issues back. I'm sorry if I'm wrong, I was just trying to find more examples of superhero comics that aren't always mining the past.

[moose n squirrel]

I'll out myself as one of those people who liked the beginning of Bruce Jones's Hulk run. I know, I know, everyone hated it, but it was the last time I can remember it fuck knows how long that the Hulk seemed to have anything remotely to do with anything I recognize as "the Hulk" - a scientist on the run who turns into a big horrible monster when he gets mad, as opposed to a giant Peter David surrogate with muscles, or a big green Conan knock-off. I'll freely admit that his run genuinely turned to shit about a third of the way through - and that might be a generous estimation there.

I think Morrison needs to take a break, quit in-continuity superhero comics for a while - or maybe just quit them, period - and get back to the kind of good, weird shit he was putting out earlier in the decade. Seaguy and The Filth are still two of my favorite comics, and I'd like to think he can still produce more like that.

[Chris Jones]

Tucker, tell me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that I like Batman and Robin #4 because I have nothing better to compare it to?

Also, I don't think anyone got offended that you didn't like the issue. Hell, if I got offended every time I disagreed with you on something I'd never, ever come to this site because I'd just constantly be furious. I come here because you're ridiculously funny and, when it's your aim to be so, insightful. I actually LIKED the first issue of Mighty Avengers when it came out and your review for it literally had me laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe.

Maybe some buttmunch will come around every now and again to complain about your opinions, but I don't think any of them were in this thread. Least of all myself.

[Tucker Stone]

Chris--no, i thought about how that comment sounded later. No, not at all. The general rule with me is that saying "something was better before, people should read that" is sort of akin to old people complaining about how things were cheaper, or marching-in-snow-to-school. It's retarded bullshit, means nothing.

What I meant, or intended to mean without writing it, is that there's a general difference in the way somebody who hasn't just inhaled years and years of Batman comics (good/bad/banal) and somebody, like you, who hasn't. It's not that I know more--I don't--it's that I've just eaten more hot dogs, and there's not a lot of flavors of hot dogs in the first place. Some people are going to say that they view B&R as an independent comic that exists right now with no other gods before it, that they don't compare it to other stuff. Maybe they can pull that off? I find that's sort of a lie. I come at B&R having grown up with Morrison comics, having read more Batman than I have any other character/comic.

The whole "whether you're offended or not"--nah, i don't give a shit about any of that. People who get offended because of disagreements with reviews--those people are fucking space case morons, they should all be drowned in a bucket of water in front of their parents. In front of their spouses, parents and children if it's because of reviews on the internet.

[Sharif]

Are Billy and Phillip Tan really related? I'd wondered about that before. I guess there's a shitty art gene.

[Jonathan L. Switzer]

Not that it's worth anything, but twenty seconds on Wikipedia says no. According to the unreliable hivemind, Philip Tan is from the Philipines, while Billy Tan is from Malaysia.

[Sharif]

Close enough