Comics Of The Weak: Didn't Realize Ya'll Liked To Get Wet

Pizza, punk-rock horse whispering, James Leonard's Magic, air conditioning, more pizza, learning at the feet of Lazzarus. You missed it? You must live in the wrong place. You? You should move.

ipso facto:

Captain America & Bucky #620
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Chris Samnee
Published by Marvel Comics

No kidding around: while it wasn't "wrong" to kill off the Bucky character, and people like Tom Brevoort (people who wear old porkpie hats and dirty t-shirts to press conferences, people who take Newsarama seriously, people who call intercourse "giving the jew some bacon", people just like Tom Brevoort) are right to tell weener peeners to suck it up and fuck themselves and their slimy fivers right over to Dark Horse or those Game of Thrones things if they don't like the twists and turns that the Marvel roller coaster keeps on-a-taking. That's not wrong, so he's right. But that doesn't mean killing Bucky wasn't a stupid, meaningless thing to do, it doesn't change the fact that it took place in a comic that no one likes (and rest assured, even Kelly Sue DeConnick thinks Fear Itself sucks the balls, and she's sharing toothpaste with its writer), and it's okay--for the next part to work, you have to let me be the mommy, and let mommy give you the permission--to be a little chapped off about the whole state of affairs. Hell, use that feeling as an excuse to ignore the other Captain America comic, the one that Steve McNiven is...well, I guess you call that drawing, you certainly wouldn't mistake it for sandwich making. Skipt hat one, you won't miss a thing, and you can slather all that attention right atop this little boner sandwich, which is a comic about the good old days, when lil' Bucky got flown somewhere in a cargo jet so that he could beat up the original Seal Team 6 right in front of an army jeep, and sitting in that army jeep, falling in love for the first time: Sterling Steve Rogers, the man himself. Doesn't that sound like the sort of warm blanket that'll get you lindy hopping again?

Detective Comics #880
Written by Scott Snyder
Art by Jock & Dave Baron
Published by DC Comics

What kind of half-ass psycho comes to town with an extensive new mystery play that'll hide his craze-balls loony brain all so that he can pull back the curtain in about a week's time? Oh, the kind that gets his story remixed and then full on aborted so the deck can be ready for the new Batman comics. So now that we're staring down at the conclusion, how much do you want to bet that there's going to be some really treacly monologuing in the next issue of this kinda-gross story where Commissioner Gordon's lunatic (and super evil! he dismembers people and strips his own mother naked for the torturing!) son explains that the whole reason he's crazy as fuck (but not so crazy that every part of his plan doesn't work out totally the way he wants it to) is because wah fucking wah wah he fell off a bridge and got caught by a guy in a motorcycle jacket when he was a diaper-filling baby. Gawd, you ever meet those kinds of people? The ones who attribute even the most minor personal failings to some barely remembered slight from their youth? I once knew a girl who worked as a greeter at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory in Times Square, and she got in trouble with the boss because she told a party of four about her conviction that her uncle had probably molested her when she was but a wee infant. Now, I know what you're thinking: how the hell does that conversation even begin to happen? The party-of-four/restaraunt-greeter relationship hangs on one, easy question: there's just no sane way to work it back to the womb. Even then though, she had more of a leg to stand on then our little Jimmy G Junior (actual name!), who you just know is going to blame his addiction to Hannibal Lector behavior completely on the one time when his 3 month old ass went over the railing. Punk ass cornbaby. What he needs to do is suck it up.

Deadpool Max #10
Written by David Lapham
Art by Kyle Baker
Published by Marvel Comics

As much as it pains me to say it, David Lapham is doing a good job on this one. And yes, I'm aware of the existence of Crossed Family Values and Crossed Psychopath and Crossed Babies, Babies Mamma Wanna Kill Em All (Crossed Casey Anthony?), so let it be fully underscored: I know what it means when one praises the work of David Lapham, I'm aware of where that road can lead. (That Modern Warfare 2 comic that said L1 aims, L2 rapes? I know all about that shit.) This was still good! Admittedly, the pleasures of Deadpool Max stem in huge part to its blunt refusal to be intelligent for any period of time that lasts beyond a few panels, as well as an artist whose apparent interest in "pleasing" drawings rises and fall within individual issues; shorter version, you return to it because of its out-and-out weirdness. It still feels like a Marvel comic--more so than Ennis' War Stories-tinged Max work did--but it's one of those Marvel comics that reads like it was cloned from the time the Punisher tinted his skin black, or when Spider-Man got replaced by a dude wearing an outfit from Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical" videos. Plus, you know, there's impotence jokes, f-words and secret penises.

Criminal The Last Of The Innocent #2
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
Published by Image Comics

I can't be the only one who is getting testy about waiting for Brubaker to write a straight up whodunit under the Criminal umbrella, and yet considering what he's doing here--an EC tinged nasty with the Archie characters, where Jughead the junkie in recovery, Betty is the laid back badass friend he should've gone for, and Veronica's the whore wife who can't be satisfied, which fits just fine with her status obsessed Archie hating Mr. Lodge--you kind of can't blame him for going with his gut. It's a clever take, better than an "Archie's Crime SuspseStories" title would've led anyone to expect. 

