Captain America and Bucky #621
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Chris Samnee
Published by Marvel Comics
This is a pretty likeable comic--pretty heavy on the whimsy, like all the scripts were written in a field under a tree and they're all around nice-lookin' too--but each issue has had one little pit you gotta spit out, like a bad pear in a bag, a something-something, we all got one. (Metal rakes on concrete, if you're asking.) In the first issue, it was the way Brubaker set up Bucky's Final Training Round, which consisted of a teenager being set upon by grown ass men for an audience made up of "some dude" and Steve Rogers, who grunted and mumbled in a nearby Jeep, like he was going to a drive-in with the old guy who hires Arnold in Predator. In this issue, it's when Steve and Bucky--who is a totally nice looking boy, but sometimes appears to be a totally nice looking girl--head out to meet an undercover secret agent type who works at the fair. That's all well and good, but isn't it gonna blow Mister Undercover's cover for Steve to show up fully decked out in a tan I'm An Army Dude outfit? Isn't that sort of why the dude ends up dead by the end of the evening? Punching, sure, but c'mon. Dude got killed.
Graveyard of Empires #2
Written by Mark Sable
Art by Paul Azaceta & Matt Wilson
Published by Image Comics
Two issues into this four issue mini-series, and it's becoming pretty obvious that Mark Sable really doesn't want to write a comic about zombies at all. Which is totally understandable! Still, you have to wonder what he thinks is going to happen when zombie readers show up--because really brah, non-zombie readers are only going to arrive upon something like this by accident--and find out that the comics spends most of its second part (of four) flashing back before the zombies attack, after an entire first issue that didn't really do anything with zombies until the last couple of pages, which is when everybody went "ah, zombies". If he's doing it this way in preparation of whatever movie deal he's shooting for, then it even makes less sense--there's no reason to start cutting the budget this early, that's what producers are for. Oh well. If you're just looking for a sleazy warsploitation comic, or you want to look at Paul Azaceta but have an allergy to Northlanders, this is the only current available option, as long as you ignore all the other options ever made, as they are all currently available. But if for some reason you can only choose amongst the most recent single issue comics that have been published--there is no reason why this is the case, but I like thought games, in thought games I still live at home and we sleep in family bed--then Graveyard of Empires is the best option to fulfill your needs.
Daredevil #2
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Paolo Rivera, Joe Rivera & Javier Rodriguez
Published by DC Comics
While this issue comes up short on the Marcos Martin front, Paolo Rivera continues to bring an A-game that I'm ashamed to admit I didn't even know he had, while Mark Waid continues moving this title back into straight-up-spandex-stuff and away from Oh Shit I Fucked Some Girl And Now She Is Dead, this time with a basement full of crazy robots. There's also a fight with another super-hero. That's pretty much it. Fight with super-hero (that looks really great), some jokes with the shlub friend (those are just fine), a set-up that lets Daredevil use his powers, and then...crazy 'bots, in a basement. This comic really does make everything around it look completely dire, just from a basic craft level. It's lovely, lovely work.
Flashpoint Project Superman Man O'War Number Three
Written by Scott Snyder
Art by Lowell Francis
Published by DC Comics
Zero idea what this was supposed to be about, just thought it was funny that it takes place in the time between a couple of pages in Flashpoint and will be continued in a later issue of Flashpoint. You know how people who don't read super-hero comics--I'm not talking about Drawn & Quarterly types, I'm talking about real people that don't read super-hero comics--always try to talk shit about super-hero comics, and they're always just off by a little bit, but it's enough that you kind of feel like defending super-hero comics, even if you basically agree with them that almost all super-hero comics are fucking terrible? Like, somebody will talk about how there was a rape in Identity Crisis, but then they'll amp it up a little too much, they'll describe something "they heard about" that actually didn't happen, like a scene where Lex Luthor was getting head while watching a video of the rape, it was in Superman, you know, those issues where he wore the green suit, I think Jeph Loeb wrote 'em, that kind of thing? Well, those people: that's who this issue of Project Superman is for. It's a comic that actually takes place between two scenes in a much bigger "more important" comic, a comic that you absolutely do not have to read to understand Flashpoint, but you better not try to read on its own unless you want to be totally, irrevocably lost. This is one of those super-hero comic that people who hate super-hero comics make up when they're trying to explain why they don't read super-hero comics. So next time, cut them a break. In their leg. Do it with a knife. Because they probably exploit women for sex, just like Peppermint Patty. And she's a vampire. Also? AIDS. You read that right. AIDS.
