Comics Of The Weak: The Joker Can Win An Oscar, But That Doesn't Mean That Grown-Ups Will Ever Care About Tim Drake

Hellblazer # 252
Written by Peter Milligan
Art by Giuseppe Camuncuoli, Stefano Landini & Jamie Grant
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

The problem with reading comics on a weekly basis is that you start to run out of things to say about how fucking terrible they are.  Each week at the store, things get weirder and more extravagant because you can't stand the sickening desperation of the comics store employee, who's always asking shit like "did you read the new warriors i really liked it" or "geez is there anything that ed benes can't make sexy that man is like george lucas or captain marvel even".  Sure, you can stick to the same old, "you have shitty taste" or "god i fucking hate you, those comics suck ass" or "why don't you try and catch your mom's cancer you fucking peasant", but eventually you'll get creepier, and start saying stuff like "you're really just a walking abortion, you know that?"  That's where it can get problematic; eventually all notions come to pass and a comic will end up having a "walking abortion" in it, and the walking abortion is pretty cool because, you know, who knew?  Walking abortion!  Talking and sitting in chairs.  Cool enough.  Even cooler when it gets beat to death with a lamp!  "Walking abortion gets beat to death with lamp."  That's a good idea.  But now what are you supposed to call the guy who asks you if you're going to buy the Secret Invasion Frontline trade?

Dark Avengers # 2
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mike Deodato & Rain Beredo
Published by Marvel Comics

There's no serious argument to be made for not depicting a lady getting her head ripped off in a splash page being some kind of active, destructive force--like, the idea that anybody who would take that image seriously, cry and have nightmares, freak out or start shooting up their school?  If that kind of behavior is in the bag of tricks, Dark Avengers # 2 isn't going to be the reason, something else more easily available and compelling than another one-note Bendis Avengers comic will do the job as fine.  Probably something on the TLC network or Wife Swap, shit like that.  Amongst comics readers, nobody gives a shit what the Sentry character does either, hell, ripping off a woman's head is just about as impact-heavy as it would be for him to not rip off someone's head.  The only way for the Sentry to have impact, to be of any interest, would be for him to show his penis or play with fecal matter, do something on-panel that nobody has seen in a Marvel super-hero comic.  He's a Superman rip-off, and at this point, Superman rip-off characters plus regular old Superman--is there anything they can do that's going to fall into the "surprise" category?  Besides schlongs and dump-taking?  Head-ripping-off--that's tired, hell Superboy did that like four years ago.  Sentry is a total zero-sum game.  He's just--he's Triumph, you know?  He's just not that interesting.  Neither is Dark Avengers, really.  It's just there, a sort of 'huh, look at that' comic, the kind with which Marvel puts out because....hell, because they want to?  Because nothing matters?  Because it's too hard to play Spider Solitaire on an iPhone?

Ghost Rider # 32
Written by Jason Aaron
Written by Tan Eng Huat & Jose Villarrubia
Published by Marvel Comics

Tan Eng Huat bails with this issue, and if the climax of this story is any indication, Jason Aaron looks like he was barely in the room at the time it happened.  After being passed off the bad idea machine that was Daniel Way's previous decision to give the Ghost Rider some kind of unbearable "history", Aaron sort of saved the day by combining Preacher story tics and a less-spandex heavy Green Lantern Corps squad of flame-headed skeletons.  It worked for a while, sure, and considering the acclaim that the guy currently receives, there's reason to believe that he's got more a-coming, with or without Huat making everything look a lot more clever and innovative than it, at its core, really was.  But still, it ends by taking a page from the book that no comics writer should be allowed to own, the one that tells them that telling, and not showing, is the way to deliver conclusions.

Justice League of America # 30
Written by Dwayne McDuffie
Art by Jose Luis, JP Mayer & Pete Pantazis
Published by DC Comics

It's really hard to believe that the Justice League is really concerned, or threatened, or intimidated, or anything, by a character who can be, and basically is, stopped by turning on bright lights.  That, however, makes up the drama of this issue, excepting the part where Superman is still on a date with the Captain of the Shadow Cabinet.  It really looked like they were going to kiss for a minute there, but then Hawkman had to go and screw it up by bringing a brier patch back to the satellite with him.  If this comic is an experiment by DC to see how little they can try and still sell something, it's a pretty successful one.  If there's any goal beyond that, it isn't being met.  Oh, and we found this sentence online about this comic, but there was something wrong with it, so we fixed it.  You're welcome!

"When you're reading a comic in the store and you're really enjoying almost every panel, and that comic is Justice League of America # 30, you should really stop reading comic books, books, anything really, probably should just stick to eating paste and rubbing linseed oil onto your groin."

