The Factual Opinion

My Wife: Thinks This Female Comic Book Character Has Great Breasts

(The Virgin Read)

You know, I’ve been looking for just the right kind of female comic book character to capture my interest - and Jennifer Blood just might be it!

 

I wouldn’t have thought it from the cover, either. By the way, the cover art of this comic book is distinctly different from the interior art. It's pretty drastic. If I had chosen this comic book based on the cover art, assuming that the inside was more gritty, realistic stuff, I’d be disappointed.

Of course, I didn’t choose this based off of the cover art. Hell, I didn’t choose it, period. It was chosen for me. As it turns out, it was a pleasant little surprise. Cover art notwithstanding, it's not what one might expect.

Here we have a female comic book character who does it all - happy homemaker and dutiful wife by day (and portions of the night), while also doing the whole vigilante super heroine by night routine. She's also totally feminist and willing to use her alter ego to seek revenge on sexists and/or male chauvinists.

She's hardly Joan Cleaver. What's hilarious is the little lines thrown in here and there that make you do a mental double-take. There's this blurb that comes up in the midst of her diary entry that is explaining the details of her day: "It was only later, when I was grinding up the Valium (junior for Alice and Mark!) to put in their hot chocolate that the one black cloud rose up over the horizon again....”

I had to re-read that part four times to make sure I read what I thought I'd read. Mrs. Happy Homemaker drugs her kids at night so she can go out and play Wonder Woman?

And you know what else? She's totally hot. The artist's pen had a good time drawing this lady. You should see her silhouette in the shower. What's great is that she does and says the very thing I was yearning for Power Girl to say and do. Uh-huh - when the "bad guys" spot her and guns pointed and aimed right at her, she makes sure they get a good look at her. She knows that when they do this, it buys her a second or two. The dialogue goes down like this:

Bad Guy 1: Dude - have you seen this?

Bad Guy 2: JESUS --

Jennifer Blood's thought text: That's right boys, I thought. Boobies. Take a good look. You know you want to. Give me that nice long second I need.

And then she annihilates them. You know something? That's what I want in a super-chick. I want one who knows the power of her sexuality to stupefy, dazzle and weaken the men folk. And I want her to use it for good and for conquering evil. If evil isn't available, she can also just use it to hurt people. I am willing to compromise.

Now of course, just when I got far enough into this comic to recognize that I was enjoying it, I started to wonder about the logistics of the whole thing, like...how the hell can she keep this up? This double life - we get a hint that this isn't for good. She's apparently seeking revenge on uncles. (Her uncles? Is that serious?  Perhaps some people just use the term "uncles" generally? Like "Godfathers", or something?) Whatever these guys are to her, she kills one in this issue and lets us know that there are four more to go. 

The last thing I feel like I have to write about occurred in the last few pages. Again, I have to mention her body. I mean honestly, her boobs are stunners. She's drawn chockfull of raw sex appeal in the night time sequence, which is all supposed to be juxtaposed against her husband. (Who she's having sex with.) And yes, we're all wincing at the fact that he's working so darn hard to please her, and himself, and all she's thinking about is how nice and boring it is to let him flail around on top of her compared to what she's just been through. But even without the dialog, or the absence in her face, the thing that made him all the most pitiful...is the pronounced, prominently drawn hair on his ass. It's not in the middle of the page or anything - but my eye just goes there. It's so gross. It's not just general male hair - it looks as rough and thick as a porcupines, or, and I hope the comic isn't being this blunt but maybe it is: a pigs.

Poor guy.  

I guess it'll turn out that he's also some sort of super hero and they'll end up teaming up together. All his earnest, exhaustive love-making efforts will be an act or something. That's how this all usually works out, right?