Uncanny X-Force #13
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Mark Brooks, Scot Eaton, Andrew Hennessy, Andrew Currie & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics
While X-Force seems to be rapidly nearing the point where it'll stop being an engaging X-Men comic for those of us who like our paste pre-chewed and turn right back into a regular X-Men type comic with a bunch of detailed convultions about who-blew-who, and which paddleboat they did it in, it's not totally there yet, and the prospects of a much better art team may still bring this fucker out of the power dive it's been in for the last month or so. This thing's failings are to be expected, even if Marvel hadn't decided to pump the thing out like they needed comics to plug a busted toilet main--it's a story set in some alternate reality that most of us don't-give-a-fuck-at-all, that's-why-we-read-X-Force readers know shit about, and its cliched beats are only aggravated further when having to plow through not one, but two Wolverines as they argue and pick at each other over the pleasures of mating with a still breathing Jean Grey. (Based off of Miss Grey's outfit, the apocalypse did little to diminish the global supply of latex and those invisi-bra cup things.) Oh well, as they say: this relationship was never meant to last for the long term.
Batman Incorporated #8
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Scott Clark & Dave Beatty
Published by DC Comics
So weird. You should probably see what it looks like. Here's what it looks like:
The whole comic looks like that. It's terribly irritating to read--not in that way where "I had to pay attention and I don't wanna, this must be lousy", just in that way where the visual part of your brain knows that what it's seeing is the unfinished components of 90's era computer imaging, and it keep setting off an alarm in the logic center of your brain, saying "hey, we've moved past ugly shit like this, there's no reason to look at ugly shit like this"--and ignoring that part of your brain, which is basically just trying to help you, that weird feeling is called struggling against biological self-preservation, and there's just no getting around how obnoxious that is. And for what, really? A Batman comic? A Batman comic that fails to do any of the stuff you go to Batman comics for? Something unfun, being unfunny? Something boring? Hell, there's people in the world, bosses and coworkers, subordinates and subordinance, those things can be unfun, unfunny, boring: they probably aren't this strident, either. What it's most like is being yelled at by somebody from another room that you don't have any obligation to listen to--after a while, you just stop paying attention, becuase hey, fuck them: they ain't the boss a' you.
That stuff Grant Morrison said in that interview was pretty irritating, even when you go into it knowing its just really smart marketing, because seriously: it's Rolling Fucking Stone. When's the last time Rolling Stone was even kinda/sorta relevant? They have pretty fantastic political reporting, don't get me wrong, but we're talking about a magazine that still talks about your favorite Led Zeppelin tunes and treats the Kings of Leon like they're on the cusp of relevance. And that isn't to say that Led Zeppelin sucks, just to say that my dad listens to Led Zeppelin and you don't get to be a relevant culture magazine if you're advertising dad shit all the fucking time. I don't want to be an old piece of shit anymore than anybody else does, but oh well and guess what: I'm an old piece of shit who went to high school when Kurt Cobain was still alive, boo hoo. And if I'm capable of realizing that magazines that do cover pieces on Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd is too old, even for a piece of shit like me, then yep, you better do something super-controversial to get me to pay attention to whatever it is you're putting between those adult diapar advertisments. Getting the premier comics writer--which he still gets to be, because Seven Soldiers rules your dick--to talk shit about comics premier artiste is sure going to wrangle up the blood, no matter how congealed it is. Does it matter that he didn't make any sense? It shouldn't, really. We're talking about a guy who still tells people he got kidnapped by hung out with aliens, even though he's clearly had enough time to have sobered up and realized that no, of course that didn't happen, why would that happen, what a crazy night that was, i'm so glad I didn't get her pregnant, aliens you gotta be kidding me--why not go ahead and let him think he's a working class hero, who lives in a gigantic house where he wears a purple suit, being pissed on by the likes of Chris Ware, who doesn't live in a gigantic house and seems to spend all his time listening to ragtime music. Ha ha ha! Fucking ragtime music! Like an asshole! Isn't that what assholes listen to? All the time? Dickhead! Fuck that dickhead!
