Comics Of The Weak: Sometimes Comics Are About People Getting Shot In The Penis

The Great Ten # 1
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Scott McDaniel, Andy Owens & The Hories
Published by DC Comics

Nobody wants to buy comics featuring new super-hero characters, but it's not like people aren't going to try to publish them anyway. This version of that "try" is about a bunch of characters that were introduced in a series called 52, and it's coming out now because DC Comics thought the first cash grab should be a new Infinity Inc comic, and it took over a year to figure out they backed the wrong horse. So now, 2.5 years after 52 ended, it's time to take a chance on the Socialist Red Guardsman. That's the sort of business model that keeps super-hero comics on the cutting edge of high finance, publishing a ten issue series for a bunch of no-demand characters from an old event comic. Whereas other companies go for the whole "strike while the iron is hot" ideal, DC's at the forefront of the alternative, striking years after the iron was released, often when the iron has been long ignored and replaced by a steam cleaner, or sweatpants. The best part about this is how the eventual trade paperback of this ten issue mini-series will probably stay in print forever, because people will keep saying "Great Ten is a good comic to give to Chinese readers, because...you know, it's all about China and Chinese stuff, you feel me? Just hand it to everybody who says they like that Gene Yang book. Guaranteed fan-for-life material. Hey, did you know Dennis Hopper marched with MLK in Montgomery? Life is weird."

Vampirella: The Second Coming # 3
Written by Phil Hester
Art by Al Rio & Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
Published by Harris Publications

This comic is called "the second coming" because it is about how Vampirella is coming back from the dead, and also because a bunch of demon type monsters are coming. So there are two things that are coming. It is also probably called that as a play on that outfit the character wears, because that outfit is used by people for cumming, and since she had a comic book before, this will be the second time that happens. All the narration in the comic comes from some guy who used to be married to some woman who dresses like Vampirella, but that guy dies at the end of the comic, and then Vampirella comes back to life. Overall, there's lots of coming in the comic. That probably means something, but figuring it out might take away some of the time that you'll wish you had back when you're choking out your final breaths. Mostly, this comic can only get shit on if you focus on the character's outfit, and while the outfit certainly is worthy-of-shitting, as it pretty much encapsulates the intensely geriatric nature of comic's inability to keep up with modern pornography--why no fisting?--but the comic's story itself isn't that far removed from something that DC or Marvel might publish, and it's certainly not an issue anybody would mistake for coming out of the Kinko's next door to a pervert emporium. It's professionally put together, there's no full on nudity--even when she's a withered husk, Vampirella's nipples are concealed behind her spandex body thong, despite the simple fact that her breasts and ribcage lack the body mass necessary for the spandex to conceal her modesty--so it's just another bad comic with a stupid title that a few people (like, less people than you probably see in a regular day few) will look at. Vampirella comics aren't bad, in and of themselves. They just make everything else around them look bad, because really, this sleazy hot girl horror comic is pretty much indistinguishable from a healthy crop of Big Two super-hero comics and most of the non-crime stuff Vertigo publishes. It's the same mediocre shit. The only difference is that Vampirella freely admits it, right on the cover. You're supposed to yell at it for that?

Deathlok # 1
Written by Charlie Huston
Art by Lan Medina
Published by Marvel Comics

This comic is pretty fucking great, actually. It's eventually going to be about a jacked up cyborg designed by scientists from the body horror fashion school of Paul Verhoeven's leave-behinds, but this first issue just focuses on some weird Marvel version of the sideways-future. A bunch of companies sponsor killing squads of what looks like space mercenaries, the various battles are televised with three color commentators (which, when the omniscient narrator starts going, makes for four groups of text boxes on most of the crotch-shooting violence pages), and the art seems to be derived from the fantasy world where computerized comic book coloring isn't considered to be completely fucking ugly. Like--does anybody really like Batman: Digital Justice? Sure, Digital Justice had the best distribution deal of all time, it's the one "graphic novel" that every single used book store has a copy of, it's pretty much the Dr. Dre's "Chronic" of hardcover comic books in that every household has at one point contained a copy, but seriously speaking, as a serious person who asks serious questions--does anybody really like Batman: Digital Justice? Because it really looked like that Dire Straits video parody that Weird Al Yankovic had in UHF. And Digital Justice--that's where Photoshop is going to take you, to Digital Justice and Final Fantasy cutscenes. That's what this comic looks like too. Same thing, only the content and tone makes it more of a ridiculous enterprise. The best panel is hard to choose, because there's a lot of random shit in here, but this one is pretty nice.

