Loveless # 21
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Werther Dell'Edera
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics
As was hinted at in previous issues, Azzarello closes the door on what looks to be all his previous main characters with this issue, courtesy of a blood-heavy slaughter brought about by Ruth Cutter, who also serves to be the only regular character to have survived since the first issue of this title. However, against what has to be all-publishing logic, Loveless still has another issue coming. That's not a criticism--it's just an acknowledgment of the simple truth that A) Nobody seems to be reading this title and B) Nobody at DC Comics is attempting to attract anyone to reading it. Up until this week, Loveless was what the Factual called the best Western comic in a long ass time, but this week we found out we were assholes for not reading Jonah Hex, and Loveless subsequently lost the title spot. Fuck it, it's still number two.
The New Avengers # 37
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Lenil Yu & Dave McCaig
Published by Marvel Comics
Sometimes the facts creep up on you slowly. You read on the internet that nothing is happening in New Avengers, but you read it and you find it pretty much the same, and you figure everybody is just a fanboy asshole who cares way too much about what happens to meaningless characters like Tigra and Jessica Drew. Then you wake up, read the latest issue of New Avengers and realize Holy Shit Nothing Really Is Happening this is really FUCKING BORING. Seriously--page after page of confusingly drawn fight scenes told in flashback, yet another nail in the massive coffin that is Spider-Man making stupid fucking jokes and shitting his tight pants because Wolverine smiles--same fucking joke, same fucking joke, GOT IT. At points like these, someone should probably pat Stevemyers112 and MamaLovesDeathstroke at the various forums out there and say "gee you were right all along" but fuck those assholes, anybody who likes Tigra is a dirty baby-raper. New Avengers for the Win in the Jerk-Off-A-Thon. Eat it, Creampuff973.
Ultimate Iron Man II # 1
Written by Orson Scott Card
Art by Pasqual Ferry
Published by Marvel Comics
Orson Scott Card writes a lot of really sleazy horseshit novels about planets going to war against people for the spice, or something like that about dragons or whatever. Who gives a shit. The only thing that's really awesome about pulp science fiction and fantasy books is that it's even dorkier of a hobby than it is to read about the motherfucking Green Lantern, a fact that helps comic fans to still get it up enough to screw hookers. For whatever reason, Marvel seems to think that the best way to cater to the lamest fans on the planet is to combine two things that are very nearly the most extremist nerd things on the planet (numbers one and two being Dr. Who and Star Fucking Trek,) in this case being convoluted talk-heavy comic books and Orson Scott I'm A Dirty Scatmuncher Card. It's been a few months or years since Orson's last Ultimate Iron Man mini-series, so it's understandable that it needs a bit of exposition to get going--unfortunately, that exposition reminds you that the first Ultimate Iron Man series was just really weird and stupid, and not in a way that made it funny or worth the time. Just dumb shit about a blue baby and the idea that Tony Stark's entire body was his brain. (Even though he still looks like a fey Tom Selleck.) This issue was pretty much more of that same tired bullshit, although it tried really hard to insert as many sequences of groan-inducing science dialog as possible while still having room for Pasqual Ferry to draw robots who will kill anything...but 12 year old wannabe suicide bombers.
The Boys # 13
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Darick Robertson & Peter Snejbjerg
Published by Dynamite Entertainment
Well, gods be damned immemorially. It looks like Garth Ennis might have foolishly taken advice from somebody who doesn't like The Boys, because instead of being all gross and line-treading with the humor and violence, he wrote an issue that was way too plot heavy (meaning peeps talk too much) and ended up turning out an issue of The Boys that, unlike the first 12, was boring as hell. Excepting a couple of throw-away jokes, one of which involved a man masturbating at a female wheelchair race, this was just page after page of one of those "whoops, better throw in some dialog to give this bitch of a story some kind of gravity" comic books. Whereas that's totally expected on books by Bendis, who's been known to write an entire comic about a side-characters therapy session, Garth Ennis usually lets the action tell the story. He tried on another shoe this time--shit didn't fit.
Punisher War Journal # 14
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Scott Wegener
Published by Marvel Comics
Much like The Boys, this week turned out to be the one where the funny guys in the classroom tried to throw together a book report at the last minute--Fraction's War Journal dispensed with the clever, and got involved with trying to tell tales. Also like the Boys, this comic still had it's moments--the Vulture explaining to the semi-retarded Rhino that he couldn't help escape because their captor kept breaking his hands was pretty hilarious shit, but Matt screwed up the one thing Punisher writers always screw up: nobody wants to read about the Punisher figuring shit out for 22 pages. If you're reading Punisher, the regular grind-up is something like 9% thinking, 91% killing shit. This be too much figuring. Still, Wegener's a fine little artist, and he's a welcome addition to the title. And it looks like the Vulture and his broken digits survived the issue, so if he's here next month, we'll be there too. Rock on, you 47 year old comic book villain, in your stupid outfit that looks like a North Face parka made out of spandex.
