Comics Of The Weak: I HONOR AND MISS ANGRY 15 YEAR OLD COMIC FANS

Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos # 1
Written by Jesse Alexander
Art by John Paul Leon
Published by DC Comics

Apparently Heroes and Alias aren't a big enough sales draw to plaster the words "From The Writer Of Heroes And Alias, Jesse Alexander" on the cover, although it was probably in those solicitations blurbs that angry people are always reading. Maybe it's because those shows aren't like this comic, which is pretty much what you would expect it to be if you had asked Marvel to publish a BPRD Nazi fight-robot comic by way of Ed Brubaker's Captain America plus a declawed version of Garth Ennis' Nick Fury and brought Winter Men artist John Paul Leon onboard as well, and then subtracted a reason for existing. The best part of the comic is the two page spread where they introduce all of the characters and tell you their names as if you need to remember their names. You don't, they all just serve as the fingers of Nick Fury and his plan to break the rules and kill Germans, because fuck Germans and their German language and Germanian tanks. Oh, and there's some off-camera sex. Off panel. Whatever. You'll forget this when you're done, but it moves quickly while you're there.

B.P.R.D. The Black Goddess # 5

Written by Mike Mignola & John Arcudi

Art by Guy Davis & Dave Stewart

Published by Dark Horse Comics

Although it's all a bit repetitious at this point, here we go: another pretty solid chapter in B.P.R.D. big monster throwdown special comics ensued. It's kind of lame that the Selma Blair firestarter character has turned into a utility-only character by way of broken alarm clock, the sort that you just keep hittting and throwing balled-up socks at until it wakes up and remembers its role: doing shit. Either way, the last five years of B.P.R.D. shit all falls under one roof: can Arcudi & Mignola come up with crazy shit for Guy Davis to draw? They can? Publish that shit, bitches.

Final Crisis Aftermath Escape # 1

Written by Ivan Brandon

Art by Marco Rudy & Mick Gray

Published by Marvel Comics

There's two kinds of stories that can happen when DC doesn't give a shit: one is the fat Italian plumber goes crazy/has fire nipples comic from last week, the other is Ivan Brandon's Final Crisis Aftermath Escape. While both of the aforementioned spin-offs share shithouse names that beg the question of how far Time Warner is willing to go done that whole "publishing comics is just something we do to maintain creative properties, none of them make a tenth of the money we do off the Batman Toothbrush Holder & Rinse Cup" road of management, the difference in technique couldn't be starker. One of these two, you see, has technique, and while the art isn't without problems, and it isn't the second coming of Maus or Art Out Of Time, it's still a decent piece of OMAC/Checkmate re-imagined that has a good couple of twists in the offing. Also, Wonder Woman gets physically deconstructed, Build-A-Friend style. More like this would be nice, but even if this finds success you can rest assured that DC still won't know the difference when spin-off time rolls around again. "Somebody bought those things? Great, I got another fire-nipple comic right here. Mind the stains."

From The Ashes # 1

By Bob Fingerman

Published by IDW

If From The Ashes was coming out via the same cats who put together the sixteen word titles for the Battle For The Cowl related series, this would be the chapter called "I Am Disproportionately Upset With My Wife's Constant Usage Of A Blackberry", because until the part where a bunch of Cormac McCarthy cannibals show up, that's the focus of the story, complete with flashback to previous Drama In Real Life anecdotes about the evils of technology and how they shutter important relationship developments. Like the time when the whiny husband character was delivering a passive aggressive monologue regarding his wife's lateness to their "date" only to be cruelly interrupted by the tres awfulness of modern smartphones. Garsh, you just wish EVERYBODY WOULD FUCKING DIE LIKE FOR REAL. That way, THE BITCH CANT TALK ON HER PHONE AND I COULD FUCK HER IN THE WASTELANDS AFTER MAKING FUN OF GATORADE YOUKNOWWHATIMSAYING.

