Comics Of The Weak: If It's Any Consolation, I Shaved Your Mom's Tongue Before I Left

Wednesday Comics # 2

Published by DC Comics

The Good-

Batzzarello: When Bruce Wayne tackles a lady to save her life, he lands on her like he's getting ready to hump her. Not the way a man would. The way a labrador would. Lady got a two-for-one!

Kamandi: If you were given a choice between a story about Prince Tuftan The Tiger or Kamandi, and you pick Kamandi, you fail at life.

Pope's Adventures: Is there anybody reading this? It's really an art thing. It's cute how they keep putting words on it though.

Supergirl: Oddly, considering the level of experience in these strips, the Supergirl page is the only one that really goes for the whole "treat it like it's a Sunday comic strip" plotting. It's still cute shit about flying housepets, but it's really cute. Side note: people who take Supergirl seriously--are any of them not really weird? Besides little kids. Little kids get a pass.

Sgt. Rock: You'd think somebody would just give the Nazis a picture of Sergeant Rock and say "seriously, we want to win and all, but you should just fucking bail if this dude shows up."

The Flash: It's kind of hilarious that DC keeps blowing their wad fucking around with Barry Allen, and yet the best Barry Allen story in twenty years has been the first two pages of a serialized newspaper comic. 

Wonder Woman: This comic is really ambitious, and sometimes that works.

Hawkman: The reason why the complaints about the price go ignored here is pretty simple: this Hawkman strip is worth any price, because this Hawkman strip is, in one page, better than the entire run of Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, that Suicide Squad mini-series, Salvation Run, Gotham Underground, Countdown (plus spin-offs) and whatever that thing is they're doing that involves Superman standing around in a dress. 

The Bad-

Superman: There's dumber things that Batman could have said to Superman than that "super-prozac" line, like he could've said "why don't you go tell Lois to suck the Kryptonite out, you fucking pussy", but the line they used was still pretty shitty.

Metamorpho: If there was a meter on the machines that print comics, and that meter blew a whistle everytime an incredibly precious comic came through, we'd all be deaf as houses right now, because: jesus.

Teen Titans: This is just painful. This comic takes two people? Yeesh.

Metal Men: This is the sort of comic that would've been useful if you worked at Abu Gharib and were getting tired of boring old rape and electrocution. It's just mean-spirited.

Wonder Woman: This comic is really ambitious, and sometimes it doesn't work.

What's the Hat guy say? Oh yeah.

The Meh-

Deadman: Any story that hangs on the clinical psychosis that is the "everything happens for a reason" mentality should be taken out behind the woodshed. It could be illustrated by Jesus Christ himself using ink distilled from Kahlil Gibran's tears, and it would still deserve a horrible demise.

Green Lantern: At some point, some really amazing historian is going to write a flawless volume of scholarship detailing what a horrible bunch of people American white men were at the height of the Space Race, and, true or false, that book is going to be like a breath of fresh air, because if there's one thing that's goddamn tiring it's watching a gaggle of Buzz Lightyears grin their way around the skies like a bunch of fucking mental patients.

CatDemon: Fuck, it's not that hard. Etrigan rhymes shit. Not having the Demon rhyme shit is like saying "I want Thor in my story, but I don't want him to talk all crazy." What the fuck do you want Thor for then?

Blackest Night # 1
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis
Published by DC Comics

The future of digital comics isn't going to be purchasing pdfs of paper comics, and it isn't going to be made-for-web comics either. It's going to be when something like this--the second tier super-hero event comic--debuts onscreen where it can become the Choose Your Own Adventure digital epic that it was born to be. When the purchaser can sit back and select which of his favorite dead heroes will rise from the grave and kill his least favorite living hero. The art won't fucking matter--it already doesn't--and it will just be some slipshod digital painting anyway, the roads paved by some cheap-y Flash script that contains Clayton Crain-ish depictions of DC's library of characters. That way, the story will embrace what it already is: static language always culminating in a "...because that's the way I am" conclusion, usually at the bottom of the page, a bunch of thrown together battle sequences, and a moment where Hal Jordan turns and says "Hey, [your name here]. I hope I can count on you to activate the Delta Initiatives. We've got a live one." And then some guy will say "no, you've got a DEAD one, Rise My Lanterns" and then some other guy will raise his lantern and the original some guy will be all "no man i meant Rise My Lantern Corps" and he'll gesture off panel and then the second guy who didn't understand will turn around and, holy shit, it's that Starman who had the mullet, it's fucking Will Payton, and Will Payton is back, but he's heart-rip-out Will Payton and Whatchagonnado, whoyougonnacall, because the Ghost Busting makes you feel good, but here's the thing, Ernie Hudson is Really Old Now, and Bill Murray is Really Old Now, and Dan Aykroyd is one drink away from a horribly uncomfortable mug shot and Harold Ramis is so fat now, he'll never fit in that jumpsuit, and so no, we gotta count on Hal Jordan. And Hal Jordan can't even answer questions with words, like--he's so bad at talking that he has to use his ring to make cartoon answers to serious questions? If you were the Flash, and you're not, but if you were the Flash and you said "Shit, I don't really want to know the answer, but who died?" and then the guy didn't say anything, he just put on a laser show--that would be kind of weird right? Wouldn't you think that was kinda weird? Still. This comic opens with a dude licking Bruce Wayne's skull--like licking it so hard that purple shit is coming out of his mouth. You can't really argue with it too much. This isn't a concept that will actually fail to achieve its goals.