Wolverine # 60
Written by David Guggenheim
Art by Howard Chaykin & Arthur Suydam
Published by Marvel Comics
We thought we were done with Wolverine, but the cover begged for a chance. Literally. Wolverine, shoving his claws into somebodies head, with the strangest "oh shit i'm sorry" look he's ever had. One look inside, and this is one that's impossible to leave on the shelf--Howard Chaykin interiors? Wolverine's jaw line a full 7 inches encircling his head, which had the unintentional (intentional?) effect of making him look like he was wearing a barbell as a necktie? Wolverine fighting ninjas in a Japanese toy store? It's like the late 80's all over again! In a bad way! There is a good way, it's called listening to New Order.
Why is it that a character like Wolverine, that makes so much money for Marvel, shows up in something like 20 to 30 titles a month, comes across as totally unreadable in his solo title? Also answer this question for Superman. And Spider-Man. (Batman has Grant Morrison, so he skates on technicality.)
Green Lantern # 25
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis, Ethan Van Sciver, Oclair Albert & Julio Ferreira
Published by DC Comics
There's so much here that's irritating, complicated, and ridiculous. Where to start? The opening pages of aerial fisticuffs? The uncomfortable notion that somewhere, some comics fans are excited by the concept of Indigo Lanterns? The four separate conversations revolving around how "brave" Hal Jordan's idiotic, suicidal family are? (If there's a volcano erupting outside your house, do you evacuate? Yes. Does sticking around make you courageous? No, it makes you a really shitty parent, and a stupid fucking moron to boot.) The multiple times that a bad guy is "killed" by some unstoppable "killing" force? Or how about the closing advertisement for a Zombie Lantern force, scheduled for 2009?
Here's the thing about fads--they don't last. Are people still going to be wetting their pants for zombies in 2009? Well, maybe they will be--but it's about as likely as people collecting pogs again. Remember pogs? Green Lantern storylines about zombies are like pogs. Pogs are milk caps. Geoff Johns is a milk cap.
B.P.R.D. Killing Ground # 5
Written by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis
Published by Dark Horse Comics
It's pretty much been made clear here that we're all big supporters of the animal that is the B.P.R.D. series, but this week that's been especially clear. In part due to the series itself, but mostly due to finding some old Vertigo work by Guy Davis that was actually really unattractive. Published back in the early 90's, it's clear now that it was the work of a guy who hadn't fully grasped onto what he could do really well, and so he was attempting to do pretty much everything. Make no mistake, his style in B.P.R.D. is never going to be marquee work--not because it doesn't deserve to be, but because A) the guys who do really great art criticism don't, and probably won't, read B.P.R.D. and B) the people who think Ed Benes and Greg Land are the Mozarts of drawing will never pick up this book either. When you don't get love from the art-nerds, and you don't get love from comics-nerds, it's a bit tough for your name to get bandied about by anybody other than guys who really want to call Mr. Fantastic "faggy" without being thought a bigot. (Hey! I'm talking about me!) Either way: B.P.R.D. is to Green Lantern what No Country For Old Men is to Transformers. Meaning one is really fucking great, and the other one is pornography for people who are too prudish for Skinemax.
Nightwing # 139
Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Don Kramer, Carlos Rodriguez, Wayne Faucher & Bit
Published by DC Comics
Well, we've learned our lesson. It's racist to make fun of the name Bit. Moving on. Once again, Nightwing proves that there's ways for it not be one of the worst things on the planet: it just has to be sort of about Batman and everything goes fine. Marv Wolfman and Bruce Jones will tell you that it's the Nightwing character itself that makes the book so bad, but both those guys were total chumps who wrote for shit when they were in charge of the book, so fuck them, and fuck their lies. Fabian Nicieza even pulled off a little bit of heartstring tugging at the end, and as far as anyone around the office knew, Jeph Loeb had singed off every heartstring we had left. This cross-over still blows so far, but it's certainly made Nightwing far more readable than it has been in...holy shit. 6 years? That's a long goddamn time.
