Comics Of The Weak: Rise, Children Of Wetwork

Quiet, shitty week, so there's also a new comics post up at Savage Critics.

G.I. Joe Cobra Special # 1
Written by Mike Costa
Art by Antonio Fuso
Published by IDW Publishing

So, this thing reportedly contains "vistas of possibility" that "are so staggering in their vastness", which apparently means that there are "vast" possibities to be found in a comic that consists of a nonstop internal monologue and a gimmick construction technique. (The comic repeats itself structurally, with the center of the comic being the point when the individual delivering the monologue changes.) It's the Cloud Atlas of G.I. Joe comic book specials spun off from Sleeper rip-offs. That's a vista of possibility? Besides all that, it's one of those comic books where every single page has been processed through one of the hundreds of grainy filters available in the digital Effects suite, none of which are able to conceal that the drawings look to be lifted from poorly traced catalog pictures. Go figure: some people eat stickers, y'know?

Blackest Night: Titans # 2
Written by J.T. Krul
Art by Ed Benes & Scott Williams
Published by DC Comics

This particular tie in to the "no seriously, people like this one, you shut up" event that DC is currently publishing had the most potential to have an actual story, whereas the Superman one has to spend a good portion of its page count threatening to resurrect Pa Kent, and the Batman one basically exists so that DC can remind the reader that all of the Bat-characters have the same origin. See, the Titans have spent the better part of the last 15 years executing nearly every character it has come into contact with--when it comes to "storytelling options", you couldn't ask for a wider library of characters to create zombie stories out of. That leeway, of course, runs in tandem with the other legacy the Titans has had for the last 15 years, which is that it's usually written and edited by people who were home-schooled inside a crystal meth lab. So when you put two and two together, you end up here: a comic about a dead baby that rips out a chunk of mommy's neck while a couple of old Rob Liefeld characters argue with each other about which one of them is most responsible for them being completely unpopular. It's all very meta, which is fine, until you realize that if the only thing you have to reference is "other things, also shitty", going meta won't make you John Barth.

New Mutants # 5

Written by Zeb Wells

Art by Zachary Baldus

Published by Marvel Comics

This comic looks like it was published by Pirahna Press for eventual inclusion on Liquid Television, it has a character who talks like that alien everybody hated in the Star Wars prequel movies, and it's about mutants, or Native American girls punching surfer dudes. (She has a feather in her hair!) It's not going to make anybody fall in love with comic books for the first time, but it's a readable object, which is more than can be said for Gotham City Sirens and X-Men Legacy, which are the kinds of things that one has to abandon after the first couple of pages due to the searing pain in one's skull that shows up when the human brain says "Really, there's absolutely nothing to be gained by following this experience through to conclusion." That's not really a compliment, but then again: neither is the gnawing realization that God is real, and he's punishing you.

Superman # 692

Written by James Robinson

Art by Fernando Dagnino & Raul Fernandez

Published by DC Comics

It's not even a complaint anymore, it's just an acknowledgement: all DC Comics include a reference to some comic nobody cared about (this time, it's the Human Defense Corps mini-series) and a scene set at some sort of funeral/wake, this one being a bar where a man in a spandex costume props himself on a tiny stool to air out his balls/show off his balls/who fucking knows why, so he can deliver a eulogy. (Bonus points for the person not actually being dead.) Since that sort of stuff only takes up a small portion of the comic, the reminder is filled with some kind of boring exposition about magic and a hilarious subplot about how the Justice Society characters are having trouble fixing the sewer system in Metropolis. Considering how uninteresting and hard-to-follow Superman comics are unless one is willing/obsessive enough to read all eight of them a month, it would be kind of pleasant if they'd just have one title in sole devotion to that particular piece of obscurity. Nothing says Eisner like an eventual collection of "Power Girl & The Toilet Snake".

Wolverine: Weapon X # 5

Written by Jason Aaron

Art by Ron Garney

Published by Marvel Comics

Airwolf wasn't a very good show, which is why it's sort of criminal that it's so easy to track down and watch these days--like every other not-very-good television program that one has fond memories of, due to the fact that watching it lives in memory next to "the day I first wiped my own ass", it doesn't hold up when one watches it post-death-of-a-parent adulthood. That's what makes trust funds and being a vegan so intensely valuable, because both can postpone the eventual feeling referred to by some as "maturity" and by others as "being a snob". If you never stop liking the shit--the unbearably stupid, fundamentally juvenile shit--that gave you a boner when you were 11, you can still have a good old post 30's night marathoning Airwolf while drinking like a fake I.D. carrying 17-year-old. Agree or disagree, when it comes down to it, the acid test is pretty simple: this is the comic where Wolverine flies around in a combat helicopter. Check Yes or No.