-Nina Stone, 2011

Jennifer Blood, Written by Garth Ennis, Art by Adriano Batista, Published by Dynamite

Comics Of The Weak: Let's Compete To See Who Can Stunt Their Adolescence The Most

The Grand Prize will be not getting laid

Thunderbolts # 153
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Kev Walker
Published by Marvel Comics

Ahhhand now we pick things up again, yes indeed! Okay, so the previous issue was pure lowest common denominator stuff--essentially tweet comics, the sort of thing that usually comes straight from the mouths of people saying "kaiju...versus cage" and then proudly jutting out their chest like some manner of overweight rooster. It was not horrible! Parker doesn't do horrible, or if he does, he holds onto it until he's saddled with event tie-in tumors, which is interestingly enough the same time that Kev Walker is nowhere to be found. The previous issue's bottom feeding was, however, by the numbers, a point-for-point piece of predictability that could've been made by any/all of those people who make webcomics and call themselves "creators". (No, not everybody who makes webcomics is like this, but yes, whole bunches of them are, and yet: they are most assuredly not.) This issue picked things up both by ratcheting up the fanservice (someone explicitly got fearful and found out what sort of "touch" that resulted in", but it wasn't fanservice in the queasy Geoff Johns way, more fanservice in the hit-you-on-the-back and get all Randy Savage selling-beef-jerky kind of contagious excitement way), and also by just being the mysterious mixture of the word "better" all around, which is nice and pleasant and all oh so sweet that we should check in on something like this, which isn't.

Batman # 707
By Tony Daniel
Published by DC Comics

It won't be that tough for Daniel to set the bar at its lowest in terms of "how lousy can one individual do Batman-y comics", he just has to keep following his current track and he'll meet the only requirement soon enough, which is length of time, as that's all that keeps David Lapham in the winner's circle. Just an update: on top of the "why?" sidekick that Catwoman has (Catgirl, she wears pink hi-tops and poses a lot) there's also Enigma (who belongs to The Riddler as played by Evan Stone, also that ten year old Robin wants to fuck her, pay attention I guess?) now we have a female Two-Face, probably to go along with all those female versions of Bane and Mr. Freeze that they came up with back in Gotham Underground and yet no one ever used. During the same conversation where a corporate job at DC was being dangled in my face like a dead, festering turd last week (yep!), it was mentioned that all these horrible Batman comics are basically the fault of Mike Marts, but there was no real implication that anyone cared. Which is funny, because, and yes I know it gets old mentioning this but "Hey, Batman things make lots of money in everything but the new comic books that get published", meaning it's the sort of thing that you shouldn't really be able to fuck up, because you know, there were Batman toys that caught on fire and contained metal wires that cut upon kids faces like less than ten years ago and if permanently scarred children can't fuck up your brand, the comics should really probably not be all across the board be catering to really specific deviants, y'feelmedogforrealnow.

Brightest Day # 20
Written by Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi
Art by Same People Who Always Draw It, Probably
Published by DC Comics

There's no cover this week that compares; put simply, this is the one to beat. Even if you're zeroed purely on the blood spray from Aqua's stump, you're sure to be even more satisfied by what might be the most audacious piece of "in-continuity" (if you don't know, that means that the "ha ha, we did it again" events depicted within the story "count", no imaginary tales for us) cynicism in a career rife with them. Geoff Johns, the overall "architect" of this particular series is best known for having pet characters like Hal Jordan or the Flash spend entire issues of comics wax infinitum regarding their own or each other's importance, a story trick that has won him no small measure of fans, at least half of which only sit through the bullshit so they can see the not-meaning-to-be-hilarious carnage--outside of reality television, there's absolutely no form of entertainment more heavily dependent on an audience who attends merely to feed their own rapacious feelings of superiority to an audience they imagine that enjoys it directly, an audience which of course does not exist. It's the addicted-to-hate show, and Johns is either delighted to provide it or completely clueless to its omnipresence: this is malicious, horrible noise, and yet it's still motherfucking Aquaman with blood squirting out Hong Kong arterial spray style while Black Manta poses like a suburban shut-in obsessed with what he thinks ninjas must do when they're being, you know, ninja-like.