 

Yeah, why is dude all angry looking when he says that? Nothing happens before this to explain that face, nothing happens after. And why is he showing the reader that baby chalkboard? He never even explains what that thing is supposed to be, there's no reason whatsoever for him to be doing what he's doing in the picture, he's just showing the reader a video-game looking map to the battlefield, and it's not like that information is valuable. It doesn't come up again later. It's just goofy, and if it was the only panel like that, this Deathlok thing wouldn't be memorable. But the entire comic is like this--at one point, they "roll the footage" of a time that some guy got his legs blown off and then the television producers cut to a close up of his shame and humiliation. It's weird mounted on top of weird--hell, they even censor the language, despite the fact that there's cursing on nearly every page--and it doesn't even try to make sense. Make more like these. They taste funny.

Stumptown # 1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Matthew Southworth & Lee Loughridge
Published by Oni Press

Hey, where'd the couch go?

Solve the case of the missing couch first. Nobody likes it when detectives case-hop mid issue. Hey, this isn't as bad a first issue whoopsie as the one in The Mighty # 1 where the dialog balloons were swapped back and forth in a two man conversation, but at least the Mighty didn't have the line "Maybe with a boy? What does that mean? Is Charlotte queer?" 

Who says that? Like, ever. Who, like ever, says that?

Deadpool Team Up # 899
Written by Fred Van Lente
Art by Dalibor Talajic
Published by Marvel Comics

This is one of those comics that has a "production" credit, which is always a bit hubris-y. In television shows, the executive producer credits are usually there because somebody needs to find a way to skip around employment contracts so that people can get more money without doing extra work. It seems unlikely that Deadpool Team-Up would engender that type of business move, so the "Production" credit probably means "made us some tea" or "he walks fast". Oh, the comic? It has a reference to Clockers, or maybe "addicted to Yoo-hoo" is a common Deadpool story trope. Oh, and it also references 2 Girls 1 Cup. And! There's a nod to M.C. Escher, king of the "that's one trippy ass poster" artists. At the end, Deadpool insults the reader and then bastardizes a Geto Boys line ("suck my dick until your lips fall off") to acknowledge that a third Deadpool series is an absurd cash grab. The Geto Boys are pretty fucking great, but that's a lot of in jokes.

Astonishing X-Men # 32
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Phil Jiminez
Published by Marvel Comics

Although most of the characters in this comic end up sounding like any of the various Ellis-tropes, with the Beast and his girlfriend coming across with the strongest whiff of Global Frequency/Whatever Else that guy writes dialog for, there's one of those Cyclops + Wolverine male-bonding scenes that Grant Morrison made popular, and it's kind of funny. Apparently Cyclops spends the hella majority of his recuperation time trying to prove to Logan how fucking High Voltage he is by refusing painkillers. (To impress him? The "why" isn't really explained.) It's not like Marvel needs or should put out another Wolverine related comic book, but since they're going to anyway, it might not be that bad of an idea to just have one that's full of shit like that. They could call it "Wranglers". Or "Mary and Broseph". Or "Lesbians, But With Penises".

Captain America Reborn # 4
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Bryan Hitch
Published by Marvel Comics

The worst thing about this particular issue of Captain America is the Marvel ad placement, so that's a plus. Usually there's something in the actual comic book part. But yeeesh, seven house ads for other Marvel comic books? Right in the middle of the episode's Climax von Cliffhanger? Who made that decision? Why does that person hate Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch so much?

Of course, none of that is supposed to impact upon the comic reading experience, or at least, it isn't supposed to impact upon said quality of the comic book. (It does, glaringly, but it Isn't Supposed To.) And yeah, if you're just into looking at the bang-goes-the-explosion page work that Bryan Hitch does, or the look-did-you-see-this-coming plot twist in complete isolation, this issue of Reborn gets to be the best issue so far, if only because there's a bunch of "somethings" that take place, as opposed to the previous issues, which had the occasional something alongside a fuckload of nothing. Dr. Doom shows up and acts all Dr. Doom-y! Crossbones punches a robot! Bucky drops directly out of the sky on a motorcycle! (Or maybe Bucky jumps over something on a motorcycle. It would make a lot more sense for Bucky to be jumping over something on a motorcycle, but the way it's drawn makes it look like the motorcycle is being slowly lowered by invisible wires.) And at the end, Captain America officially comes back, except he's got the Red Skull's mind where his mind should be, and this is indicated by the tiny Red Skulls drawn inside his eyes.

And that's it. It's so middle of the road it should have a dead armadillo on it, to indicate "The West".

