Comics Of The Weak: Where We're More Irritated And Less Funny Than Usual

Foolkiller # 2
Written by Gregg Hurwitz
Art by Lan Medina
Published by Marvel Comics

Shawn Ryan, the guy who created and pretty much controls the Shield tv show, said he'd always heard that the way to start a good tv show was to start on the 3rd episode.  Don't dick around with origins and introductions, just dive in and see if your work is good enough to stand on it's own.  He's on to something there--and it showed in the second season, when Ryan wrote a hideously boring flashback episode and "introduced" people that viewers had gotten to know the interesting way: by watching them be the people they are, not the people a writer had described in a short paragraph on the same page where he tells you what color the closet is going to be.  That's what scripts look like, most of the time--a character "description" or "bio" is a few sentences long--and they're not Chekhovian sentences, either.  Origins and backstories, in television and comics, are usually pretty dull slogs.  Foolkiller didn't earn this readers love with it's first issue, which was pretty much non-stop gore, but we were curious enough to come back and see what happened next.  Surprisingly, Hurwitz played what looked like the only trump card he had--instead of maintaining the creepy anonymity of his hellishly disgusting vigilante, he went ahead and spent the entire issue filling the reader in on the guys history.  Basically, he was a punk kid who's dad said "fool" a lot, helped get himself fatherless by shoplifting an issue of Omega The Unknown from a crazy pawnbroker, and then went on to...yeah, you don't really care, do you?  But if your comic reading time was devoid of moments where sweet old ladies crashed into schoolbuses, than maybe you should.

Marvel Zombies # 2
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Sean Phillips & June Chung
Published by Marvel Comics

The difference between the two Marvel Zombies series, so far, boils down to the difference between the Zombie Spider-Man.  In the first series, he was a source of hilarity, as he was constantly weeping and freaking out because he'd eaten his wife Mary Jane and his dear Aunt May.  In the second series, he explains why he makes jokes all the time and tries to convince his fellow zombies that they should stop behaving like, y'know, zombies.  Even though they are FUCKING ZOMBIES.  It would seem to be that part of the reason the first Marvel Zombies series was successful was because it wasn't, basically, exactly like all the other random bullshit that Marvel does.  It stands to reason that if you want to keep collecting that free Zombie money, that maybe you shouldn't turn the sequel into something that's of no real difference from comics not featuring zombies.  Of course, this office is just full of people bored as shit by this poorly imagined nonsense, so what the fuck would we know?

Batman & The Outsiders # 2
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Carlos Rodriguez & Bit
Published by DC Comics

Chuck Dixon, boring comics writer, a continuation:  one of Chuck Dixon's greatest, or worst skills, is that he writes really fast, and he makes sure to partner up with artists who've gone ahead and guessed what version of the 3 or 4 stories he's going to script are going to be, so that way he can put out somewhere around 16,000 books a year.  It's really amazing, if you like your comics to be sort of like water that's been strained through oatmeal and then treated like a protein supplement.  As in boring, as in that made sense.  That way, when you get finished reading one boring ass Chuck Dixon book, you read another one almost immediately, and then another, and at the end of the month you've probably spent about 37 dollars on comics that Chuck Dixon wrote, and even though you didn't like them, any of them, you feel like people are going to think you're a chump for spending 37 bucks on something you knew was going to suck in the first place, so you pretend that you liked them, or maybe you even pretend that you loved them.  Here's the truth:  people probably think you're a chump already, and it's not so much because of the comics thing, but because of the way you dress and your physical appearance.  Did you think that was all just in high school?  Cause it's not.  That's right, if you're a pretty girl, or a guy with a great body, than people will pretend they think it's awesome that you read comics.  They'll probably ask to come over and read comics with you, or go down on you while you're reviewing them on the internet.  You'll also make more money at your job, while making ugly people do most of the work for you, because people like being around attractive people.  It's a fact!

In other words, if people tell you that you wasted money on crappy comics by Chuck Dixon, it's because you have a gross body.