Hawkeye # 2

Written by Andy Diggle

Art by Tom Raney & Scott Hanna

Published by DC Comics

The first issue of Hawkeye cum Bullseye was pretty much wall to wall killing, a sort of adventure through dark fantasy, if you're the type of reader into fantasizing about women getting arrows shoved in their eye sockets deep enough to tickle the brainstem. Since it's a mini-series, you'd think they'd just keep going in that direction, ramping up the killing and grossness, maybe throwing in some testicular damage and infanticide by way of ab workouts before throwing in a last minute "and then Johnny Asshole got arrested for five minutes, and we all nodded vigorously in agreement". Instead, we've got ourselves a bad planning curveball, and you're back in one of those terrible "that guys wearing my old clothes" playback loops, which probably means this Hawkeye mini-series is going to be less slaughterhouse and more villain-has-identity-crisis. Lesson Learned: Nothing ruins sex faster than talking.

Rawbone # 2

Written by Jamie Delano

Art by Max Fiumara, Ryan Waterhouse & Digikore

Published by Avatar

First, all the mean sailors get rape-killed by naked mermaid sirens, some of whom actually look like Syren, Don't Click That Link, which is a nice cross-over with reality. Then the white guy wants to fuck the black girl, but she tells him he has to wait, and then she gets a shirt to cover her boobs, and he calls her boobs flea-bites, but you can tell he really wants to play with them anyway. Then the art changes for a couple of pages and it's not a very good change, and everybody's period costume looks like it was purchased from a 2004-era Gap, and then they go to a whorehouse and the artist gets to draw a one-eyed pegleg dude sucking on some double D's, and then the black girl gets a new pirate squad, and then the religious freaks and the ape-like thing find the not-dead-yet Major who somehow resisted the temptation of rape-killer sirens, and then the white girl from the first issue gets raped some more, maybe.

Some things just need "recaps".

Secret Six # 9

Written by Gail Simone

Art by Nicola Scott, Doug Hazlewood & Jason Wright

Published by Marvel Comics

You can't damn with faint praise better than to say "it's the best of the Battle For The omigoddamnwhogivesafuckaboutthisshit andhowcanisellthemsomething Cowl spin-off yet", but hey, a spade is a motherfucking spade. Secret Six probably would have succeeded on its own merits anyway--nasty smash 'em ups amongst characters who only do nasty smash 'em ups usually do. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Secret Six is a check-outable just because of the violence--that's to be expected, and, while entertaining on a stand-alone 'compare it to the week' basis, is always going to be a variation on Seen It Before. No, what's nice about this thing is the relatively unique Ragdoll, a character who really is a pervert, in the real way you define pervert and not just the pussy ass DC way, which is when somebody likes a position other than lights-out-missionary. Ragdoll's a masturbate-to-incest-fantasies while rubbing gouda on a dog's asshole in a room where Akira is playing on mute. You may not think you'd be into that--scratch that, you may not say you're into that--but you know you're fucking into that. Somebody keeps buying Super Taboo Extreme. Otherwise the shit wouldn't be in print.

R.E.B.E.L.S. # 4

Written by Tony Bedard

Art by Claude St. Aubin, Scott Hanna & Jose Villarrubia

Published by Marvel Comics

Well, after three issues of thinking it was Andy Clarke doing all those crazy ass Maguire style faces and veiny biceps, it turns out that no, it was Scott Hanna, because guess what doesn't look that much different here? The art, right. If you'd like, you can currently go and take a look at those omigod those aren't true and they don't mean anything go buy what you like super-hero comics will never ever ever go away i have a toy statue and a toy head my mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy crybaby crybaby Sales Lists are out, that's the end of that thought, anyway, nobody is buying R.E.B.E.L.S. except f meeeeeeemmemememmemmememmememmememmeme meeeeeeeememememmememmememmememmememmemmm mmeeeeee so goddamn it and garsh darn, let's all talk like we're a real industry, We're A Real Industry, We're Not A Standoffish Club, This IS HIGH ART FUCK THOSE GODDAMN INDIE NOTE TAKERS AND THEIR FUCKING BRECHT COMICS VRIL DOX OWNS YOUR SHIT FUCKER HE FUCKING OWNS YOU AND YOUR FACE AND STARRO IS TOTS THE SHIT SUCK IT WHORE

Suck it dry.