Uncanny X-Force # 5
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Esad Ribic
Published by Marvel Comics

The lucky thing about jacking Alan Moore stories is that you can still kind of enjoy some Alan Moore rip-off stories, even when they've been jacked, because the guy really went milkshake balls out sometimes. (This is probably old news, but guess what phrase shows up as a "here's a name for a stupid fucking event crossover, aren't those things silly" in the unfinished but very awesome 1963 mini-series? Why, the title "Infinite Crisis" did, how about that!) The same, however, cannot be said about free-jacking Grant Morrison tics, which is why certain portions of this comic are most reminiscent of those times when you mistakingly thought that today was the day to be nice to the guy no one talks to at the office, only to find out that the reason nobody talks to him is a very good one, and that reason is that he is incapable of having conversations where the word "spur" bumps against the word "moment", and opening up the door to future conversations about using home surgery to deal with a hydrocele on the testicles for the purposes of "saving on co-pays" isn't worth not feeling like a selfish prick on a cold Tuesday, i.e. Tough It Out, and yes, sometimes being selfish is a warning system, and nobody should want to quit a job just to avoid the socially awkward guy who know thinks we're all pals, that we care, and we don't, because no one does, or should. Which is a long way to say nothing other than: it's a real fucking chore to read Fantomex in the first place, he's neither "cool" or "edgy", he's just an accumulation of traits that don't form any real character, a fictional embodiment of story gimmicks from the New Wave films and too-many-longboxes that Morrison based him off of, which is why he's best experienced around other things and never--as he is here--for extended periods of time.

And yes, if you're wondering why so much is being made regarding the writing of X-Force, it's because Jerome Opena isn't around to draw it, and Esad Ribic can apparently only do that rotoscope digital paintball thing on covers, meaning this comic looks (for the most part) like a decent-to-good riff on that generic unfinished tracing style that Marvel puts on most of their books whenever their artists with actual voices aren't available. (Unfair to Ribic, sure, but when the evidence of what he can do is on the cover of the book that mostly contains a phone picked up and called in on, there's not much else to say but "this is kind of boring.")

20th Century Boys # 13
By Naoki Urasawa
Published by Viz

It took a few volumes to get the bad taste brought about by some of the previous volume's weird plotting style (if you're going to wipe characters off the map completely, maybe it would help if that was made clear enough so that the impact is felt when it happens and not, you know, two or three volumes later in a place of drawn out confusion), but the last few chunks of 20th Century that have dropped for those of us who don't mind waiting on it have been just bang on the can excellent, especially the inclusion of the so-fabulous-I-should-maybe-be-offended fat male pop singing superstar who used to apparently be a rock and roll drummer because of fuck-yes-reasoning. And sure OKAY, yes, if this was an American comic, the cliched over-the-shoulder "time to go To FUCKING WAR" moment would be criticized for being overused (that is its third appearance in 20th Century alone) and maybe the umpteenth holy-shit-evil-is-at-the-front-door twist would be deserving of abuse. But somehow, the same way that Wong Kar Wai's dialog didn't seem non-moronic until you heard it in English (and then you heard Blueberry Nights and went oh-mi-god this dude is seriously channeling 13-year-old white girls), Urasawa can get by with stuff that would seem totally fucking chewing on the drapery ham-tastic, maybe because he still kills when it comes to the depiction of crying. Nice bloody head wounds too, that's brutal.

Deadpool Max # 5
Written by David Lapham
Art by Kyle Baker
Published by Marvel Comics

The last issue of this had one really great joke and that was pretty much it, but it's understandable that both creators might have just been so drunk on "we get to use Cable!" that they sputtered out upon ignition. This isn't just back on track material though, this is fucking top tier, alongside that "okay, here's why Nazi bad guys don't work in hero comics" moment from before alongside Baker's most delirious combination of stock Mad imagery yet--feels like a lot of Drucker this time out, but god knows it's a mistake to try and chase every influence Baker's ingested, this comic is combustible enough already. It makes no real sense that Marvel is publishing this--there's absolutely no precedent for this kind of work--and while that uniqueness makes for an incomparable curiosity factor, it could hinder it's enjoyment a bit. And sister, this one is actually pulling that off too, so don't get too drunk on what-the-fucks. 

-Tucker Stone, 2011

less writing more talking

The Virgin Read: Reads About Captain Martin Sheen America and Marlon Nuke Brando

This is a well written comic. 

Know why I say this?

Because I was in the midst of getting snarky about it when it all turned around.