Deathblow # 8
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Carlos D'Anda
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

The best part is where the Osama Bin Laden Dinosaur (you read that write) talks about friends and dreams where dudes grow boobs.  The worst part was in the next issue box, where it said "To Be Concluded."  Nice job, asshole comics buyers.  You could've had a comic book where the main character goes to war against the government with the support of an army of stray dogs while trying to avoid an Osama Bin Laden Dinosaur, but instead you bought Sinestro Corps.  In the future, when you're reading the next issue of Countdown, and it sucks, remember that you voted with your dollars, and you voted for shit.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes # 36
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Dennis Calero
Published by DC Comics

Next month, Jim Shooter takes over the Legion title, it ditches the "Supergirl and" moniker, and a replacement for Dennis Calero shows up.  Considering how dismal the recent Tony Bedard issues of this title have been, it's not going to take very much for Shooter to seem great by comparison.  Thankfully, Bedard leaves the way he came in--a boring ass comic book, with ugly art and zero value whatsoever.  It would have been upsetting if all of a sudden, for his final issue, he dropped some Burial type action and made this glorified Johnny DC book something cool.  This guy's writing is best suited for cheaply made cartoons, and Calero's art is best suited as something he should apply to Real Estate brochures. 

Gotham Underground # 2
Written by Frank Tieri
Art by J. Calafiore & Jack Purcell
Published by DC Comics

The first issue was terrible, nearly unreadable.  So why stick it out?  Why come back for more? 

Hey, why not?  After all, this is the book that apparently is going to bow to the (somewhat just) feminist outcry and bring back the Spoiler, just to prove to everybody once and for all how incredibly irritating that character was, hopefully starting a thousand soul-crushing blogfights.  Besides, considering how incredibly violent Frank Tieri's work is on the Extremists mini-series, there's always the possibility that Robin is going to get a harpoon shoved through his rectum--something that would also have the effect of crashing the server that maintains the DC Comics message board.  After all, they've got another big DC revamp/reboot coming, meaning this book has the potential to be the hotspot where really bad ideas happen.  Sadly, that wasn't the case in this one, as absolutely nothing happened.  There was some talking, and Bruce Wayne got in some fights in prison, a place where one imagines it might be somewhat difficult for him to keep his fake mustache on.  (Wouldn't they have taken away your spirit gum when you were processed?  How is that mustache staying on?)

Madman Atomic Comics # 5
Story and Art by Michael Allred
Colors and Seperations by Laura Allred
Published by Image Comics

The biggest problem with Madman has always been that Michael Allred doesn't really seem to have much of a story to tell with it.  It's a comic that succeeds because of the two things he does really well--drawing and nostalgia.  In a lot of ways, Michael Allred's star has probably faded most because of the emergence of Darwyn Cooke---in more ways than one, both men are very similar artists, but Allred's best writing can't compare to Cooke's.  Case in point--Allred's recent Madman comic has reached five issues now, and after the Existentialism 101 issue, and the "All My Favorite Cartoonists Get Swiped" issue, Allred reveals that it was all leading up to the umpteenth comic book version of a science fiction protect-an-alien-race story.  Although the comic looks better than the rest, in no small part due to Laura Allred's color work and Michael's always strong inks, the story is a dismal retread of the type of stuff that, honestly, gets told far better in Marvel's comics. 

Batman # 671
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tony Daniel & Jonathan Glapion
Published by DC Comics

There's moments of interest here--a knockdown fight between Batman and a really, really old man that sees Bats taking the kind of damage that should probably kill him, coupled with Morrison's complete neutering of the Dini written cliffhanger that closed last weeks Detective issue--although it's absurd to think it wasn't planned out, the complete lack of urgency or fear in Batman's response to the threat of "Either Robin or Damian dies--and now you must choose!" was superb.  When it comes to clashing writing styles, Morrison's don't-care-if-anybody-likes-this versus Dini's please-buy-my-shitty-Countdown-book may make this current Batman cross-over story more interesting than it sounds on the page.  Still, the book suffers the same flaw all of these Ras Al Ghul books have--low rent art from guys who are on the Wildstorm payscale.  If this story is really as important as DC seems to want everybody to believe, they should really start pulling in some A-list talent for the pencils.  All of this shit, so far, belongs in comics like Blue Beetle and, oh yeah, Countdown.

Countdown Presents: Lord Havok & The Extremists # 2
Written by Frank Tieri
Art by Liam Sharp & Rob Hunter
Published by DC Comics

Whereas the first issue of this series was practically dripping in blood, this months is a little more economic, preferring the gore to share page counts with an incredibly large set of breasts.  Unsurprisingly, lots of blood and some cleavage shots don't do much to increase the readability of the book--what seemed vaguely interesting at first has turned into yet another shitty book connected to the 52/Countdown series, complete with pages where the art looks not only unfinished, but gratefully so.  (Because if you can call it "unfinished," than you don't have to deal with how ugly it would've been if Sharp & Hunter had enough time to, you know, do their fucking job.)  Still, there's no good reason to come down to hard on the art team--after all, they are the one's who have to suffer the horror and indignity of reading this piece of shit in script format.

