Comics Of The Weak: Don't Forget To Jiggle The Handle

Welcome To Hoxford # 1
By Ben Templesmith
Published by IDW

Ben Templesmith takes another dive into making horror comics, putting off yet again the sure to be canon-worthy Archie revamp he keeps mentioning in interviews, this time thankfully choosing cannibalism instead of producing another zombie comic, because even though Wormwood is pretty entertaining, zombie comics are rapidly becoming just plain oh god really.  Cannibalism though-just isn't that much cannibalism stuff out there, and the only major flicks that involve it are Alive and that thing with Guy Pearce nobody watched, so Templesmith is free to screw around as much as he likes, and maybe this will turn out well?  It's definitely strange fucking stuff, with a Russian corporation that has somehow convinced the American penal system that they should let the worst of death row inmates into a rehabilitation facility that may or may not exist for the express purpose of providing the guards with some tasty human flesh.  If that sounds like something you've been waiting for, you probably already knew this was out there in the first place; otherwise, caveat emptor.

B.P.R.D. The Warning # 2
Written by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis & Dave Stewart
Published by Dark Horse Comics

There's a portion in Greg Rucka's spy comic Queen & Country where a psychiatrist describes how it's her job to repair the psyche of the covert operatives until said agents reach the limits of mental health, a point in which they'll be replaced:  not something you see in James Bond flicks, excepting Sean Bean in Goldeneye.  B.P.R.D., now they're taking that and running with it:  while the plot of the Warning is sort of a catch-all clean-up, as it is now time to deal with the weirdness of the guy who keeps appearing around Liz and wreaking havoc, the real story is "how close are all these characters to the edge?"  The answer seems to be "as close as possible,"  and since this is Mignola's world that means that, unlike the majority of the comic titles this may resemble in appearance, there's a real potential for consequence.  Not just a shocking character death either--part of why B.P.R.D. has, quite frankly, surpassed it's original publication in these Arcudi/Davis volumes is because it's doing that thing that only a few other serialized dramas make their stock in trade:  these characters are changing, they're growing, they are, deep breath developing.  Not just learning a new way to play with swords, not just changing sex partners.  It's really weird.

Secret Invasion: X-Men # 1
Written by Mike Carey
Art by Cary Nord & Dave McCaig
Published by Marvel Comics

The cover of this comic says "Manifest Destiny" which probably has some relation to the fact that the X-Men moved to San Francisco, as that seems to be their thing, but possibly it also means that they plan to expand into other areas and hopefully go to war against Mexico, which could certainly make an X-Men comic more interesting.  Otherwise, it's another volume of Secret Invasion side stories by authors that aren't Brian Michael Bendis and featuring another Skrull leader by way of film cliches--Mike Carey obviously owes Renoir's Grand Illusion a debt, as the major difference between his Skrull and Erich von Stroheim is that Stroheim hid the weird chin thing underneath a metal turtleneck.  Cary Nord draws in that odd soft-computer graphic style that looks like it would go well with a comic detailing the history of Street Fighter 2 characters, but overall, this comic is less offensive then it is just mundane and unnecessary.  It adds a Nightcrawler-might-betray-them-all subplot that is sure to come to no consequence by the end, which points to the basic problem with these sorts of limited spin-offs:  the authors of these kinds of things have become so dependent on either shocking the reader on minor updates to the status quo that a mundane spin-off is now fully acknowledged to be something that's never going to contain anything of importance. While that odd Fantastic Four via little kids comic made good use of the lack of importance by telling a halfway intriguing story that didn't require Worlds Must Die, So That Man May Live, this one seems to be content to slowly rub itself to flaccidity.  Still, disappointing an X-Men buyer enough to where they won't buy the comics is about as likely to happen as it would be for Emma Frost to wear a sensible, yet fashion-forward, gray pantsuit.

Batman #679
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Tony Daniel, Sandu Florea & Guy Major
Published by DC Comics

It's sort of counter-productive that something this odd is turning out to be the best thing that's been published in the meat-and-potatoes Batman comic in years--namely, that it's a whole lot of fun for the group of people willing to ignore Tony Daniel's not-so-good art that keeps not-getting-better, willing to embrace a narrative that's more than a little confusing to some, and excited to plumb the meta framework of a single panel--this is from the Silver Age, this is a Bat-Bat, this is a classic cop thriller cliche.  Like a lot of things happening in comics--high sales on Watchmen, the end of the Ennis Punisher MAX run or an event comic like Final Crisis--this Grant Morrison Batman feels and reads more like a high-water mark: it's great, yes, sure it's fucking great, "how come you think it not great" and yet, and yet?  DC will probably rather find another way to publish something like "Hush Lives" again, probably as soon as possible.  At the same time:  679 issues of Batman.  If you've even read only 1/8or those issues, then you know how pleasant it is to be looking forward to a new issue of Batman for more than just an exercise in familiarity.  It's different, and for now: different is meaning good.