Ultimate Comics Captain America # 2
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Ron Garney
Published by Marvel Comics 

See, I'd read the first few pages, where it was explained to Captain America who the guy with the flagface is, his entire history, how he’s taken up with the enemy, the whole thing, right? And then I read this exposition chick say to him that he in no way is to go after this guy.

So I stop and say to my husband, “this is ridiculous. This is so comic-booky and obvious. They’re gonna tell him/us all this information - every minute detail - and then tell him not to go after him? Come on!”

My husband will not give in or play with me. He just sneered at me to keep reading.

I kept trying to get him to admit that this was a lame piece of writing.

He refused!

Humph.

And then, one second later, I saw why. All that obviousness was intentional. It was silly by design! Captain America figured it out too, just like me!

And so he’s off - “going Rogue”. First things first though: punch that bitch in the face!

You know something? This comic book completely held my attention. These days, from me, that’s saying A LOT. I'm doing concerts and playgroups and performing all the time. I leave early, I get home late. If I pick up a comic book at 10 pm and read it, the litmus test seems to be that if my eyes never droop, it’s a good comic. And guess what - no drooping!

And sure, it’s totally like Apocalypse Now. I don’t really care. Because so many things have that basic Hearts of Darkness-y type of plot. Right? I mean especially in comics? Aren't all Wolverine and Bret Michaels looking guy basically doing that hunt-the-one-gone-wrong thing all the time? Spiderman and Venom?  __________ & _______________?  (I can hardly believe that I know these references. Be impressed. Please. Be very impressed.)

The cover choice is kind of weird though. It's taken directly from the aforementioned movie, but that scene never occurs in the comic, so that’s weird. But other than that - I found this to be a pretty interesting comic. And I’m really interested to know about these crazy, tiny people in the little village. Especially because they’re so small and are all, actually, Super Soldiers. They're like Smurfs, except its the Third World. Crazy!

Oh, and I have to admit, I did finish this wondering what was going to happen with Captain America and this dude Frank. Will it be a team up? A nasty bloody battle? So...am I anxious to know these answers? 

Well, I wouldn’t say anxious. But I am interested! Interested enough to buy the next issue?

Maybe?

Interested enough to ask my husband to read it and tell me about it, and then actually pay attention when he does so? 

Definitely.

-Nina Stone, 2011

She doesn't remember, but back in 2008, Nina read another comic by this same creative team. Whether you read it or not, the comment section for that one was pretty funny.

Comics Of The Weak: I Know Panties, And You Sir, Are Not Wearing Any Panties

You should be able to make the boxes produce sound because you are on a computer and the year is 2011.

Amazing Spider-Man # 654
Written by Dan Slott & Fred Van Lente
Art by Stefano Caselli & Marte Garcia
Published by Marvel Comics

Amazing Spider Man

Superman # 708
Written by J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson
Art by Eddy Barrows, J.P. Mayer, Julio Ferreira & Rod Reis
Published by DC Comics

Superman

The New Avengers # 9
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mike Deodato, Howard Chaykin, Rain Beredo & Edgar Delgado
Published by Marvel Comics

New Avengers

Batman And Robin # 20
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason
Published by DC Comics

Batman and Robin

Wolverine # 1000
Written by Miscellaneous
Art by People
Published by Marvel Comics 

Wolverine 5.1
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Jefte Palo & Nathan Fairbairn
Published by Marvel Comics

Wolverine

-Tucker Stone, 2011

The Return of The Virgin Read

A note from The Powers That Be:

Nina is a bit irritated that a kibosh was thrown down on any new title for her columns that featured the word "rape" in them, even after it was explained how creepy your google results get when you start tossing that one repeatedly into the can. The title "Virgin Read" may have lost a bit of its accuracy--as has been pointed out before by, you know, those people--but it's still got a bit of accuracy that should be obvious, and so it has made a return.

And with that, here's this, and her.

Okay, so I think my husband picked this as my comic this week because he thought I’d find it sweet.  

Sure. I guess it’s sweet.

But for the most part?

I found it stressful.