The Authority Prime # 2
Written by Christos Gage
Art by Darick Robertson
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

Okay, really?  The first issue of Authority Prime was page after page of fighting.  Then, on the last page, it implied that the next issue was going to be more fighting.  So here's the second issue--and it's page after page of fighting.  And then it ends, and on the last page, there's the implication of MORE FIGHTING.  There's even a line where somebody says "The motherfucking gloves are OFF." 

Seriously?  This is just weird.  If this entire series is like this, it might be the greatest mini-series ever. 

Green Lantern Corps # 18
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason, Jamal Igle, Prentis Rollins & Jerry Ordway
Published by DC Comics

Finally, a comic that reads better (but nowhere near good) in issues than in trade.  Because when they start publishing this Sinestro Corps series in a collected edition, and every freak show Green Lantern fan starts telling people who are ignoring it how good it is, and those easily manipulatable people pick up this sack of trash, they're going to read one of the single most drawn out boring as shit "epic" comic stories ever.  This will be the chapter lovingly referred to as 22 pages of two characters absolutely nobody cares about getting nosebleeds from hitting each other, with occasional breaks to reveal yet another origin story you weren't interested in learning. 

Daredevil # 102
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark & Stefano Gaudiano
Published by Marvel Comics

We like Brubaker around here, we really do.  But we're not sure we like his Daredevil anymore.  After a pretty great series of stories following the Bendis saga, and then an even better European story with Matt roaming France and getting dogged for his accent, things seem to go more and more south with each issue.  (Excepting Michael Lark, who's as great as he was on Gotham Central.)  This month, we catch another one of those "I used to be a joke" super-villains from 60's comics getting a dull revamp where he shows the reader how he's a total badass now, and is like, you know, the worst threat anybody ever has faced.  And once again, he has one of those plans to destroy Daredevil that doesn't involve killing him, but involves some really long involved process of breaking him down emotionally.  If there's one thing that doesn't bode for an exciting can't-wait-to-see-what-happens-next mindset, it's a comic about somebody hiding with prostitutes in a hotel room plotting to destroy somebody emotionally.  Correct us if we're wrong, but there aren't too many Sherlock Holmes stories where he sat around crying onto Watson's shoulder, terrified of "being destroyed emotionally."  As Dinosaur Comics genius Ryan North puts it, "Feelings are boring.  Kissing is awesome."

X-Men # 205
Written by Mike Carey
Art by Chris Bachalo & Tim Townsend
Published by Marvel Comics

X-Men?  Here?  The Factual felt some obligation to check on the selling-pretty-well X-Men cross-over storyline "Messiah Complex."  Not so much because we thought there was any chance we'd enjoy it, as enjoying the X-Men and any other comic books requires an investment of time that doesn't leave much left over for things like sex or eating.  Mostly because it exists, and some talented people are involved, and who knows--it can't be as bad as the Legion of Super-Heroes. 

Here's the thing though--it's impossible to tell if it's as bad as the Legion of Super-Heroes.  Because it's got a cast of about 900 characters, and it's got a lot of talking, and it's got something to do with that Scarlet Witch stuff from last year, and it's got Cable, who never really made any sense anyway.  On the merit of a stand alone comic, some parts of this made sense, and Bachalo's art is something we have more than a fair attraction for.  But this is clearly porn for longtime X-Men fans--anybody else is going to feel like a Cub Scout at a NAMBLA meeting.

Dan Dare # 1
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Gary Erskine
Published by Virgin Comics

Dan Dare is some kind of old school British character that's been tried in comics before, and hasn't succeeded.  This being the new Virgin Comics line, something started by oddball billionaire Richard Branson and his sidekick, Deepak Chopra, it's blessed with a big-name writer who's probably being paid far more than he gets for spandex material.  (We realize we're late to the game on Virgin Comics, but the prospect of reading that comic Nicholas Cage writes hasn't been an interesting one.)  The comic itself has Gary Erskine for the art, a choice that isn't exactly a pleasant one for this reader, as we're not part of the group that finds his art either attractive or compelling.  Warren Ellis likes him too, and no one at the Factual Office has ever figured out why--the only way to tell his characters apart is by their hair color, and even then it's more of a gamble based off the word balloons.  Either way, the story gives Ennis the opportunity to write those stiff upper lip British military men that he likes so much, but it's also got aliens and spaceships, so it's not exactly what anybody here was looking for anyway.

