Comics Of The Weak: Just A Quick Rundown Of Stuff No One Likes

Madman Atomic Comics # 8
Written by Michael Allred
Art by Laura Allred
Published by Image Comics

Maybe the reason this comic is so weird is because it is just really stupid ideas drawn well, or maybe Michael and Laura Allred are creating some kind of genius-level subliminal Mormon recruitment comic, and all of this boring, kitschy retreading of stuff done a million times better in Kirby's Challenger of The Unknown by way of Drake's Doom Patrol is actually doing heavy duty subversive brainwashing, and some percentage of the readers of the Madman Atomic Slumber Festival are going to wake up and realize all of their loneliness and depression can be relieved by hanging out with Joseph "I Was A Convicted Grifter" Smith and his here's-where-it-gets-awesome "Magic Plates."  Nobody would believe it with these recent issues as evidence, but Allred's Madman used to be 10 pounds of shit-ton fun in a 2 pound sack.  Now it's just a big pile of whatever was left on the wall after a late-night bender watching Coed Confidential.

The Mighty Avengers # 8
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez & Victor Olazaba
Published by Marvel Comics

If you weren't reading Mighty Avengers because it was so far behind New Avengers, then you can start picking up the book again, as it's relatively caught up with it's sister book.  If you weren't reading Mighty Avengers because you were sick and tired of watching people have a line of dialog, a line of thought bubbles following the dialog explaining the emotion behind the dialog, then another line of dialog, and so on, then keep not reading it.  This book is probably going to stay on the shelves for as long as Bendis feels like writing it, but whatever purpose it was supposed to serve has been completely overshadowed by how terribly boring the whole thing is.  While a lot of comics get away with being this obnoxious because they're about popular characters that super-hero readers want to keep up with, the Mighty Avengers has Iron Man leading a team made up of a Iron Man and...Wonder Man.  While there's certainly some totally awesome stories to be told with Wonder Man, they would've required having Thomas Pynchon or Alfred Hitchcock on the Marvel payroll, and that shit ain't ever gonna happen.

Captain America # 34
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Steve Epting & Butch Guice
Published by Marvel Comics

Well, if you're aren't sold on Brubaker's Captain America work after reading about the villains plot for the destruction of America, then you're probably never going to enjoy anything that happens in this comic.  As dastardly plots go, this was a pretty clever combination of classic comic villainy (brainwashed soldiers) and Brubaker nastiness (have the brainwashed soldiers shoot unarmed protesters in front of the media).  Using the sub-prime lending scandal as a backdrop, Brubaker's pulled off a nice twist to set his new Captain America (who also apparently premiered in this issue) on the road to standing in front of a tattered flag outside a burning building.  Hopefully, we'll also get a good old fashioned speech out of future issues.  As it was, this one had some great villainy, some people get shot in the kneecaps, and reminded everyone that, sobriety notwithstanding, Iron Man is a silly old drunk who shouldn't be in charge of national security.

Daredevil # 104
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Michael Lark, Paul Azaceta, Tom Palmer & Stefano Gaudiano
Published by Marvel Comics

Brubaker was smart to have this issue of Daredevil sneak out on the same day of the new Captain America--because this was some nasty, violent business, and while it's in line with what he's been doing in Daredevil, it certainly would've (and still will) ruffle some feathers.  Consisting of some straight up murder and some intense torture (both delivered at the hands of two of the comic's "good guys",) Daredevil 104 continues the downward spiral that Brubaker's put the book's characters into.  He's spent the last few years at Marvel proving that, if nothing else, the dude plans ahead, and while it's doubtful that Daredevil is going to start eating flesh or raping coeds anytime soon, Marvel has given this guy a free hand to do as he pleases--and right now, what pleases him is presenting Daredevil as a comic book character that makes Batman look about as intimidating as that guy on American Idol who had never kissed a girl.  (He said it was because he promised his dad that he wouldn't.  The Factual thinks it's because he doesn't have time to kiss girls because he's too busy slicing them up in a basement hideaway.)

The Spirit # 13
Written by Glen David Gold, Dennis O'Neill, Gail Simone
Art by Eduardo Risso, Ty Templeton, Phil Hester & Andre Parks
Published By DC Comics

An interesting collection of talent brought on board to fill in while the new Spirit team gets their ducks in rows--Gold is an author of some talent, married to another author completely lacking in any, Dennis O'Neill carries a list of credits that stretches back to when Batman was married, and Gail Simone has a fanbase who would buy her garbage if she'd put it on Ebay.  Art wise, it's a collection of pretty standard DC mainstays.  All in all, it's another anthology issue, which is exactly what the Spirit is best represented by--still, there's been no real reason why any of the stories that people are using this character to tell couldn't be just as easily told with any non-powered crimefighter book.  Whatever.  They'll probably keep this running until the sure-to-be-terrible Frank Miller movie comes out.  It'll keep being a tolerable comic book that's a little too in love with nostalgia, designed to sell to people who should probably man up and just buy (and read) the old Eisner version. 

Crickets # 2
Story & Art by Sammy Harkham
Published by Drawn & Quarterly

Most of the time, the Factual's Librarian (yes, she wears cats eye glasses and white business shirts) keeps the most recent issues of the Weak In Comics on hand for easy reference, which helps when a comic is densely plotted, like Rucka's Checkmate, or when the comic is undigestably awful, so it can make it's way to the 7 year old polio sufferers who stop by the when the gaslight is on, as that's the cue to pick up their "medication."  (Whiskey, and a kick in the teeth.)  However, Crickets # 1 was filled away sometime after it's 2005 release, as we wrongly assumed that Sammy Harkham had gotten so rich off editing Kramer's Ergot that he'd given up on putting out another issue.  Looks like he needed to subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, because here's a new issue of his scattered cartoons, sure to sell somewhere between 1 and 250 copies, assuming that enough were printed. 