Uncanny X-Force #12
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Mark Brooks, Andrew Currie, Dean White & Richard Isanove
Published by Marvel Comics

It must have been an awesome moment for Richard Isanove when he got the call to work on something other than those shitty Spider-Man reprints and Dark Tower: Some More Shit That Happens Between Pages 315 and 317 of Wizard And The Glass comics, but goddamn, what a sleepy chapter in the abusive relationship that is Uncanny X-Force did he end up getting saddled with. As was mentioned in last week's comments, this issue was lots and lots of talking, and nobody got on board the X-Force train because talking roused their dick chicken. (Okay FINE, that part where Wolverine refers to Jean Grey as "handmade by God to afflict me" is a total corker.) And while there's enough Tim Riggins & Landry fans 'round here to admit that a good old fashioned won't-those-two-just-fuck subplot can keep us in our seats through the tedious moments where the glasses people babble about Muggle swing dance traditions, let's be clear: you have to make us care about Psylocke if you want us to care about who Psylocke wants to fuck. And dude: nobody ain't never gonna care about Psylocke. PS.com: since when is Fantomex not gay?

Butcher Baker The Righteous Maker #5
Written by Joe Casey
Art by Mike Huddleston
Published by Image Comics

The first chunk of this issue, leading up to the muddy-as-hell jumping jeep panel--that was a chore to get through, the kind of stuff that felt like work to read, and there's probably nothing worse you can say about a single issue comic book than "it felt like work to read". But after that--literally, the next page after that jeep panel--Butcher Baker turned itself into the comic that Joe Casey has been pimping it out to be in the backmatter essays, and this became the-mother-fuckery people should be getting into. The color on this book has been solid since issue one, but in issue 4--that panel where Times Square kept the nudie theaters and exploded into non-advertising-powered candied life--it jumped past everything else that's coming out right now (including my precious art comics about feelings and elmo dreamingz) and entered Brendan McCarthy level hallucinatory territory. This is the kind of comic that Image exists to publish, and it's the kind of thing that makes comic books seem unique again. Sleep on that shit at your peril. Lord knows you can have dipshit movie pitches if that's what makes your pant-churches steeple.

-Tucker Stone, 2011

Comments

[David Bitterbaum]

I kind of wish I could have gone to that event as anyone who claims to know that much about Captain America is either a bold-faced liar or really knows their shit, and that man weirdly has a face I trust to back up its claims. This also was possibly the best Factual Opinion Post ever. Too funny. Someday my blog will have as good a writing as this, if I magically get better at writing at least.

[david brothers]

What was up with Bucky's military training in England basically being "Yo, see these black guys? Don't get your face kicked in, kiddo." Maybe it's just me, but that was weird.

And yeah, Butcher Baker kicked into high gear toward the middle of that issue. I liked the bit about one of the villains being more comic book-y than the others, so he used to take it easy on him, and then pow.

[Nathan]

Yeah good read :J

I usually trade wait criminal but may check it out floppy when described like that

also where's Kelly Sue DeConnick say she disliked Fear Itself, on twitter or something?

[David Bitterbaum]

I think Tucker is just using his power of ESP to know that. Plus how could anyone like Fear Itself much?

[John Pontoon]

Mr. Stone, I just had Butcher Baker un-pulled from my pull list... put on my Do-Not-Pull list. My "Put" list. Because it's a lousy piece of shit. And it thinks "Smoky and the Bandit" is as good as Jack Kirby, which probably overrates the artistic value of SatB, yes?

Do you swear that this issue will be the one that ISN'T a waste of my money?

[Red Scharlach]

Was I alone in thinking that Lapham's MW2 comic was channelling Ian Fleming viciously, and in that regard was rather knowing and winking at the game's brand of hyper-masculine psychopathy proper?

Not that the art was any good, mind you. DC really dropped the ball there.

[tucker]

Red-I'd like to relook at that stuff to see if you're right about that. The only thing that registers in the memory is the aforementioned rape stuff, but I honestly didn't make it that far into the series before abandoning it entirely. Ian Fleming's brand of hyper-masculinity rarely turns me off.

[tucker]

John-I'm a firm believer in the Church of Always Bailing, and that means I'll always support just about any reason that a man can come up with for not buying a comic book. Frank Tieri wrote it? Don't buy it. Red Robin's in it? Don't buy it. You laughed at a webcomic? Don't buy Jonathan Hickman comics. You think women look attractive in baseball caps? Boycott Vertigo. If you even kinda think Butcher Baker is shit, you shouldn't think twice about giving it up: almost every problem comic books face can be attributed in some part to people buying shit that they don't want.

That being said...the amount of comics that currently play with color the way Butcher Baker does is almost a negative number, and I honestly believe Casey is starting to turn the plot around a bit. "it's getting better" probably isn't going to be enough for you--if the meter is at piece-of-shit, pleasure is probably another ten issues of progress away--but take it for what it's worth. We'll always have Haunt, you know? There's no way that's going to suck.

[John Pontoon]

Well, Todd McFarlane WAS the first person to make Spider-Man popular. Thank you for the vindivalicatiodation. Say, did you know that OK Go is making some super-neat music videos lately? Their lead singer... studied semiotics.

[Adrian Johnson]

'Punk ass cornbaby'

Oh man, your reviews are hilarious (but spot on). But that had me laughing aloud in my work office.

Thanks for that, sir.

ADRIAN