Comics Of The Weak: I Think I'm Gonna Need To Reboot The Way We Kiss

Action Comics #1
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Rags Morales
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked At: 113%
Amount I Honestly Read: 62%

This one's a snooze festival, population everybody who read it, but hey, maybe you've accidently started a relationship with somebody that you would rather put in a coma and shove off a bridge. If that's the case, this is totally up your alley. The art is funny. There's a part where Lex Luthor is drinking a can of soda, and then it turns into one of those skinny Red Bull cans, and then all of this miniaturization of cans climaxes in the thing disappearing into Lex's hand. The rest of it is just a strange looking comic where Rags Morales tries to confuse the reader by drawing all of the character's faces differently from panel to panel. Other than that, it's a really boring comic. Pretty much a complete failure, especially when you remember that the same writer did a Superman comic that was qualitatively about 8000 times better not but a few years ago.

The Big Lie #1
Written by Rick Veitch
Art by Veitch and Erskine
Published by DC Comics
Pages I Looked At: 100%
Amount I Honestly Read: 45%

This might have not been published as part of the new 52, I can't remember. It was a new number one though, the first issue of this really weird series where the hero (Uncle Sam, from that Alex Ross comic) shows up just to talk to the reader about something called the Noble Lie, which is this thing where somebody spends so much time on the Internet that they think they have a degree in Knowing Lots Of Philosophical Shit. But then the guy--Uncle Sam--isn't there for the rest of the comic! And the rest of the comic is about some lady traveling back in time to 9/11 so she can show a boardroom full of people proof of how 9/11 really happened, and she has the proof on her iPad, and so everybody in the room keeps interrupting her to ask about iPads, and you know--it's my own fault, that you don't believe me right now. But this is true, this is a real thing, and they really do take a bunch of breaks during the Hey 9/11 Was An Inside Job portion of the drama to make jokes about iPads. And then everybody dies anyway, because it's a comic and comics are short, and then it's over and Uncle Sam uses a bunch of old timey slave-era slang--that part is really weird--to tell you in this gee-shucks fashion what a shitty American you are, guy reading this comic, because you don't sit around talking about 9/11 being an inside job. But hey, The Beat thinks this one is a "great comic", and a decent portion of their freakshow commentors agree. Sometimes pizzas have tomatoes, whatever that saying is.

Detective Comics #1
Written by Tony Salvadore Daniel
Art by T. Salvodore D.
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked At: 100%
Amount I Honestly Read: 100%

While Mr. Matt Seneca took a break from Google Buzzing with White Shasta and Blaze Larmy to point out that Tony Daniel's reference o' homage doesn't extend beyond the books alphabetically shelved next to the ones he had some involvement in, there's still something left on the table to shake ones head at in this piece of shit, like the line "Gotham is a hellhole and it always will be" which is immediately responded to with the line "Like HELL it will". So much in comics should be said out loud before it gets written down, but that might interrupt the parts of the day where TSD lifts freakout pages from Preacher.

Batwing #1
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Ben Oliver
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked at: 63%
Amount I Honestly Read: what's two pages? Two pages.

This comic seems to be for people who watched that movie The Crazies and got pissed off that the day wasn't saved by M.A.N.T.I.S., and considering how well recieved the Saw Goes Brucing thing is going down lately, maybe that's a whole bunch of people. How fucked up is it that, after this horrible piece of shit comic that no one will ever enjoy reading is cancelled, Dan Didio will use it as an excuse at a convention for why nobody wants to read about black super-heroes? How fucked up is that the same assholes who retweet cutesy Powerpuff drawings of Elektra going "tee-hee-hee" are going to argue in some weird, locked up inside due to lonely logic that he's sort of right because wook-ie, mew makes Excel sheet tumblr face with my spawe time. Fucking trashheaps. I'd give 'em both cancer. You too, Jesus. Where were you when those people on the last page of this Batwing comic got their heads cut off inside a school for book learning? Were you hanging out with your lazy friend Allah, who didn't help them either? Batwing.

OMAC #1
Written by Dan Didio
Art by Keith Giffen
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked at: 100%
Amount I Honestly Read: 30%

The coloring in this comic is so hardcore ugly that you want to go backwards in time to the guy who was excited about Mark Chiarello being named as "guy who will fix DC's horrible art" and punch that guy in the face for his dumb, unfounded hope, even though that guy is you. And while the only reason you're noticing the shitty coloring is because you got on board to check out this sort of amazing Kirby-esque Trencher-style art that Giffen brings to the table, you notice it's shittiness nonetheless. Thankfully, it's just ugly enough to make the thing a weird search for meaning type of experience, which is good, because reading any of the dialog will seriously impinge on your ability to get an erection ever again, even if your mom is Mandy Fisher and she wants to take you camping.

Men of War #1
Written by Ivan Brandon
Art by Tom Derenick
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked at: 100% of the main story, 1% of the back-up
Amount Of It I Honestly Read: 100% of the main story, 0% of the back-up

While being a fan of first person shooters might make you think my favorite part of this comic was the part where it opened with the main character woozily waking up mid-battle and flashing back to reveal his own origin (I was on pins and needles, waiting for the comic to tell me which button lets me skip through the cutscene), the best part is actually, by far, the part where the main character--who is one of Sgt. Rock's kids or something like that--gets told by a couple of high-ranking military types that they have interviewed every single person he has ever served with, and all of those people thought that he was the best man they had ever had the distinct pleasure of meeting. It's very specific about this, and that's all kinds of sweet. That's more of a wish-fulfillment moment than a power ring or a night with 90's era Demi Moore. Can you imagine how it would feel to have two authoritative types sit you down and say "we've done the research, and everybody who has ever met you said that you are totally fucking awesome"? To be told there wasn't a single hold-out? Dude, don't lie. Don't you dare. That would feel totally amazing.