People, meaning you, wrongly assume that since The Factual's editors loathe Jeph Loeb and Jean Grey so completely, that the offices are plastered with life size cutouts of Will Eisner, which we all make out with before climbing under our Prince Valiant bedsheets.  That's incorrect--while Vincent Gallo has Prince Valiant sheets, we fired him when he stole some frozen breast milk, and that was two years ago.  While indy comics do get a pass here most of the time, that's usually not because we hate them even less, but because they don't really deserve to get kicked that hard.  Few of the people who make these will ever be able to put "cartoonist" on their tax return, and there's no joy in dropping a sweet link all over the dreams of the guy who works 50 hour weeks at Kim's Video.  In Harkham's case, we'll make an exception, but only because he expected the reader to believe that Napoleon Bonaparte could, even in a world where the reader actually finishes a Wolverine story and doesn't cry at the waste of one's life, be a fucking comic writer who's concerned about the empathetic response one of his cartoons might get.  There's certain group of people, like Napoleon, that woke up everyday a badass--they wandered around, killing motherfuckers while figuring out ways to kill more motherfuckers, and generally got up to quite a bit of motherfuckery.  While it's somewhat plausible that badass motherfuckers like that might have drawn a cartoon now and then, it's completely absurd, and patently offensive, to think that they might have doubted their skill set, in anyway.

So, yeah, fuck you Sammy Harkham.  If Napoleon did draw cartoons, then rest assured, he didn't ask some loser to come and tell him whether his facial expressions were effective upon the reader.  Napoleon just drew magic, then killed people, then slept on a bed of pimp philosophy.  Do your research, douchebag.

Batman # 673
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tony Daniel, Jonathan Glapion & Sandu Florea
Published by DC Comics

Grant Morrison's Batman continues to go down every rabbit hole that Morrison has going right now--which means that it's a scattered book, lacking a real definite purpose.  But having a purpose is something no DC or Marvel book has on any regular basis, so that's not really a problem.  In fact, the only thing really wrong with the book is that Tony Daniel still isn't enough of a talent to be on a popular book like Batman--he's just a Kubert light type of artist who's defining artistic trait is that he makes you wish somebody with a little more experience was in his place.  Besides that, Morrison's Batman run is chugging along at it's own weird pace, telling stories in no way connected to the rest of the DC universe (or the Batman sub-universe) and is either to a readers taste or not.  If you're a fan of Chuck Dixon and the abysmal Gotham Underground, then this isn't the book for you--but if you're willing to tolerate just about anything as long as it's somewhat different then Countdown and Geoff Johns, then you're probably loving this stuff.  After all, it's got a robot in it.

Wormwood Gentleman Corpse: Calamari Rising # 1
Story & Art by Ben Templesmith
Published by IDW

Just about any story about cowardly characters is always a fucking pleasure, even more so where it's in a comic book that's not autobiographical.  Cowards are way more able to surprise a reader than the white hat wearing good guys, who will never let a dame go unsaved or a bank robber go unpunched.  Wormwood, the only zombie comic besides Walking Dead that has any business being published, doesn't show up enough, but whenever an issue of this maliciously silly book shows up, it's always a banner day for comics.  Not much like what DC or Marvel publishes, nothing like what Fantagraphics or Top Shelf does, it's just a weird little excursion into the life of a lazy jerk who has a worm living where his eyeball should be, hangs out at a strip club who's prime star is an overweight female leprechaun, and allows it's plots to be motivated by how much a lazy jerk can screw up the world by simply being A) lazy and B) a jerk.  These are good times.

Y: The Last Man # 60
Written by Brian K. Vaughan
Art by Pia Guerra & Jose Marzan, Jr.
Published by Vertigo Comics

Jesus Christ, has Y: The Last Man gotten blown just a bit out of proportion.  If there's one thing that's irritating, it's when something that's straight up "entertainment" gets jacked off on enough to sit up and start grasping at pretensions towards art.  Last Man was never really bad--more often than not, it was a sterling example of a comic that could be a consistent, fun book to read.  Solid, if a bit basic, artwork, intelligent dialog and a willingness to shy away from the gross repetition that damns so many comics--Vaughan and Guerra always pulled that off.  As expected, the last issue matched up to the first couple--great bookends to a series that consistent of solid episodic adventure stories.  Y: The Last Man was a good damn series--but is it one that should be held up alongside the best of what "comics has to offer?"  By the sales, the answer's yes.  By whether or not anybody is really going to miss it next year when they haven't seen it a while--well, you can guess our answer.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Sharif]

"stupid ideas drawn well" - It used to be stupid, fun, ideas drawn well. I've been wanting to relive those days when I enjoyed Madman, and go out and buy the Madman Gargantua since I only have a few of the Atomic trades. Except that's a huge investment, and I'd have to buy a new table to read it on. Also, when I think about it I think that maybe I'd have to invest in a chair as well. That's a lot of money, and so long as the Image comic that's coming out now keeps sucking, I continue to lose motivation.

Captain America was OK. I didn't like the long internal monologue Bucky had with himself. He's practicing. You're right that an old-fashioned speech is coming... I just don't think it's going to be any good.

[Keith]

I for one miss Y: The Last Man already, so your guess is wrong.

[MC Stank Booty]

You can't get that one past me, Stone--I remember you liking The Lovely Bones when it came out!

[Tucker Stone]

Goddammit Stank. You're right, of course. Just....God damn it.

[Justin]

I gotta tell you man, I miss Y: The Last Man too. I'd be happy to see that book go on forever.

[Tucker Stone]

If there's one person I'd back off Y: The Last Man for, it's you J. beep beep.