Frank Castle The Punisher MAX # 67
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Art by Michel Lacombe & Val Staples
Published by Marvel Comics

Continuing the story in which Swierczynski unwittingly makes the film Crank look like it was an actual product of innovation and not a retarded music video that even Tony Scott would've gotten motion sickness from, Frank Castle Is The Punisher And He Will Totally Be Taking Things To A Level that is MAXimumly Boring is one of those comics that you want to share with someone so they don't make the horrible, horrible, horrible mistake of thinking that comic books are on their way to global respectability and give up a decent job sucking cock to go to art school.  Here it is motherfuckers:  comics that will make you hope Frederick Wertham was right;  by the time you're finished, you'll wish that it had made your brain turn into a mushy paste that leaks out of your nose every time you stand up too quickly.

Robin # 183
Written by Fabian Nicieza
Art by Freddie Williams II & Guy Major
Published by DC Comics

Like Nightwing last week, Robin limps his way to an endgame here--also like Nightwing, it's a shitty comic book, but for different reasons.  Oh wait, no, that's not really true.  The "different reasons" part.  Sure, Freddie Williams can still draw spandex people with black hair pretty well, although someone should probably institute a rule that he's not allowed to do Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Dick Grayson in the same panel, as all of their faces look the same, and Fabian Nicieza is actually doing scripts and all that, he's not rubbing his dick on the keyboard or anything.  (If he is, it seems to be fixed in the editorial process.)  But it's still a stupid, boring comic that adds more dosh shit to the Batman mythos, this being the magical black penis structure that squirts up in an unknown room in the cave.  Magical Black Bat Penis is where all of Batman's friends have to go and play "three minutes in Heaven" with the ghost of Bruce Wayne, because apparently Bruce was recording personal will and testaments for each and every one of his concubines.  "Alfred:  you get the Outsiders and still have to work, even though I am dead and you are old."  "Dick: you have to quit your job and move in here to pretend to be me in spirit.  Also, keep being a one-trick pony."  "Tim:  i'd like it if you just behaved as weirdly and moodily as possible, like so fucking goth and emo that people start looking at the comic to see if it's being published by Hot Topic."  So yeah, that's one way to do a final issue, apparently.  You just publish a comic that, page after page, screams "This Will Never End."

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[TimCallahan]

I don't know where you stop and Hannibal Tabu begins.

[Sean Witzke]

You do seem to have trouble differentiating clearly different entities. Like Zenith and Paradax for example.

[Kenny]

The guy who runs the comic shop I go to told me the only way he can keep running the store and not slit his wrists is because he quit reading comic books. I can't imagine any better assessment of the current state of comics than that.

I buy RASL and a few Image books off of him (Kirkman written books and Madman). That's why I still go to the store.

[seth hurley]

Every issue of Ghost Rider smells like creosote & Boone's Farm watermelon and reminds me of finger-banging nursing students in the little league dugouts behind the hospital.

[David Uzumeri]

What's awesome about Magical Black Bat Penis is that the one character whose message anybody would be even remotely interested in seeing, Jason's, was dealt with just completely off-panel. So we get more of the same old "I love you you are like a son to me actually you are my son because I adopted you and wah wah wah only now can I show emotion as a hologram because I'm a drastically desperate pussy" and they just completely brush off the one message that could have some actual dramatic or storytelling potential.

[Tucker Stone]

I had the same thought when they threw that moment away, but in retrospect I wonder if it's just that whatever is said to Jason--which I totally agree is the only unpredictable thing happening, since I only care about Grant Morrison's version of Damian--might have something larger to do with Battle For The Pants. Now that we've gotten around (well, most of us) the general "why is jason alive again" stuff, i'm actually curious as to what his place in the whole bat-tapestry is going to be. It doesn't look like they plan to retcon out all the heads he carried in duffel bags yet, so yeah, i'm kind of on board.

Which leads me back to a place where, honestly, I'm not sure how disappointed I was that they didn't tell us what Bruce said to Jason. Because that means that Fabian would have been the one to write it, and it doesn't seem like Fabian is the guy in charge of the status quo--which means, whatever he wrote, it wouldn't have really mattered eventually.

[Jim Kingman]

I'd rather read a lousy issue of Justice League of America than endure a freakin' nose bleed at work. I'd rather endure Jason Todd's stab at manning the cape and cowl than accidentally stab myself while cutting a sandwich. I'd rather read a bloody issue of Dark Avengers backwards than ponder if I'll be out of a job tomorrow. Bad comics are great, because sometimes reality just plain sucks more. Keep up the good work.