Deadpool Max #8
Written by David Lapham
Art by Kyle Baker
Published by Marvel Comics
Part of this issue felt like it was already told once before (in the "Cable" issue), but since that installment was sort of a disappointment (which isn't totally fair, as the anticipation for CableMax was so keyed up that the actual comic couldn't help but be merely acceptable), it's okay to go at it again, this time with a heavier focus on the non-Deadpool side of things. And in point of fact, non-Deadpool is exactly what this issue is--our titular lead only shows up as plot contrivance when the story demands his presence, and his appearance doesn't alter our narrator's rambling monologue theater in the slightest, its just shoehorned right in--and yet that's perfectly okay, even if it means Baker spends less time drawing him in an issue where Baker is pretty much delivering some all-time-so-far best stuff. (Specifically, we're looking at dude-from-Avatar's Cable face, Agent Bob's pre-Deadpool handlee, the blink-so-you-can-think-bout-it Sluggo, and all of those fingerprint tread backgrounds.)
"Dit Dit Dit-Dah Dah Dah Dit Dit"
From Casanova Gula #4
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Gabriel Ba & Cris Peter
Published by Marvel Comics
This is the first (maybe?) new Casanova shingle put on the career roof at Fraction Manor since the whole "exhausted your goodwill" thing started, but garsh-be-damned, it's pretty fucking good stuff. In part, that's because Casanova (the character) isn't it, and he'd begun to be a bit of an anvil hanging over the stories surrounding him, which is a simple, concise way of saying that the devil-may-care as nothing-matters-but-styling 'tudes only works in the broad strokes of those first blush meetings, and it will always give way and be shown up for the empty headedness it actually represents upon the long stare. (This is why the coolest guy in the last chapter of Gula is the disgruntled, embarrassed father and not the petulant lead, and make no mistake: the winner in a Casanova comic is always whoever ends up looking the coolest.) The new story--a short excursion on a pleasure cruise, since "pleasure" in comics definitely means sitting like the L character from Death Note in an Arne Jacobson rip-off while wearing the leftover Jean-Paul Gaultier bandage costume from the Fifth Element and plinking out Bowie on a guitar cuz that's what you do after a killfest holocaust--just works, playing its back-up-so-it-don't-have-to-matter status all the way to the hilt. It's part that it's Ba on the com, smoothing Fraction's tumblrbrain into cogency, but it's also that it only has one piece of information to truly deliver--the introduction of a character--and can thus get back to the business of being comics immediately after doing so.
Ultimate Spider-Man #159
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley, Andy Lanning & Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics
Although everyone will have a moment from Ultimate Death of Spider-Man that they call the seminal, where-were-you-when moment, and most of those people will refer to the moment when a crying (!) Punisher got taken away from a scene of a crime screeching "Punish MEEEEEEE", as this was the moment when Mark Millar must have officially decided that yes, even he could be way too old for this shit, you can bet that there is someone out there in the big blue and wide yonder who will point to the moment here, where Peter Parker retorted "but......cute" to his Aunt's "You crazy boy" remark, which occurred after Aunt May had put three rounds into Electro's chesticals. Make a note of who that person is, and tell your local pharmacist. That way this person's meds can be upped, because they're a sex crime away from ruining a lot of ice cream socials.