Ultimate Spider-Man # 132

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger & Justin Ponsor

Published by DC Comics

Someday they'll give out awards for when somebody shits in their own bed as majestically as Bendis has shit in Ultimate Spider-Man. It may be through no fault of his own, but it's kind of pathetic that the dude can't stand up to Jeph Loeb and Marvel in general and say "you know, I never fucked up Ultimate Spider-man in the 130 odd issues i've written for you guys, i've never had the title get pushed out this late, and i don't really get why i have to suffer because all the other books in the Ultimate line can't find any fucking readers." You'd think being their go-to foundational table leg would back him up, but no, he's just sitting back to let them burn this shit to the fucking ground. That's the thing about being the big dog: sometimes you need to man the fuck up. Alternatively, maybe the goal here is to just take really great Immonen art and prove that it is possible to drop the story level all the way to the gutter and effectively make retread trash like Ultimates 3 look good in comparison. Anyways. Ultimate Spider-Man! This comic used to not be retarded.

Wolverine # 73

Written by Jason Aaron & Daniel Way

Art by Adam Kubert, Mark Farmer, Justin Ponsor & Tommy Lee Edwards

Published by DC Comics

There's probably some Cure song besides "Friday I'm In Love" that would have made a better model of story for Jason Aaron to follow, but that kind of misses the point that Cure songs are more closely identified with comics published by Top Shelf then Wolverine I Kill Everything tales. Either way, "Friday I'm In Love"? Fucking For Serious For Real? Daniel Way goes another direction for his half of the issue, deciding that the easiest route towards getting his own Icon series is to tell stories that would be a lot better if Wolverine wasn't in them, at all, which is only respectable insomuch as you wish the cat was actually doing a grimy Sons Of Anarchy comic book, since having to mentally prepare for the moment when Wolverine solves the biker gang problem is a swampy jog underneath a neon sign advising the reader that Wolverine is a walking plot device squirting Easy Fix out of his hands along with his Razor Claws. It is nice to see Tommy Lee Edwards continues to take on work based solely on the paycheck involved. God forbid a random issue of Wolverine came bearing surprises.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Kenny]

Tucker, I'm not a reader of Ultimate Spider-Man, but I think I can rationalize a defense for Bendis. The job market in Cleveland, and really all of NorthEast Ohio, is so bad I think all of us who grow up in this area develop a crippling fear of losing our jobs someday and having no alternative to go to. So, I think it breeds a mentality where it's just like "always keep your head low, always be subservient," and it leads to lots of suffering on the job no matter what kind of track record you have. It's just a guess on my part, but I see that with a lot of people I know from the area.

[Guy Smiley]

I read Ultimate Spidey in trades, and will simply skip any collections that cross over with Ultimatum. Or that even have a "Loved it! -- Jeph Loeb" pullquote on the back. Loeb is like the swine flu -- you gotta quarantine that shit or it'll never go away.

If the smoke clears and USM gets to keep being USM, I'll be back.

Not buying Stupid Crossover Shit is the best way to stop them from making it that won't get me arrested.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Wait, that issue of Wolverine was just a one-shot or something? I know it got released out of order so as to be something that people who saw the movie would buy (ha ha, that's rich), but I figured it was still part of the Millar/McNiven run. Does that mean #72 is the last part of the story? Eh, whatever. Fuck that shit anyway.

Looks like I do need to read Rawbone though; that sounds hilarious.

[Chris Allen]

Tucker,

Hi-larious, but FYI: Secret Six should say published by DC, not Marvel.

[Chris Allen]

OH wait, it's a metajoke. Got it.

[David Uzumeri]

SEMANTIC CORRECTION:

Andy Clarke inks his own shit, yo. The St. Aubin/Hanna team just happens to look like him, mostly, I'm willing to bet, due to Villarrubia's coloring. But other than the photoshop, the hands touching the art board are pretty much totally different.

[Tucker Stone]

Yikes, that's not even a halfway intended joke gone awry, that's just straight up shit screw-uppery. I'm tempted to fix it, probably will when i'm supposed to be working tomorrow.

How odd. God though, the appearance of the faces--is there a Kevin Maguire setting on Photoshop now?

In all seriousness: whoops. Gotta watch that shit. Not cool.