Casanova Avaritia #1
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Gabriel Ba
Published by Icon

The biggest problem Casanova has always had has been its unfortunate timing--in a better world, it would be getting published by somebody who just wanted it to come out and exist, but in the one we live in now, it has to pretend towards being some kind of "story", which is never going to be as interesting as what it should be. It should be a place where Gabriel Ba can take Matt Fraction's oft-confusing verbiage and self-referential gamesmanship and chase after making them into singular moments of the insane and weird. It might end up being irritating, but no more so than it already is to watch the book struggle to appease the needs of a genre it would be better off without engaging with at all. Some of us just want to like something that's new, you know? Something that's coming out. This is it already--so lovely, so plush. But if only it were given the room to blow itself out, and up, even further! To be stranger, to drown in undiluted block cartoon sex appeal and guns and jokes, or whatever else filled up the lines.

Suspect Device
By Various
Published by Josh Bayer & Edwin Vazquez

This is one of the best things I've read since Love and Rockets 4 and Lose, a tripped out Cadillac of comics. It's printed on newsprint and acts on the reader like something you'd find in the trunk of a serial killers car, an experiment comic (not experiment-al) where each cartoonist takes a panel or two from Nancy (the Bushmiller Nancy) and draws something out of it. Some of the cartoonists come back for more, some don't credit themselves with their real names, some do huge Panter rip-off art styles and others do fluctuations of their own. So little of this is bad, it's the opposite of anthologies, almost everything in her kicks ass. It's funny as hell. Scary. So good.

Batgirl #1
Written by Gail Simone
Art by somebody
Published by DC Comics
Pages Looked at: 5%
Amount I Honestly Read: 0%

No sir, not a chance. I want to have kids someday.

-Tucker Stone, 2011

Comments

[Daniel]

Rags Morales looked at the face in the panel where Superman catches the bullet and said, "There's nothing more to be done here, send this page to Ink Town because it ain't gonna find no work in the graphite factory here in Rags Port."

[Mario M.]

This just made my day. Thank you.

[Kodaiji]

My hat is off to you, sir. I live outside the continental 48 so I rely on DCBS to ship me comics once a month, yet I can always read your reviews before then and not have the stories ruined for me. How you manage to convey the essence of these comics without spoilers is a feat of writing I'd wish more people would aspire to. The humor is good too. Thankfully I skipped out on ordering Batgirl, so I guess I can still have children. Could be a cure for priapism, however.

[Michael Nelsen]

That 52 shit is just not any good, is it? I'm glad I'm not the only one who realize what a clusterfuck it turned out to be. I mean, it was a half-baked idea at best to begin with. But they well under-performed anything I would have imagined them capable of.

Supposedly the whole idea of this exercise was to make comics more accessible to new readers. Well, I'm far from a new reader, and I don't have a clue what the hell is going on in any of these books. Some characters are new, some are revamped, some are the same but don't remember anything, some are different but remember the past universe, and every story relies on the reader already having an extensive working knowledge of the DC universe to understand even the simplest plot points or shitty ironic, winky fucking tongue in cheek bullshit.

[Blahs Larmay]

Suspect Device iz the real shit, people

[Jeremy]

"Casanova is just...too mainstream!" - Tucker Stone, 2011

[Jones, one of the Jones boys]

In issue #2 of The Big Lie, Lord Monckton teams up with Booster Gold to punch the MMR vaccine in the face. True story.

[Chris Jones]

We must never let Comixology's readers see this, lest their tongues burst from the clucking.

[John Fellows]

I read that BIG LIE #1 comic and I couldn't fathom a fucking thing out in it. What is it for? Couldn't Veitch just get a badly designed Geocities page like every other fucking nut? Is there going to be an #2? I really fucking hope so.

Also, the only comic so far from the New 52 worth reading is ANIMAL MAN #1. Which will most probably be cancelled by #12.

[derwin jerryl]

where can i buy suspect device??

[dangermouse]

AC was a fairly interesting succession of bullet points that nobody felt any particular need to turn into a story.

[WIKIPEDIA FUN TIMES]

Rick Veitch is a truther :((((((

[tucker stone]

Here you go derwin: http://www.joshbayerart.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3

[Lugh]

Wow, those Comixology guys are sure reacting harshly to neutered, sellout Tucker, huh? I think they might be bots.

[Chris T]

Yeah the colouring on that OMAC comic reminded me of the computer graphics on the covers of shitty goa-trance and chill-out CDs from the 90s and they looked just as horrible back then. I enjoyed the comic though.

I own the Big Lie book but still haven't read it. I can't get past all those truther ads on the front and back... It was bad enough that last week's Marvel comics had all those mawkish 9/11 pin ups..

[indigi]

dog get a funny metaphor or two and try this again. you shouldn't be publishing your first draft of shit jokes

[John Pontoon]

Mr. Stone: I liked Action Comics #1 and I absolutely projectile-vomited with delight over how good I thought the new Casanova was. Totally, really liked the bejeezus out of it, way supermuch to the supermax, with Wonder Woman's supertampax. Conversely, I yam ordering Suspect Device upon your recommendation, so I'm very happy we've stopped fighting. Hey whoah, did that guy just call you a DOG? That's mean!

Um... I'm blogging about comic books now, and I promise it's not because I think it'll get me into Nina's pants. I'm swarthy and look stupid in womens' pants. My column at http://www.chicagocomicvault.com/ is called Our Underwear, and the most recent one is so profane that it made all of my co-bloggers uncomfortable. I apologize if this publicity request isn't appropriate for a comment, but I just don't want to die without having offended Salvador Larroca.

Oh, also, I'm stupidly using my real name on the column. Thank you in advance for if you ever give me a handjob.