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[TimCallahan]

I haven't read this fancy new Deathlok yet, but I will assume it's exactly the same as Epic's "Stalkers" even when given evidence to the contrary. Because "Stalkers" gives us shit like this: http://tinyurl.com/ybfnrqd

So, yeah, Deathlok is great!

[Tucker Stone]

Okay, i'm buying that. That's a by-the-bedside comic, for sure.

[Chris Jones]

This whole article, comments section included, reads like one big visit to the Bad Idea Emporium.

[Jacob]

How was the Great Ten book, though? I expect McDaniel's art to be bad, but was it at least somewhat redeemed by Bedard's writing?

[Dan]

"Yeah, why is dude all angry looking when he says that?"

Because Jon Voight was yelling in the pic that Google Image Search turned up for the artist to trace, of course. He could've found a more suitable one, I'm sure, but that takes time, man, and time is money. And money is drugs and alcohol.

[Tucker Stone]

Mostly, it just seems like the job Bedard has is one that would be hard for anybody. Great Ten is being set in a mix of real world China & the DC version of China, and it's trying to be critical of the country while focusing on a bunch of characters who are flag waving types. Where's it supposed to go? Are they all going to become capitalists by the end, and hang out with Superman? Or are they just going to split down the middle, with some of them bailing out for Taiwan--which seems possible, considering how heavily Bedard's amping the importance of Taipei. But how do you tell either of those stories when you're also stuck doing ten origin issues? It's completely screwed from the outset, although I'd bet the August General In Iron issue has potential--he has the best name, he's got the most personality, and he seems to like being on the team the most. It's also Really Serious comics, which doesn't really mesh with McDaniel's art-hell, it pretty much opens with Tibetan monks getting slaughtered, and yet everything Scott draws looks...you know, fun, cartoon-y. He's a weird choice, considering the tone that the book has.

[LurkerWithout]

Huh. I used to have that issue of "Stalkers". Weird. Also, I think Tony Bedard is going to be like Fabian Niecza for DC. The generally competent guy they can hand one of these pointless rack-fillers to...

[Chris Jones]

Heh.

"Rack-filler"...

[Kenny Cather]

I still remember the first issue of Stalkers really well. I remember it because I was totally taken off guard by the story. (Hey, I was like 10). It seemed like a mean thing to publish a comic like that, rack it with the kiddie books, and have a picture of Spider-man where a "Suggested for Mature Readers" label should have been.

Tucker - have you read Bart Simpson Comics #50 yet? I *really* enjoyed that book last week....

[Matthew J. Brady]

You scan images of Yelling Jon Voight and knitting needles, but no desiccated Vampirella tits? I'm disappointed. Maybe I can go look for the equivalent at that Kinkos.

[Jim Kingman]

I didn't buy any comics on your review list, but I'm still keeping up with The Warlord! And now Mike Grell is illustrating it! It's like BEING in 1977 all over again with new stories. Comic books are awesome.

[Tim O'Neil]

Deadpool stories are designed around in-jokes - the character's whole shtick is that everything he says is an in-joke (in his head, that is). It works for me, sometimes. The first arc of the 2nd Deadpool series - where DP has to find his alternate universe zombie head in the Savage Land while fighting dinosaurs and caveman and zombie dinosaurs and this one lady scientist who just can't keep from showing her cleavage every other page - was awesome, because, well, all the elements I just enumerated. It's so shamelessly pandering that it's genuinely fun - like, this is stuff people will enjoy, so let's make it actually enjoyable and not all mopey and self-conscious. But I wonder how far the joke will stretch over three monthly titles.

And has there ever been any explanation given for why the hell Doom is working with the Red Skull? You know, considering that 1) the Skull and Doom spent the better part of the 1970s trying to kill each other and 2) Doom strongly identifies with his gypsy heritage, and as a member of the Nazi high command the Skull was responsible for sending hundreds of thousands - millions? - of gypsies to death camps. This is a serious question - I haven't read all of Brubaker's Captain snnnnnoooozzzzzeeee.

[John Pontoon]

Dennis Hopper was also one of the first people - like AT ALL - to recognize the importance of Andy Warhol. He was one of literally two people to buy some of the Campbell's Soup Cans (at $1000 per) before Warhol bought them back to keep them in sets.

I'm trying to say that I enjoyed this week's reviews, Mr. Stone. You are a talented young fella.