Die Hard: Year One # 1

Written by Howard Chaykin

Art by Stephen Thompson & Matthew Wilson

Published by Boom

Yep, that Howard Chaykin. Ouch! Besides the overall weirdness of using old Bruce Willis for a photo reference, instead of just googling "Bruce Willis Moonlighting", which would've provided pictures of young Bruce Willis, this comic consists of dialog that is 100% expositionary bullshit...with ellipsis between...every line of...dialog. If this particular comic where made into a film--that can't happen, right? that should never happen--the movie would consist of at least seven hours of dead space, with the characters pulling a Liv Ullman in every scene. It would probably still make money though, which always proves that something is really fucking great, even when it seems like it's actually...really...horrible.

Genesis

Written by God, some dudes

Art by Robert Crumb

Published by Norton

Heyzeus Kreesto, what a boring, boring, boring, boring, snoozey mcsnoozey [insert generic insult] borefest this fucking was/is. It's one thing to read subversion into something that barely contains it (especially when the author actively claims subversion's absence), it's another thing entirely to lionize something so incredibly toothless when there's more controversy contained within a Madonna music video from fucking 1989, otherwise known as The Decade That Succeeded By Ending. Is God an old white man? You guessed it. Do Abraham and Isaac hug it out following the whole "i'm gonna stab you for da Lord" sequence? Why not. But hey! All the women look like his sketches of women always do! The part where shit blows up? It blows up real good! Otherwise?

It's better than this. But it pales in comparison to this. And at the end of the day, if you're not more interesting than Lego people fucking, and you're Robert Fucking Crumb, something done fucked up somewhere down the five year line.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[seth hurley]

"it doesn't hold up when one watches it post-death-of-a-parent adulthood. That's what makes trust funds and being a vegan so intensely valuable"

reading the end of that sentence as it transitions into the beginning of the next is like finishing "Fight for Your Right to Party" and flipping the album over to hear "No Sleep Til Brooklyn".

[Jonathan Baylis]

That's a shame about Crumb. I think I've got that on order with Amazon.

Have you ever seen Chester Brown's Gospels? Those looked particularly interesting and I was hoping he'd finish them, but I don't think that's gonna happen.

[LurkerWithout]

Rereading "Cain & Abel" in Lego Brick form makes God seem even more of a prick than ever...

[Chris Jones]

I gotcha toilet snake right here, Power Girl! Yeea-heah-heah!

Do you get it?

The joke is that I'm disgusting.

[Fayzan B]

You don't buy Secret Warriors?

Oh man. Oh man.

[Lugh]

I was going to launch into a rant about escapism and how people have guilty pleasures, in reference to your Wolverine review. However, a) you've heard it all before, I'm sure and b) I've read your GI Joe review over at Savage Critics, which made me smile, so I realize it's all just codewords for "I really hated this."

[Marty]

Hey! Those stickers are edible!

[Matthew J. Brady]

Holy shit these are some good reviews. There's no such thing as a slow week at The Factual Opinion.

[david brothers]

Lugh: the thing about guilty pleasures is that you're guilty about them because they are dumb/stupid/dangerous/lame/awful/whatever.

[Bill Reed]

I EAT STICKERS ALL THE TIME DUDE

[John K(UK)]

Reading the fascinating site of the Illustrated Bible I discover it is aimed at kids. If Mr. Nelson wants the kids' attention he needs to get some Gil Kane in there; a bit of motion , a bit of dynamism. When I was a kid I loved that Adam Warlock thing Kane did - Warlock was a bit Jesusy wasn't he? But he fought warthogmen and rode around in speedboats, he was also a bit emo and his Dad was The High Evolutionary...oh. Maybe not.
Or zombies. I hear they are popular with the kids.

That Lego thing is incredible.

Damn your eyes Mr. Stone, I have things to do but I cannot look away from these treasures.

[frank santoro]

"The part where shit blows up? It blows up real good! "

SCTV reference!!

If you did it by accident, that's okay. It's still funny.

For those who don't know, it's from a John Candy, Joe Flaherty skit.

[nrh]

Second the Chester Brown recommendation.

But... did you just reference David Mitchell, John Barth, Airwolf, and SCTV in one comics review column? Someone did have a tough weekend. But good job, nonetheless.

[Tucker Stone]

-I've seen a bit of the Chester Brown stuff, it's nice. I prefer the one at my old dentist's office where Samson is drawn like Conan--i don't know who did that one, but it looks like Alex Toth and Frazetta. The Wolverton Revelations is good stuff.

-nice catch frank.

-secret warriors. that's the one where the kid was in the robot and then he pulled on norman osborn's tie? yeah, i read that. the art isn't very good, but it's fine otherwise. i think i'd rather read hickman's nick fury by itself than hickman's nick fury + other people comic book.

[AERose]

"Rereading "Cain & Abel" in Lego Brick form makes God seem even more of a prick than ever..."

I just like the fact that the origin of the phrase "my brother's keeper" was Cain smarting off to God after killing Abel. Puts Barack Obama speeches in a whole new context, or something.

[Sean Witzke]

I refuse to buy anything Hickman didn't draw/ digitally drown himself. It might help if the people marvel keep teaming him up with weren't INSANELY AWFUL.