Now, look - I am not going to be talking shit about this comic. That is not what is about to happen. I’ve got nothing bad to say about it. I am just going to tell you what my honest response was to it. My reaction. It isn't a reaction to the art, and it isn't to the method of storytelling used. My reaction is about one thing, and one thing only: reading about the planning of wedding.

See, I’m a girl. A married girl. I lived through this already. And I lived through it in New York City, which is where I believe this comic takes place.

Everything in Scenes is so close to what actually happens that I couldn’t find it funny or nostalgic at all. (Hey, we’re just coming up on our 3 year anniversary, and this still wasn't some kind of happy skip down memory lane. It just reminded me of that entire year of stress that went into planning the wedding - from the guest list to the music to a million other things I don't feel like revisiting.  

There were a few specific things that were just too similar to our experience that it became impossible for me to get any distance. Like:

1. The whole guest list thing. Especially the part where my parent’s list was 3 times as long as me and my (then) fiancee’s list put together. That happened to us, it happened to this couple and it was a totally real thing that drove me crazy. (And sometimes still makes me mad!) 
2. The invitation. Unlike the book, we didn’t have the whole thing about designing our own invitations happen, but we did have a whole thing go on with finding save-the-dates and then creating our own.  And then most of them never being sent. (See....I’m still kind of angry. It’s not good for me to be revisiting any of this! It’s done! That shit is OVER! We are blissfully MARRIED!)
3. D.J. - We had a band, not a DJ. But these two kept getting DJs that would include “Love Shack” on their samples. Our most-annoyingly-overused-song-on-wedding-band-sample-CD was “Dancing in September.” (I know! Right?!)
4. OH - that one part where he says, “Did you see what those idiots did to my suit?!” Dude - ask my friend Tucker Stone about his suit on his wedding day. Ask him. It was so bad that he kept it from me until the Honeymoon. And I still cried, even though he and his friends fixed it!
5. And craziest of crazy coincidences - we too were starving when we got back to our suite. We too tried to order room service and couldn’t get any. WE, TOO, ORDERED BURGERS AND FRIES FROM A 24 HOUR DINER AND SAT ON THE FLOOR EATING THEM IN OUR WEDDING ATTIRE. (See, now I’m actually just angry because I’m a bit of a brat and I’m all like, “that’s OUR memory! Not YOURS! I can be such a 4 year old sometimes.)

So, that’s my deal with this. It sort of tired me out because it brought it all back to me. If you’re not married yet, this is a totally cute thing to read and see the comedy in being part of a couple who is planning a wedding. If you are married, and you’ve been married for a while, it might be fun for the two of you to read this together and laugh nostalgically at over how cute the two of you were back in those pre-wedding days.

But perhaps you’re in the situation that I’m in, where you're still close enough to that big day and all that planning. In that case, you might want to buy a copy of this comic and give it to your loved on on, say, your 5th anniversary. Or 10th. Yeah 10th...that’d be good.

-Nina Stone, 2011

Romancing The Virgin Read: Date Raped by Comics

Look - we have to talk. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.....and this just doesn’t feel right to me.

I’ve tried. You KNOW that I’ve tried.  

I’ve wanted it to work out between comics and me. I’ve done everything - The Virgin Read, Romancing The Stone... but frankly - I’m just not that into them.

There. I said it. Let me say it again, but in all caps.

I’M JUST NOT THAT INTO COMIC BOOKS!

I’m hoping we can still be friends, at the very least. In fact, it’s not totally over. I’m just calling a spade a spade so that we can move forward. See, from this moment on, I am not going to engage in this charade of me developing into a fan of comic books. I’m not even going to TRY! (I feel so FREE!)

And you know what? I will no longer even pick the book. I mean, I do this whole thing to entertain my husband. Why not let him pick the comic book that I “have to” read each week? This way, I still get to do my weekly blog post, and I get a happy husband. So, in a sense, no more of this politeness. Rather, I'm going to have a comic forced upon me each week. (It sorta sounds like Date Rape, doesn't it? I mean, it sounds awful to make a joke out of it, but--so what?)

So without further ado - my review of Memoir # 1, which I think came out recently.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.......Zzzzzzz.........zzzzzzzzzz.....Oh!  What?!?