[John K(UK)]

Brubaker's Captain America was pretty decent comics right up until the Fat Alan Moore Hypno bloke just upped and went "Right, that's me off then. I'll not bother explaining meself, alright? Alright."
After that it was a load of wheel spinning roof top running and dumb plapf like a hard as Siberian ice assassin crying over all the birthday cakes he missed while under Ruski control.
Reborn is so boring I can't even remember Das Skull getting his body back. Was it last issue? Why don't I care? Also if you're going to homage Steranko you might want to try for more than just reminding people how much better Steranko's senseless beauty was than today's sensible banality.
To say this the worst thing he's ever (supposed to have) experienced Captain America looks like he's got nothing more unsettling than a bad case of wind throughout.
It's boring that's what I'm saying. And expensive.
That Deathlok comic was #### as well. And expensive.
I enjoyed Paul Grist's new comic though. Nice.

[Kenny Cather]

I was sooooo tempted to buy the new Grist comic because Grist's work is sooo amazing, but I'm limiting myself to only buying his work in collections. I know I'll read it over and over again, so why buy it in floppy format too, you know?

And yeah, right on about Captain America. I really enjoyed the Winter Soldier story, but things slowed down once Bucky took over, and then I lost interest.

[Mikey Donuts]

True or untrue, when coach Bud Kilmer tells you to get your gear and head towards the other teams oil reserves you do it?

[Dave]

Tim, I'm probably going to check out Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth's first arc based solely off the fact that Victor Gischler is writing it. His arc of Punisher MAX was probably the only enjoyable post-Ennis run, and while I can't recall any of the actual plot of the one novel of his I read, it started with a hitman killing a target by filling a Boston Cream donut with blasting caps.

Really, filling a pastry with explosives is enough to make me follow what a guy writes for at least 5 years afterwards.

[Tucker Stone]

Jim: i ran into a spot of trouble finding new Warlord lately, but i'm glad to know it's still rocking your world. What you see in new Warlord, I believe I see in Deathlok: it is called joy, and its flavor varies.

That new Grist thing? Really? It's pretty as hell, but didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Some soldier likes to fight barefoot homeless people, and lady's like necklaces? But it was pretty. Pretty goes a long way sometimes.

K: yeah, I read that Sergio does Simpsons. I didn't feel it, but I'm one of those "only care about Homer" people.

John K: It's funny, because my favorite Brubaker Cap was that early Steve issue where he's all lonely and sad, hanging out in his shitty gym in DUMBO, sticking his hand back and forth through holographic walls--but yeah, at some point it got as angsty as a Matthew Murdock's Girlfriends Keep Dying comic. I haven't cried since Bo Jackson retired, so maybe I just can't relate.

Pontoon: Dennis Hopper is one of those litmus test kinda guys, he's the pothead Warren Oates. You either dig on Hopper & Oates, bad movies and all, or you drink buckets of wheatgrass and read horoscopes. Life is never as complex as "the media" would have you believe.

Tim: That's a good question (about Doom), and one I don't know if anybody else is asking. I've read the Cap series pretty steadily, don't think it's ever come up. I never finished Brubaker's Doom mini though, so maybe it's in there?

Deadpool--i'm a little of him goes a long way type of reader, and while I agree with Dave that the only enjoyable non-Ennis Pmax run was Gischler's, I found that Bong Dazo art to be completely off-putting. Not my thing, but hey, my only thing last week was Deathlok. I'm not really on top of life these days.

[Jacob]

My goodness, I miss Bo Jackson. In both sports.

[John K(UK)]

I forced myself to re-read Reborn to see if there was an explanation for the Romany Rascal hanging out with the mass murdering one. And, lo, there is: "I told Normy I'd help you." Brilliant. You know why no one has noticed this? Because they are stunned by boredom.

Okay, so the Grist comic was probably the physical definition of "slight" in paper and staple form but whose flavour varies? Joy's. A wise man told me.

Kenny, I buy Grist in comics form so that Paul Grist can afford to eat and thus produce more comics for me. Always remember - Stray Bullets.

I'm more of a Peter Cushing man myself, but, yeah, Warren Oates rocked. I'm glad we have filmed evidence that men like that once existed. I liked that thing Hopper did with the gunpowder. And he was okay in Land of The Dead.

I give in. Where did the couch go?

[Kenny Cather]

John, I totally get where you're coming from. For me, I don't like to spend money on floppies. If it means comics I really like don't stay alive enough to get collected - oh well. Sure, it makes me a bad guy, in a sense, but I can live with it.

I also miss Bo Jackson a lot.

[Tim O'Neil]

I'm compiling a list of things I need to write about when I get back from hiatus and close to the top of that list is talking about how awesome Bong Dazo is. Seriously, he's become one my new favorites.