Batman: Streets of Gotham # 2

Written by Paul Dini

Art by Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs, John Kalisz

Published by DC Comics

Apparently the Tiny Tot rape victim from issue 1 is old enough to know how to handle her own horrible emotional scars, or at least god hopes she is, since Batman and Robin just give her the cure for ye old Catch-On-Fire and then say "Do you have any place to go?" Like, is that what cops do? (Because Batman was a cop and stuff.) He wasn't a good one, but yeah: is that what cops do? They hang out with some forced-into-prostitution child, get the information they need, remove the scary-everybody-dies implant from her arm and say "You're good, right? We gots to move on. Car is a two-seater." Shouldn't they at least call a social worker? After that, you get one of those Batman-is-a-detective-in-a-loose-sense panels that's tolerable based on the mood of the reader at the time, wherein good mood means you don't care and bad mood means realizing that when Batman says "Scan for any unusual energy pulses coming from that area, Robin" that what he's really saying is "Touch the computer screen that I can just as easily touch myself, I am the laziest man alive". Still, this is the first time Paul Dini has been able to do something with that Hush character that didn't read as if Paul Dini is sitting in some empty bar somewhere screaming "Tommy Elliott is the Hamlet of sequential super-hero comics, I'll show all you fuckers", so...well. Also, Ra's Al Ghul looks like he fell out of a Joe Matt comic. Something to get excited about, that.

The Punisher # 7
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Tan Eng Huat & Lee Loughridge
Published by Marvel Comics

What kind of person would work with the Punisher and try to convince him to go after criminals who he doesn't need to kill? And why would this individual get their own cheesy throw-a-chair-against-breakable-object page? It's not like the Punisher has some collection of people he lets off with a warning. The guy only goes after people who he can kill, and when he fails to kill them, that's because He Failed, it's not because he realized the sanctity of human life after seeing a little girl chasing a butterfly and decided to go buy a corn dog and take the afternoon off. It's the only thing the Punisher does: kill people. Why the fuck would you sign up to be his alarm clock/personal assistant and then get bitchy with him when he goes and does exactly that? Oh, and while we're asking questions, why isn't there a fucking moratorium on jokes about Times Square being "different" then it used to be? That's the kind of joke that should be used to determine whether or not you're allowed to have children, or eat at Steak & Shake--like, if you laugh when somebody says "Man, it sure looks like Walt Disney redesigned Times Square", you should get punched in the knee. With a knife. By your mom.

Captain America # 601

Written by Ed Brubaker

Art by Gene Colan

Published by Marvel Comics

A two year old script for an unpublished annual: bodes well! This comic--which can roughly be explained away with the blurb "predictable who's-the-head-vampire story set in World War 2, insert super-heroes"--doesn't have much going for it beyond the chance to see Gene Colan work in black and white. According to wikipedia, this is something that should excite "comics historians and critics", as there's an actual section on Gene's page devoted to the subject. It's not that the writing on this issue is terrible, but...well, it's a fucking annual script. It's predictable, and it's about vampires, and Captain America is in it. At one point, a scared soldier shoots his pal Marty because he thinks Marty is a vampire. But Marty ISN'T a vampire, and yeah, THAT SHIT IS SAD AS HELL. Also, Captain America whines about having to decapitate people with his shield, and that doesn't make any sense, because everybody knows that the best part about being Captain America is getting to decapitate motherfuckers with a goddamned shield.