Shit!

Sorry. I totally fell asleep!

This comic is so boring that I fell the fuck asleep.

Seriously. Have you read this?

In a brief 22 pages, the scene changes 10 times. Isn’t that a lot? 

With all those scene changes, you’d think it’d hold one’s attention.  

Nope! It's a snoozefest.

Why? Why is it so damn boring? Let me see if I can capture the reason why.

Perhaps it's that the very first page - the flashback-y, cliff-hanger-y, foreshadowing page - doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Pages like that are supposed to hook us and make us wonder what’s going on, wonder what just happened, there's a general "OMG WTF" kind of thing that's supposed to happen, like it or not. A really good set-up that makes one want to turn the page. But in this case, it’s jut kind of confusing and mildly uncomfortable. A guy with two kids...hiding? Silencing them? Is he a good guy or a bad guy? And the “they” he refers to when he says “they found us” looks like glue pouring down a hillside. [Huge intake of breath!] Huh. That's so....crazy.  

Well, no. Not really. It's just weird, and it's weird in a boring way.

After that, we're led through the rest of comic book by a journalist who has come to find out what’s going on in the kooky little town. I think he’s supposed to be a city-slicker who is jaded and funny? Ohmygod he is so not funny. I have to give him some credit, I guess, because that description, "city slicker who is jaded and funny" is so cliched and uninteresting on the face of it that it's going to be really, really difficult for anything good to come out of it. But the character is so hard to like that it's really tough.

And....ugh. I really can’t write about all the stuff that seems off about this comic book. There's weird art that seems like the artist really wanted to show one face from 5 different angles, but that just leaves the shadowing and age lines all over the place. This might be a case where the old adage “less is more” could have come into play. A couple of these characters have so many lines drawn into their faces they look like decaying fruit.

What's this whole thing about, anyway? Essentially, we are dealing with a mystery here. The entire town’s memory was wiped out. A bunch of people are dead. Other people’s behavior is just plain odd. And.....oh, who cares? And as if being boring isn't enough, all the boringness is punctuated by the entire comic being black and white and grey. I mean, I usually really like when a comic book artist sticks to just three colors in their palate. That usually looks really cool. I've read some pretty gnarly black and white comics that I quite liked. But in this case, it’s only adding to the sleepy, "this doesn't matter" feeling.  

Look, I'd rather read about superheroes than read this. And that's saying something.

-Nina Stone, 2011

Comics Of The Weak: Hold, Sweet Hosanna, Lest Thy Bacon Trickle Down

Secret Avengers # 9
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Mike Deodato
Published by Marvel Comics 

Finally looks like Moon Knight is going to have something to do, making these first nine issues of Secret Avengers not a waste of time for all us maybe-i'm-a-Moon-Knight-fan? type of readers. The worst part of this issue is the panels on the second page where it looks like Deodato forgot to draw some lines over the photographs he took of a kid dropping action figures off of the coffee table, but it's all forgiven, because this comic book has a tagline on the cover, once again reminding you that Marvel is your overly excited younger brother who yells in your ear from a three inch distance about upcoming Terminator movie news. (DC is your closeted older brother that keeps getting in creepy chaste relationships with extremely overweight Christian women. He's funny, you like him fine, but it's high time he quit pretending he's going to marry any of those poor girls.)

Wonder Woman # 606
Written by J. Michael Straczynski & Phil Hester
Art by Wayne Faucher
Published by DC Comics
Other People Did Art Stuff Too but Who Cares That Wayne Guy's Name Is Sex 

Do you know what happens here? It's kind of funny, actually. Wonder Woman fights some dude with antlers, and he kills somebody with one of his antlers, so she takes his antlers--one of them she rips off his head, somehow she gets the other one--and then she shoves them into his back all fuck-you-father style. She even kind of screams when she does it, like in that show Alias or any 80's action movies where people always yell when they kill somebody who was really crawling up their ass. It's still Wonder Woman, still DC, so yeah--it all looks like cheap shit and has some strange Top Cow wet titty scenes afterwards, most of the writing doesn't make sense and the actual fight dialog is stolen from about a hundred cheap action movies--but that doesn't change the fact that it's kind of funny, it's a comic about a girl hero in a jacket who kills the poor man's unicorn. You probably wouldn't regret reading this as long as you didn't pay any actual money for it, so yay for stealing shit I guess.