Final Crisis Revelations # 1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Philip Tan, Jonathan Glapion, Jeff de los Santos, Ian Hannin & Walden Wong
Published by DC Comics

Greg Rucka is sort of fascinating to keep up with, mostly because his attitude towards writing for DC seems to be that he'll write whatever the fuck he pleases about whomever the fuck he wants to, and if it doesn't sell that well, that's not his problem, he'll be back with more of it later, thank you very the shit much.  Case in point: Libra, one of the major Final Crisis villains may be on the cover, and this issue may contain some "Revelations" despite it not being written by the guy whose writing Final Crisis, but it is really all about what's happened to two of the characters from Gotham Central since they both got some mini-series that not a lot of people read--one of which most people picked up because of the Azzarello written Dr. 13 back-up story.  Will jacking these characters into the main spinal cavity of DC comics give them more success than they had previously, despite both of them (The Question & The Spectre) never being that successful even in their previous (white & male) incarnations?  Up to you, true believer.  Greg Rucka is clearly going to write about them anyway, which...hey, he fucking wants to.

The Last Defenders # 6
Written by Joe Casey
Art by Jim Muniz, Cam Smith & Antonio Fabela
Published by Marvel Comics

It's the boutique comic of animated weirdness, it's introduction is always a letter, it's goofy, it's about the son of Satan, an Aladdin's genie look-a-like from Atlantis, She-Hulk and a quiet love affair between two men and a Nighthawk costume:  It's the Last Defenders, and it's the type of comic that gets published when an editor-in-chief and the main squadron of writers are busy in the corner and no one has the time to interrupt Joe Casey and tell him what he's doing doesn't sound very appetizing to those on a diet of Spider-Man making bad jokes.  Here's the future:  this is never going to be a comic that anybody references, forms the basis of an ongoing series, or sells 300,000 copies in a trade collection.  That doesn't mean it's bad, it just makes it an exercise in "huh, what was this again?"  Eventually there will be a mini-series like this--connected to nothing but some old school Marvel archives--that's pretty great, that's different and wild, and hopefully it'll find an audience.  This isn't it, but it's pleasant enough that Marvel felt like putting out something that didn't involve Skrulls, dumb political metaphors and Wolverine.

Secret Invasion: Thor # 1
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Doug Braithwaite & Paul Mounts
Published by Marvel Comics

Apparently Thor's secret identity is a doctor of renaissance poetry, and he knows how to deliver a baby, and he lives in the Midwest.  He also uses the word "scoonch" which he seems to think is an adjective meaning "a small amount."  (It means whatever you want it to mean, because it's not a real word.)  It's easy to make fun of all of that, because it's easy to make fun of stuff that's really fucking dumb and obviously laid on top of an existing corporate property to make the existing corporate property either relevant or deep or just interesting, despite the fact that Thor is most awesome when Thor talks really ridiculously and beats the shit out of stuff and other people with his hammer.  So yeah, "doctor of renaissance poetry" translates to "ha-ha-stupid" and delivering a baby equals "waste of fucking time" and the Midwest--well, that might be more interesting to look at then another shitty drawing of the goddamn Empire State Building, so nevermind, okay on that.  Of course, this comic, which is called "Secret Invasion: Thor" ends with Thor given his hammer to somebody else and reverting to his Doctor of Renaissance Poetry identity so he can deliver a baby in a tornado shelter, so the second issue is sure to be totally fantastic.  Especially if it's called "Secret Invasion: Edmund Spenser Fan Cuts The Umbilical Cord."

Secret Invasion: Inhumans # 1
Written by Joe Pokaski
Art by Tom Raney & Scott Hanna
Published by Marvel Comics

There's probably a real big fanbase for stories about the Inhumans that we'd all hate to alienate; that being said, anytime the Factual Opinion reads a comic about the Inhumans, we judge it's value based on how much of the story hinges on the gigantic pug/bulldog that has a tuning fork stuck in it's brain.  If the story hinges on Lockjaw, or Lockjaw is on every page, or everybody keeps going "Where's Lockjaw?" everytime Lockjaw isn't on the page, then it's a great comic book, one of the best comic books ever, and everybody should buy it and get Lockjaw tattoos, because Lockjaw is the Marvel Comics version of Matter-Eater Lad or Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, which means he's the greatest character ever.  And we're not being sarcastic at all, because we really, really love Lockjaw, and wish there were posters of Lockjaw like that old Michael Jordan poster where he stretches out his arms and it says "Wings."  This comic?  Needs more Lockjaw.