All Star Batman & Robin # 8
Written by Frank Miller
Art by Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Published by DC Comics

After a lot of disjointed nonsense, Miller & Lee seem to have figured out what they want to with this book, and although the official announcement seems to be that the All Star line will be shut down in the next year or so, this comic has actually become somewhat rewarding.  It's not as funny as The Boys, another title that likes calling super-heroes "retards," but it has it's on merits as well.  The major one is appearance--never has satire looked so much like what it's mocking.  Jim Lee's work on this book stands alongside his X-Men and WildCats art, making All Star Batman the most super-heroic fuck-you-super-heroes book ever.  It's still pretty much like a long-form version of Grant Morrison's Punisher War Journal parody, but now that Miller has started to include characters like Green Lantern (the "retard" previously mentioned) it might turn into a long form version of Grant Morrison's X-Force parody.  A Batman book that's basically a big joke may not be a necessary read, but it's at least a reliable antidote to the irritating level of gravity currently given to DC's Countdown spin-offs.  If this reader is going to have to pretend he cares about Big Barda dying in a kitchen for the sake of a larger story, than the least that DC can provide is a Joker with a full yakuza tattoo across his back.

Ultimate Spider-Man # 116
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen & Wade von Grawbadger
Published by Marvel Comics

Admirably consistent, Ultimate Spider-Man finally pulls out of the slump it's been in with a strong chapter in the hopefully-aptly-named "Death of a Goblin" storyline.  It would be nice if Bendis finally puts to bed his longest running Spider-villain, as this is a title that is at it's best when it's moving at a brisk pace and not dwelling on history.  If the regular Spider books can teach any writer something, it's that trying to maintain a connection to continuity over an extended period of time doesn't make for an enjoyable comic, and on top of that, it breeds crazy fans.  Part of what makes Ultimate Spider-Man so consistently entertaining is that it's one of the few super-hero titles that can be read completely on it's own--and one doesn't really need to keep up with it to do so.  Each little arc is pretty much stand alone, with just enough narrative connection and continuity to keep the interest of your standard buy-every-month comic reader.  The only major change, the addition of Stuart Immonen, hasn't slowed the book down at all--this comic remains the only real reason to continue the Ultimate Marvel universe.  Hopefully, whatever plans Jeph Loeb has in the coming months won't affect this title, as his recent work has proven him incapable of writing anything of this caliber for Marvel.

-Tucker Stone, 2007

Comments

[Lambo]

I never thought I would long for the days of Andy Kubert back on Batman, but Tony Daniel has made that a sad reality.

[bizarro]

"most super-heroic fuck-you-super-heroes book ever"

Still not as good or as good looking as Wanted.

[ew]

"It's still pretty much like a long-form version of Grant Morrison's Punisher War Journal parody"

What? What comic was this published in? Sounds hilarious.

[Dan Coyle]

Actually, I think he might be talking about the Tom Veitch "Penalizer" parody during Tom Veitch's run in Animal Man.

[Tucker Stone]

Grant Morrison parodied Punisher War Journal in the Doom Patrol, in an issue about the "Beardhunter" and later parodied Liefeld's X-Force in a one shot called "Doom Force."

Although Veitch's Penalizer was pretty great, that's not the one i was thinking of.

Track down that Beardhunter issue--it's in trade, but it's also just a cheap back issue. It's genius. Doom Force ain't as good, but it's worth the eyeballs.

[Daniel Mata]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's reading Deathblow! Man, I hate comic fans.

[Dan Coyle]

I have Doom Force. It kind of amazed me in its hatred of Claremont tropes, but it was hate laced with love.

Speaking as a fellow Chuck Dixon hata, I think the dumbass writer in the Penalizer issues was meant to be Dixon, don't you?

[Tucker Stone]

I think it's probable--but less explicitly so, as Chuck Dixon's body of work is, for the most part, just so godddamn bland that even satirizing it is going to be difficult. Veitch is a pretty bright dude, and I imagine that if he wanted to write like Chuck Dixon he'd need to take a bunch of horse tranqs, drink a gallon of JB and start typing.

[kenfo shizzle]

Your insults make so sense.