Uncanny X-Force # 4
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Jerome Opena & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

Concluding a pleasant string of issues that served as a reminder why crass conceits are preferable to what passes for "innovation" in the super-hero comic medium, this was the chapter where a character sliced off portions of his forearm to feed another, and it ended with a widdle goth boy getting shot in the face, on purpose. All well and good, drawn better than these sorts of comics ever are, like...really, ever, you gotta look far and wide to find stuff that's even competent these days, and you have to wade past people who seem offended that you care about shit like "what it looks like" in the first place, so there's that.

Action Comics # 897
Written by Paul Cornell
Art by Pete Woods
Published by DC Comics 

If Time Warner's lawyers really wanted to end all those court cases regarding the ownership of Superman, they'd just enter comics like this into evidence, because the Siegel/Shuster people clearly have no idea how little idea meat there is left on the Superman bone. But toss 'em one of these rumplestiltskins, get ready to witness the world landspeed record for shrinking away. Who in their right mind would want to own the Lex Luthor talks to people franchise?

Age of X Alpha # 1
Written by Mike Carey, probably
Art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta, other people
Published by Marvel Comics 

Pretty fascinating art here in the early goings, and while it certainly does seem like a terrible idea to pump out another X-Men mini-event so close to the conclusion of like six other mini-events (yeah, there's a reason nobody is even bothering to explain the hairpins to non-readers anymore, these mutant comics are so far up their own ass that even the cosplay types of fan are getting embarrassed and shifty eyed), you can't fault Marvel for pumping at the till like the goal was never the ejaculate (which stopped leaking out back in Messiah War) and now they just want the actual bio-tubing the stuff travels through. Thank god Marvel doesn't have enough artists like that Hernandez guy to keep me interested, because I seriously don't have the free time to figure this shit out. Wolverine's dead?

Infestation # 1
Written by Abnett & Lanning
Art by David Messina
Published by IDW Comics 

Just for explanation's sake: this is a comic that crosses over from the universe where the Transformers live to the universe where the Star Trek people live, then it lines up with the universe where GI Joe is all GI Joeing and it finally (for the first time) points out that the Ghostbusters must also live in a universe, a special Ghostbusters universe where busting makes you feel good, and that universe post-hence shall cross over with the first three mentioned prior, all so that zombie/sickness/melting shit and the one-gun-in-each-hand (so two guns) can come together as one universe (just like sleepy black men predicated it would), or maybe just be the same problem in the four separate universes, something like that. This comic: jesus. Friend. Brother/sister. This comic is the tester, sucker. This is the comic book that will separate the men from the boys from the girls from the women from the whatever else, Jews and shoe salesmen, you'll know your name. This comic is really, really hard to read, it's hard to understand, and if you can pull it off--if you've got what that takes--you're special, like the gremlin with a stripe on his head. Special like Stripe. Make it happen.

Magneto # 1
By Howard Chaykin
Published by Marvel Comics 

Uh--where's the Jewish stuff? This was a totally big opportunity for Jewish stuff. Look, Post-American Flagg, Chaykin can pretty much do whatever he wants and get a pass, because Flagg = sexual wetworks, which is why nobody who matters gave a shit about that goofshoes Catwoman Meats The Gay Musketeer comic or the weird stint on the Mel Brooks Jr. Cobra franchise. But this could've been something, all the seeds were available off the rack, and it's turned out not to be that something at all. It's just a comic set in a New York that could've been stolen from a Los Angeles soundstage, it's about ego, and it's dull as fuck. Where my Hebrew at?