RASL # 5

By Jeff Smith

Published by Cartoon "Jeff Smith" Books

RASL was a better Nikolai Tesla related story than the Jack White-has-a-Tesla-coil portion of Coffee & Cigarettes by the first issue, and somewhere in the middle of the second, it topped out David Bowie's clipped Tesla turn in The Prestige, which is a movie that failed to capitalize on the Wolverine versus Batman potential that a good 13% of its audience had purchased tickets to see. The mere idea of RASL, unseen, was already way better than the entire discography of Tesla the band, and the initial cover solicits beat all their live performances as well. With issue 5, the series is now better than the Tesla motor company, and it's setting its sights on the most difficult opponent yet: the Fallout video game series, which uses the word Tesla the way my father uses diapers, frequently. In Jeff Smith's corner are characters infinitely more interesting than those to be found in "the Wasteland". In Fallout's corner, however, is Liam Neeson telling you that he loves you. Tough one to call.

All Select Comics # 1

Written by Marc Guggenheim, Michael Kupperman & Hal Sharp

Art by Javier Pulido, Javier Rodriguez Michael Kupperman & Hal Sharp

Published by Marvel Comics

It's not just the best of the Marvel-goes-nostalgia-mining 70th Anniversary of When Martin Goodman said "gimmesomeofthatmoney" comic, it also points in a direction the other issues could, and should, have gone. After a first chapter which consists mostly of watching Javiar Pulido give Marc Guggenheim's Chandler For Dummies story more professionalism than it probably deserves, Michael Kupperman does his Thrizzle thing on Marvex The Super Robot. What's interesting is how little Kupperman has to do to make Marvex work to his strengths--a touch of sarcasm, an across the board removal of irony, the inclusion of Ingrediento--and he's done. It's fucking simple, it's fucking funny, and it's a hell of a lot edgier than what you usually find under the Mature Readers tagline. Intended or not, Kupperman's simple allegiance to the basic concept--a humanoid robot who wanders around the city, righting wrongs while expressing no emotion whatsoever--gets placed alongside a decades old story that did the exact same thing. If the intent of these Anniversary Specials was to show how far the company has come, it's a miserable failure. They want money. Still do. But if the intent was to show how easy it is to not fuck up a funny idea? Crazy success.

Incognito # 5

Written by Ed Brubaker

Art by Sean Phillips & Val Staples

Published by Icon/Marvel Comics

It shouldn't make a difference, but Incognito # 5 lays flatter than other comic books. It doesn't bubble up around the stapled side. It's a good comic for stacking, if you were stacking comics. 

It's hard to read the narration of Incognito and not hear Holden Carver, the main character from the Phillips/Brubaker excellent Sleeper series that serves as this story's father in a fashion more relevant than the team's Criminal stories do. It's hard because of Wanted's similar "regular jobs are for losers" talk, because of the "hey, look, meta" jokes that pop up occasionally, but mostly, it's hard because everybody in Incognito comes across as a reference point--look, Ava Destruction! It's Sin from Captain America combined with Miss Misery!--and reference point pickings aren't subsitutes for characterization, they're the sort of things that actively work to destroy it. They send the reader off into their own mind, they relinquish the control of the authors, they turn story into a participatory exercise. They pat the backs of the worst movie viewer, the one who pauses the tape and says "look! It's the guy from Mr. Show!" Incognito is still gorgeous, sure. It suffers by comparison to better work, exactly. But it's a six issue mini-series, and one would hope that somebody--anybody--in the first five issues would've breathed with the level of innovation of a drunken Lawless or with the sickening empathy of a Danica. At some point, comics has to quit pretending that being a whole lot better than Zenoscope's "Look at these fucking BOOBS" automatically makes something genius.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

I must be the only person alive who absolutely LOVED Batman's "You a bitch and you suck my cock like a virgin" exchange with Superman in Wednesday Comics.

And as to Blackest Night: Just because it's exactly what we all expected doesn't make it any more acceptable.

[Vanja Miskovic]

You've really read a lot of comics this week.

[Chad Nevett]

Why didn't you review "Blackest Night" #1 on Savage Critics, Tucker? ARE YOU AFRAID THAT IT'S AWESOME AND TO ADMIT IT WOULD MAKE YOU EXPLODE? WHY DO U HATE DC AND WANT THEM TO DIE? WHY?

...good post.

[Kenny Cather]

Kupperman did a Marvel comic?? For reals?? Oh wow. Well, it looks like a trip to the comic store is in order for me!

I did happen to flip through a copy of Wednesday Comics and it was just soooooo dark. Not dark theme wise, but dark lighting wise. And it just felt soooooooo crappy. I'm not a DC hater so much as I am unbelievably jaded about comics from both Marvel and DC, so I'm not exactly the best guy to talk about this. But yeah - I don't care how pretty the Hawkman story looks - and I love Baker - I'm not dropping $4 for it. Two issues of Wednesday comics = 1 manga digest. (For me. A lot of people don't like manga, though, so yeah, for them, go for Wednesday Comics!)