Kind of lost the plot there. Wouldn't it be weird if Grant Morrison wrote a comic that you could climb inside, and when you got inside you could have sex with Batman? My biggest fantasy--i'm being really naked and honest with you guys right now--is that I could climb inside a Batman comic and become Lyla Garrity from Friday Night Lights. And then I'd have a three way with my wife Nina and Tim Riggins. Not the actors, mind you. I want to live in East Dillon and be a cheerleader, but I want my real wife to be there, and I'll be a lady with lady parts. And I'll do it lots. Inside a Grant Morrison Batman comic set in East Dillon. That's my dream. I dream it every night.
-Tucker Stone, 2011
Oh gods. The crappy CGI pseudo-art has broken Tucker. Broken him into tiny pieces...
Posted by: LurkerWithout | 2011.08.29 at 20:31
In two consecutive paragraphs we get a quality Grant Morrison diss and a quality erotic fantasy. Ignore that other dude, you are working at the height of your powers.
Posted by: ----comix | 2011.08.29 at 23:53
Oh, and the stuff about the actual comic was good too, but what came after stirred such strong emotions.
Posted by: ----comix | 2011.08.30 at 00:00
I'M NOT HYPERLINKING THIS
YOU DON'T GET TO BE ON MY TUMBLR
PEE
Posted by: Chris Jones | 2011.08.30 at 00:02
Who would've thought the best way to do a Daredevil comic is by having him do exciting Daredevil action-adventure stuff? I hope the guys at Marvel don't catch their feets on fire from all the trailblazing going on!
Grant Morrison is approaching Alan Moore levels of "it's best I don't pay attention to the things you say in public." Replace A. Moore's "grumpy old douche who writes boring prose" with G. Morr's "irritating old douche who writes very sloppy prose about comics history that people who care to know about that sort of thing (me) already know about + half-baked theory."
Answer:I hate the United Kingdom and everyone in it.
Posted by: Daniel | 2011.08.30 at 10:22
I was going to argue against hating the UK and everyone in it but I just checked and it seems Peter Cushing is dead, so okay. Fair enough.
I like the new Daredevil comic. More comics like that would be good.
Nice work, as ever. My thanks, as ever.
Posted by: John K(UK) | 2011.08.30 at 11:18
I'm behind on Batman Inc., and I can 't remember how long it's been since you started on your anti-Morrison kick, Tucker. Having had the honor of being mocked in an earlier issue of the series, it will be amusing when he give you the treatment and retaliates against these tirades. Maybe Jimmy Olsen will have a blog. In any case, even though you're being funny about it, I do hope you get your secret wish and Chuck Dixon takes over Batman again.
Posted by: Sharif | 2011.08.30 at 11:28
Once again, this was awesome. I'll never look at Minka Kelly the same way again.
Posted by: DrewT | 2011.08.30 at 16:17
I certainly enjoyed the first issue of Daredevil, but is it wrong that I think it was enough for me? Maybe it's the anti-Marvel sentiment stirred up by the Jack Kirby verdict, but I seriously feel like, as nice as it is, I don't need any more of that. Weird.
Also, do you really meet "civilians" who talk shit about superhero comics? And have vague ideas about stuff that happened in them? And know who Jeph Loeb is? That seems unlikely. I mean, people who used to read superhero comics and then quit, that's one thing, but you specifically ruled them out. Seriously, nobody I've ever met who isn't a superhero comics reader would even know what an Identity Crisis is, much less complain about the insularity of comics that happen between the pages of other comics. I call bullshit on your whole premise, Stone!
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2011.08.31 at 12:32
I didn't rule them out, Brady!
Posted by: tucker stone | 2011.08.31 at 12:39
Seven Soldiers was only kind of decent, and that was only because of J.H. Williams, Cameron Stewart, Frazer Irving, et al. The actual writing-part of it did not "rule" anyone's dick, unless by "rule" you mean "shrivel up into the abdomen, from horror."
Posted by: moose n squirrel | 2011.09.01 at 12:42
The only cheerleaders in Batman comics are the ones who show up to die.
Posted by: dangermouse | 2011.09.04 at 23:58