Captain Britain & MI13 # 4
Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Leonard Kirk, Jesse Delperdang & Brian Reber
Published by Marvel Comics

On the recap page, there's a thank you notice to the "Faiza Hussein oversight team," take that for what it's worth.  Comic wise, here's the issue where this series divests it's responsibilities to Secret Invasion by an act of magical genocide and earns itself a new status quo of villains.  Writer Paul Cornell continues to avoid having the characters talk in overwrought Cockney accents, which is both respectable and yet, also kind of sad:  if this comic had been published in any time period before...let's say '91, then Captain Britain would say things like "Stiff and blimey, oi wants a popsicle, oi gets a popsicle.  Cup o' tea, luv?"  That would be pretty great, and it might help a comic that has a serious potential for getting lost in way too many directions, all of them being somewhat overwrought.  Otherwise, it's pretty ballsy for the main characters, 80% of whom have been killing Skrulls non-stop for four issues and only succeeded here because one of them made a magic wish to commit instant slaughter (a magic wish carried out by an evil demon named Satannish!) to end the issue by forming a team "of super heroes.  Together because they want to be.  Who are friends.  Who support each other.  Who do not kill."  Huh?  But you just...  And now you want to...  We're lost.  What?

Secret Invasion # 5
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Lenil Yu, Mark Morales, Laura Martin & Emily Warren
Published by Marvel Comics

Since it seems pretty apparent that the Skrulls can't win when they just straight up fight super-heroes, and this issue reveals that they're highly placed in the major two organizations that control the globe, Scientology and people who watch Oprah, why did they go about this whole "invasion" they way that they did?  They've got all these sleeper agents in place around the world, in charge of groups like al-Queda and whatever business entities Paris Hilton controls, and yet they just saved all that for the two page spread?  There's all these stupid tie-ins that have the same story about some ships landing and Skrulls getting their ass handed to them, whereas this whole "look how well they prepared for the five minutes after the ships landing moment" which is to blow the whole "Secret" aspect before they've even won the fight?  There's an attitude towards this shit that any irritation expressed towards story twists is "nitpicking," when what it really is being surprised that nobody else seems to mind a story that could've, and has been, written already by every 14 year old who got bored in church and imagined different ways to fuck the prom queen.  If you can create the adventures of super-heroes in your brain, and they look like this, that doesn't mean the comic is smart.  It means you're fucking boring, and this is pandering bullshit.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Johnny Bacardi]

psst...that's the Spectre on the cover of Final Crisis Revelations, not Libra.

[tucker stone]

Yeah, there's two covers. I hadn't grabbed the other one yet, the red band cover that has Libra. Good catch, I was going to change it when I got a chance to find a different image.

[tucker stone]

It's changed now, thanks to comicsvine. DC and Newsarama didn't want the world to see the red band.

[Chris Mautner]

I'm holding out for "Alexander Pope devotee removes the afterbirth."

[Chris Eckert]

The Skrulls haven't actually replaced all those people (Tony Stark and Reed Richards are among the talking heads) they just wiped out all of Earth's communication technology and are using familiar faces to sell their occupation.

[tucker Stone]

I came away with a different impression, that some Skrulls were placed in those identities as well as adopting familiar faces, but I imagine that the way you describe it is probably more accurate. Either way, it's boring to me that something like the original plot (with the secret replacements, dating the invasion back to the beginning of new avengers and such) has become something so willfully lazy and generic. It's as if all the intelligence and subterfuge has gone under the truck, as now it's time for the Skrulls to behave exactly the same as they always have, by showing up in thinly veiled Normandy-style spaceships for a ground attack. There's this idea, this clever idea that makes for interesting stuff (like the Captain Marvel character) that's thrown away for the sake of another pointless fight that was done better the first 90 times Kirby and Lee did it.

It doesn't help that the cross-overs are all doing the same riff, and it helps even less when the creators drop in a dps like the Cruise/Oprah one that points to them knowing, and then ignoring, a direction that wouldn't have read like so much teenage bullshit. We've gone down this road a million times. There's no good reason to go down it again, to have it cost 4 dollars, and for it to be from people who have already proven they can do innovative, different stuff with the same old spandex toys.

[Dick Hyacinth]

IIRC, the craze for zombie movies in Italy c. 1980 spawned a secondary craze for cannibal movies, since the main appeal of zombie movies to Italians during that time was apparently the eating of human flesh. I've always said that the current comics industry resembles Italy c. 1980, so it goes without saying that a deluge of cannibal comics is inevitable.

[tucker Stone]

I'm totally fine with what you're describing. I'll go so far as to say that I am now excited, and will be crushed if I haven't seen Power Girl gnaw off Red Arrow's arms by next Easter.