[Joe Willy]

I got last week's Wednesday's Comics this week and the Kyle Baker Hawkman IS awesome, but did anyone else notice the pilot's cap was like 5 sizes too big for his head. He looked like a Fat Albert character! Otherwise Baker is totally channeling Foster and Raymond which is all sorts of awesome for those of us that have liked or even loved his comedic stuff but wanted to see him draw "serious" again. Though calling a comic told from the point of view of birds "serious" is hard to do.

Also, Joe Kubert is at the top of his game. Seriously, his art is getting better at 80+ years when most guys start mailing it in when they hit 50 (looking at you John Byrne).

[John K(U.K.)]

Stop looking at John Byrne! You'll give the poor man a complex.

Joe Kubert is just incredible is he not? However, I long ago lost any critical objectivity regarding his work so I could be wrong. Kubert Snr - still bringing The Awesome at 80+.

I realise Wednesday Comics is expensive and probably more nostalgic than innovative but...but I just can't help loving the damn thing. Kiss me like you mean it, Wednesday Comics!

I'm glad you didn't diss Gene "The Dean" Colan because otherwise I would have had to go all CAPS LOCK on your ass. Which is really embarassing behaviour at my age. It is sad that Brubaker's run on Cap has become such an obvious exercise in, well executed I admit, water treading. Ah well, Gene "The Dean"! You can kiss me too!

Nice work as per usual, Sir, natch.

[Sandy]

"At some point, some really amazing historian is going to write a flawless volume of scholarship detailing what a horrible bunch of people American white men were at the height of the Space Race, and, true or false, that book is going to be like a breath of fresh air, because if there's one thing that's goddamn tiring it's watching a gaggle of Buzz Lightyears grin their way around the skies like a bunch of fucking mental patients."

That sentence was amazing. Bravo.

[plok]

I gave this installment of Deadman a pass, because I'm sure it's just a beat. Really REALLY like the idea of Deadman as Chandler-lite detective, I've never ever liked him until now. It's sort of like that "if you're planning a crime on a plane, watch out for fucking HAWKMAN" thing...ahhh, Hawkman, the Aquaman of the skies. Seriously, it's that business of "these things are actually quite easy not to fuck up" again. Deadman -- solves crimes after he's dead, motherfucker! He's the Marlowe of the afterlife. I mean what else is required.

And on Pope's Adventures: c'mon, Tucker, let's give some credit to the fun lettering, eh? But yeah: it really doesn't go any farther than that, and anyway that lettering is PART of the art, it isn't really "lettering", it's drawing.

Finally, may I say that I greatly admire your take on the Wonder Woman strip. There are so many ways in which it doesn't deserve me complaining about the things that sometimes don't work in it. I've actually never cared about Wonder Woman more. I don't expect ever to care about Wonder Woman more. And yet.

Fuck it, I'm just going to start saying it's fully awesome in every way no shut up you comics-hater rot in hell can't hear you. Jesus, what else am I supposed to do? It's an impossible situation.

Guaranteed will only ever read Blackest Night if it comes on TV one night at three a.m., and even then I may switch over to the channel with the Shamwow guy on it. "You're throwing your money away!" Indeed. Have you never seen the secret name "Ixat" blazing in the night? Even a Dini-written Batman...nope. I'm a case study. The last five years have made me a very fucking picky comics reader -- let alone buyer! -- and yet I'm still spending a couple hundred bucks a month.

There's a lesson in that, somewhere.

But finally I just wanted to mention something about Wednesday Comics #1 that every non-comics person I give it to remarks on right away, but that seems to've gone unrecognized on the comics blogging sites: that when you open the thing up, BAM! the first thing you see is a pair of eyes staring directly back at you at eye-level, with the Bat-signal reflected in them, just as you realize what you're looking at and go "wow, COOL...!" So it's a double-whammy. And Risso is bringing some fearsome intelligence to this strip. This time it's the statue with the gun, I reckon...

But seriously, every single non-comics person I showed that to. "Hey, that's really neat, the way this is designed...!"

Jesus, where is the Virgin Read on this?

[Christopher]

You nailed why I'm having so much trouble getting into Incognito. It really is sub-Sleeper 2.0

[Matthew J. Brady]

I don't have much to add here other than to say that you're fucking ON this week, so instead I'll help with your apparent Google-baiting use of the word BOOBS with this paraphrased-from-memory quote from Nathan Rabin's The Big Rewind. In the scene in question, Nathan is meeting his estranged mother and her secret family for the first time, and is surprised to encounter his half-sister at a party wearing a see-through shirt.

"See-through shirts send one message, and that is 'Hey, world, check out my tits! Aren't they awesome?' Normally that's a message that I can get behind, but in this context, it was a bit offputting."