Green Lantern Corps # 19
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason, Prentis Rollins, Derek Fridolfs, Tom Nguyen, Drew Geraci, Dan Davis & Rebecca Buchman
Published by DC Comics
If you're going to publish a boring, emotion heavy epilogue to a big event cross-over comic, and you're not even going to attempt to get consistent art in it, and it's only going to feature characters for a few pages at a time, then you know what? That shit should be free. Still, for all the douchebag comic fans out there who wanted to see Guy Gardner kiss his ex-girlfriend who's been raised from the dead, here you go. It cost 3 dollars.
Ghost Rider # 18
Written by Daniel Way
Art by Javiar Saltares & Tom Palmer
Published by Marvel Comics
It's sort of amazing how much this comic is starting to read like "What if Ghost Rider was more like Hellblazer without all that unnecessary plot shit?" The answer being--pretty much just like this. The beginning of this series had been pretty fun stuff, just a non-stop road trip of slaughter and nasty jokes--now, the 2007 death knell of so bad it's good comics has sounded, and it sounds like an editor saying "give me a bigger plot." Which, as Ghost Rider is a character solely designed to succeed or fail based on the readers appreciation for his appearance, means the comic crumples pretty rapidly. There's just know way to make this kind of shit deep. He's a skeleton. He's on fire. He drives a motorcycle. You can't put anything else on that kind of foundation. That's it. That's all you have. Making him an angel? Making him a revolutionary angel? Drawing his skull as if it can somehow show emotion? Sorry, you just lost me. It's a skull. Skulls can't show emotion. You need skin, at least a little bit, to show emotion. It's a skull.
Green Arrow & Black Canary # 3
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Cliff Chiang
Published by DC Comics
Here's some truth for you: the amount with which people talk shit about Judd Winick is completely out of proportion to the quality of his work. Judd ain't Elmore Leonard, no one's arguing that, he's more of a Lawrence Block. Or a less retarded Sue Grafton. (She's the jackass that wrote A for Alibi and then Kept Fucking Going.) But if you spend anytime on the internet, there's two places (unmentioned here) to go where all signs will point that A) Judd Winick is raping and killing coeds in his basement and B) that Green Arrow comics are the equivalent of John Wayne beating the holy living shit out of Grace Kelly in a black box performance of Streetcar Named Desire. (The funny thing about that is that if Judd Winick really was a bloodthirsty misogynist, with a mouth flecked with the saliva of the truly perverse, his comics would probably be astonishingly more interesting to read. Look at Dave Sim--that guys a total fucking crackpot, hates the shit out of some women, and Cerberus wipes the floor with Green Arrow. Seriously, Sim's a dirty handjob who hates vagina. Yet Cerberus is still kind of = dope, L.S.A.T. style.)
Either way, it looks like Judd Winick was hanging out with Garth Ennis while reading online complaints about their work--unlike Garth though, who took bad advice and tried to make The Boys serious, Judd just got really gawd-awful pissed and said Fuck. All. Y'all. Then he ended his whole Green Arrow hanging out with Amazons story arc by shooting the other Green Arrow (the gay one) in the chest. The only thing that could've made that better would've been if the blood had pooled on the deck (they were on a boat) all Terminator 2 mercury style into the phrase "I hate all you goddamn fanboys." Then this comic would've gone right on the shelf next to that old copy of High Society where the schoolgirls go to Lesbian Training Camp. (The brunette doesn't know how to behave, but luckily, they still have spankings there.)
-Tucker Stone, 2007
RE: Green Latern & Zombies
They had newly-made Marvel Pogs in a Target I've been to in the past year. I remember them! And I remember thinking, as I do now, that making new Pogs is a stupid way to try and make some cash.
I suppose (or hope) that any non-Boom Studios zombie comics in the coming years will start to look as stupid and desperate for cash as new Pogs.
Posted by: Brian | 2007.12.18 at 21:49
yo pussy, whats up. Hope you had a nice pussy xmas in pussy land (actually, thats sounds good.) okay...
I don't know anyone who reads or ever read Loveless. Seems obvious some titles are being put out to put money in the pocket of a favored writer.
Thought the Boys 13 was fun, nice to have the plot actually move forward. Didn't you complain at some point that it was moving too slow as a title? Maybe that was someone with taste.
Oppoisite view on Wolvie 60. Enjoyed it, thought the cover was awful.
Nightwing, right on.
You're being way too tough on Ghost Rider. Stop beating it like ur balls.
That's it, fuck you, peace out.
Posted by: ken the men | 2007.12.26 at 17:13