[Dick Hyacinth]

The thing is, some of those were erotic cannibal movies. Or maybe I'm just making that up, or getting this confused with the fact that some of those zombie/cannibal directors also directed films in the Emmanuel series. If I'm wrong, this gives comics the chance to be on the cutting edge of entertainment trends again.

[Jog]

Dick - It's actually the other way... the cannibal subgenre was partially spun off from the Italian phenomenon of the 'mondo' movie, largely faked travelogues heavy on vivid and exploitive scenes... a lot of the vintage cannibal films of the period are still kinda notorious today because they adopted the mondo motif of actually killing animals on-camera to add realism to the setting... then Dario Argento recut Dawn of the Dead and it went off like a bomb and the cannibal subgenre kinda wound up flowing into the zombie subgenre, although the two existed concurrently for a while...

And yes, the world really did enjoy the likes of Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, from Italian hero Joe D'Amato; his other famous Emanuelle (note the single 'm' for legal reasons) epic, Emanuelle in America, was one of the inspirations for Videodrome...

[Matthew J. Brady]

"Eventually there will be a mini-series like this--connected to nothing but some old school Marvel archives--that's pretty great, that's different and wild, and hopefully it'll find an audience."

That already happened; it was called Agents of Atlas.

[Tucker Stone]

So Jog: Is the Dario Argento recut the one called Zombi that has the score by Goblin? That's a heroic piece of music right there. Emanuelle in America. I sort of watched that with my mom. In that she wouldn't stop knocking on the door.

And Matt: Agents of Atlas doesn't count. I'm only interested in comics that are popular. Sales are the barometer I judge the quality and interest of all comics on.

[Jog]

Yeah, Argento titled his recut of Romero Zombi (and added Goblin); the Italian title of Lucio Fulci's famous subsequent work was Zombi 2 (not that it was a sequel in any way), which now goes by the North American title of simply Zombie, though I've always liked the UK title of Zombie Flesh Eaters... more kick to that...

[Kenny]

"despite the fact that Thor is most awesome when Thor talks really ridiculously and beats the shit out of stuff and other people with his hammer."

In a weird bit of synergy, Fraction is writing a mini-series *exactly* like that and it is awesome. It's just Thor talking goofy and beating the shit out of everything with his hammer. Kinda like a happy hardcore Village People.

[Kenny]

I shoulda waited until I read the whole column...oh well....

Your Inhumans review is right on! I agree whole-heartedly that the only good Inhumans comic is one where Lockjaw is the only Inhuman and he's also kicking shit up by biting people and ramming his pitchfork up their ass.

Your Secret Invasion review...it's not so much nitpicking, it's more like...well, yeah, the comic is offensively stupid. But it's kinda like Bad Boys 2, you're not going for the plot, you're going for the explosions and stuff. In this case, stuff means aliens getting their head kicked in. To be on par with Bad Boys 2, though, it would need Lockjaw and Thor teaming up to kick shit together and not delivering babies in the MidWest.

Now I want a comic with Thor talking funny and riding Lockjaw into battle as Lockjaw rams his pitchfork up the ass of anything in his way. "Where dost Lockjaw goeth?"

[Tucker Stone]

Yeah, I checked out the Fraction Thor, and it didn't really click with me. I think I'm more of a fan of him when he's the only funny talker, and the people he smacks with his hammer are just regular people. I don't understand why I can't just have a Thor comic where he fights low-level street crime. I'd like to see him wandering around in Boise or Wichita attacking random car thieves.

Secret Invasion just rides the fence of action. It should be more like that Sinestro Corps thing, where it was just non-stop shitkicking for 10 issues, or it should be some really intrigue-heavy decepta-fest. It's half-ass on both. I'd love it if it was Bad Boys 2, and they were fighting the Klan and throwing boats at each other--this is more like a straight-to-video Bad Boys 3, where it's the same actors, same director, but the budget was cut to 20 grand. It's not about being stupid or dumb. It's about being lazy.

Lockjaw does kind of make everything okay though.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Oh, snap! That hurts. But Agents of Atlas was popular enough to spawn an upcoming sequel/ongoing series. That's got to count for something.

Ooh! Oh! What about Nextwave? Although that could also be considered unpopular, since it got canceled and everything.

[Tucker Stone]

I did like Nextwave, but mostly because of the robot hanging with the old lady.

[Dick Hyacinth]

Ah yes. Is D'Amato the one who directed Buio Omega? IMDB says yes, I see. I've always wanted to see that, but never worked up the gumption to actually do it. I've also always wanted to see the European cut of Dawn of the Dead, mostly because Goblin makes everything better.