Conan Road Of Kings # 2
Written by Roy Thomas
Art by Mike Hawthorne, John Lucas & Dave Stewart
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Funny thing: Roy Thomas isn't actually returning to Conan. When they showed up to hire him, it turned out he'd been doling this shit out for the satisfaction of a bedside table on a weekly basis for decades. Affectionately referred to as being one of the key players in "ruining" comics, the Thomas name brings some hefty baggage whenever it crests the horizon. Too bad there just isn't much here that will sway one's opinion either way--like a lot of contemporary Conan comics, this is the equivalent of reading a thirty minute cartoon, in comic form. Inoffensive, dopily predictable and hilariously uninspired, it's impossible to feel any extremity of feeling towards it whatsoever. This is the physical example of what the world refers to when it doesn't feel like answering your questions and says "i'm fine", hoping you'll just go away.

X-Men # 7
Written by Victor Gischler
Art by Chris Bachalo
Published by Marvel Comics 

The last time that an early stages X-title crossed over with the Spider-Man, it was under the deft visual digitals of the McFarlane and the Liefeld. This time, it's the Bachaloez, so get fucking ready to start jacking it like you did back then, if your spinal can find a generation's strength. The madman is delivering sewers, with a Wolverine that stands tall at four foot goblin square, all hunched over like he's sniffed out the gold. Story: wake mama up when that makes a fucking difference. This is for the drawing, bitches.

New York Five # 1
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Ryan Kelly
Published by Vertigo 

There's probably no better indication of how much of a failure the Minx line was than this, a sequel that's coming out with zero fanfare via the Vertigo mini-series delivery system. If the last year or so hadn't already made abundantly clear how little DC Comics cares about their various non-cape employees, one might be tempted to look upon this as some kind of friendly charity for the various people involved in the initial stories creation, with a minor bit of friendliness left over for the fans of the series as well. But from where we stand now, this shit feels almost mean.

Thunderbolts # 152
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Kev Walker
Published by Marvel Comics 

Heads up: this is one of Marvel's top five comics. Heads up part two: that isn't really high praise. Thunderbolts is pretty good--sometimes it's even better than pretty good--but this issue was just a middle ground pleasure, with a story too heavily reliant on its catchphrase concept (superheroes fight godzilla villians) and some pretty rushy art. And hey, why is Greg Land doing covers for this comic? If there's one thing that Thunderbolts has going for it that has nothing to do with old Arts & Crafts Land, it's actual adults that actually care (and sometimes even try!). That's just a bad way to start the dance, seeing those same old fucking pornface tracings.

Avengers # 9
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by John Romita Jr.
Published by Marvel Comics 

Maybe the reason that television is way more popular than comics is because television figured out that you can get a much bigger audience when the bitchy catfights are between two sexy women? Don't get it twisted--there's definitely an audience out there that's deeply into two grown ass super hero men basically having a "you are totally a bad boyfriend" conversation in front of a bunch of other super-heroes who are about two more phrases away from saying "this is really uncomfortable", but there's a way bigger audience when you just have those kinds of conversations end with Heather Locklear going into the fucking pool.

(Nah, it wouldn't help. The difference stems from television being basically free, and having way more Tim Riggins.)

Cartoon Network Action Pack # 56
Written by Scott Beatty & Eugene Son
Art by Mike Cavallaro, Dan Davis, David Rodriguez & Mike Bowden
Published by DC Comics 

Here's an interesting curiosity: a comic with a fuck-up that's so blatant that you--meaning me--actually go and dig up somebody involved with its creation to find out whether or not you've lost your mind. See, this comic decides to repeat an entire page of art, with different word balloons. But the second page doesn't work--the words don't make sense, the sound effects mysteriously disappear, and the page following this couplet seems to have jumped ahead of the narrative. It takes a second, and you check, and yeah: this was a fuck up, a really extensive one. How could it happen? Wouldn't the letterer have realized they were doing something that didn't make any sense, that they were re-lettering words that made no sense on a page they'd already lettered once, correctly? But say it wasn't on them, because--well, they have a boss, the book has an editor. His name is Scott Peterson, according to the credits. His name is on this thing, this screwed up thing. He has to care, right? The people who own Ben 10--the Man of Action guys, comics dudes across the board--they care, right?

It turns out the answer to all these things is no. Nobody cares. Why should they?

It's just comics.

-Tucker Stone, 2011