Batman and Robin #24
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Greg Tocchini
Published by DC Comics
Part of the reason it's impossible to have any conversation of actual, adult substance about that whole DC relaunch/reboot/remix is that you can only have it on their public relations and hype born terms--which don't do anything to explain how DC plans to deal with revenue, or what sort of numbers they'll be looking for in terms of sales upon which to claim success, or if they even have a method in place for seeing what sell-thru numbers look like, as all digital sales ultimately are sell-thru numbers and thus have to be analyzed differently than physical pre-sales, but that's to be expected: comics are small, the number of people who are bored and choose to satisfy their boredom with this information is even smaller, and of course, the persecution complexes that come up whenever you say "What about the money" has no real comparison in terms of hyperbolism, even when you compare it to the amount of freaking out that occurs when you say "raise your hands if you've ever read an actual book that wasn't primarily intended for teenagers" or "and how many of you regularly skip showers" and the tempestuous favorite "you aren't an artist, and mashing up your childhood obsessions into story paste doesn't make you a creator, neither", so yeah, the conversations end up settling down on the landscape "I give a shit about the new Blue Beetle, but I don't give a shit about the new Superboy", as if there's some way to actually navigate future comics solicits (none of which are apparently set in enough stone that straight-up-getting-fucking-fired still can't be used as an existential threat), but hey, fractions are fun for people whose educational focus ignored all math classes in pursuit of a minor in Torchwood Studies, so sure, let's say 11 out of 52 per, with a dollar down on the barrelhead. What? But if you really want to get down to it, here's a comic about conversating with the DC reboot: Batman and Robin #24. Does anybody want it to continue? No, of course not. There was a weird anti-marketing marketing gimmick where DC pretended that the book was getting a new creative team when it was really getting a revolving squad, and now it's settled on a guy you sort of remember reading something you think you liked by, but mostly he's responsible for stuff that isn't really your speed, and the artist is somebody you think you've seen before but don't really care for either, and they've delivered a comic that doesn't even bother riffing on its bog standard story but just presents the bog as being it, like if somebody invited you over to their house to show you pictures of their trip to the Pyramids and then, when you arrived, just said "here you go" and handed you a first generation iPhone and then stared at you silently while you looked at them until some personally determined point where they finally say "that's enough for now" and shows you the door, no offer of snacks or wife-swapping, nothing at all. That's what you're in for, because yeah: Marvel still has all the writers you want to read, and if you haven't figured it out by now, Geoff Johns doesn't like Grant Morrison comics, and there's no blue days coming. There's just more like this coming, and you aren't going to like it any more than you did the first time. Now you just won't have to worry about where you're going to store it.
The New Avengers #13
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mike Deodato
Published by Marvel Comics
This is some silly ass shit, but it's not silly enough where I could actually be saying I'm enjoying it, just that I think it's silly. Lookie look:
I just don't believe that anybody would ever go into an interrogation room with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. I don't know why that's a sticking point for me, but it is. I can buy that the Thing is a gigantic orange rock monster with the capability of forcing those orange rocks into the orange rock equivalent of a human frowny face to express the sadness he feels because he was making a joke and that joke-making prevented him from saving this dumb Mockingbird character from getting the nasty mortal wound that has taken up the plot of the last however many issues of New Avengers (that also happened in this comic), but no, I cannot buy that this Hawkeye dude brought a bow into interrogation room six.
-Tucker Stone, 2011
The thing I love about that Avengers issue is the smell of putrid pride it gives off, as if the people involved really think they're splitting the atom with this dumb-as-shit bog-standard Law & Order meets Ken Follet bullshit.
Posted by: Tim O'Neil | 2011.06.13 at 03:28
That DEADPOOL comic? Am I being a simpleton or does it not look like Kyle Baker has in fact not finished drawing quite a lot of it?
YOU CARE NOW AVENGERS: Hawkeye looks like his blink reflex failed him at the moment of climax. Is he stuck like that now? It's not a good look for him, I think.
Posted by: John K(UK) | 2011.06.13 at 06:21
"a crying (!) Punisher got taken away from a scene of a crime screeching 'Punish MEEEEEEE'"
That is fucking fantastic. I would frame that shit and put it on my wall. I would put it on my wall in alternating two-color prints, Warhol-style. I'd make it into wallpaper. "PUNISH MEEEEEEEEE!"
Posted by: moose n squirrel | 2011.06.13 at 08:08
Kyle Baker, so delicious. I'm so glad someone pointed me in the right direction there.
Posted by: D. Druid | 2011.06.14 at 12:29
Goddammit Stone, I got all excited about Casanova until I figured out that it's a reprint of the last story before the book went on hiatus. You terrible tease.
On the other hand, research says that the new shit comes out in September to which I can only say: fuck and yes I love that comic and will fight anyone who says otherwise.
So yeah. Carry on then. Good reviews and all that.
Posted by: AERose | 2011.06.15 at 00:18
There will be a day when Brian Bendis is no longer writing Avengers, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.
Posted by: Dan Coyle | 2011.06.16 at 01:30
No, WNFLJ, it's some of Baker's worst work. But even Tucker Stone has Heroes Who Can Do No Wrong.
Posted by: Dan Coyle | 2011.06.16 at 11:52
After purchasing and reading the comic, I have to agree with the above.
Posted by: D. Druid | 2011.06.16 at 17:04
Or at least with the half-drawn part.
Posted by: D. Druid | 2011.06.16 at 17:12
Aeugh, I'm tired of comics being "comics". But that Fractionman, he sure loves them. Comics. I know because he told me, straight to my face, every other issue. Sure hope he learns to share the love some day.
Posted by: UnComment | 2011.06.18 at 17:47