The Factual Opinion

Comics Of The Weak: Live?

 

Due to Free Comic Book Day and the fact that the entire staff of these Factual offices have spent most of its non-P90X time holed up with Portal 2, Comics Of The Weak was even more neglected than it usually is, which translates to "Not Dealt With At All". Thankfully, almost nothing was released in the past week, to the point where the Factual's purchasing agent returned empty handed, even though he'd been ordered not to open the front door without a copy of Darkie's Mob. In service of the greater comics community, our intrepid super-hero reader and erstwhile David Allen fan braved a beautiful spring day, grabbed a stack of what fictitious American drug dealers like to call "the shit", and set it down next to the computer for a bit of the old live blogging. If you're seeing this post and there's lots of words missing and no picture, well sister, you showed up early. Otherwise, this is later and you missed the whole goddamned thing. (For those with long memories, yes, we did one of these once before--it ended with a book burning and a whole mess o' follow-up bitching. It is unlikely that will happen this time, but mostly because Tucker doesn't smoke anymore and is thereby less willing to go up on the roof, which is where all the rapists like to sleep.*)

Amazing Spider-Man Spidey Sunday Spectacular
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Marcos Martin
Published by Marvel Comics

The draw here is Martin, and some of what he does in here is worth looking at, for sure. It still isn't one of his best times out of the box--the story contained in this comic was delivered in two page installments in the backs of some pretty hideous issues of Amazing Spider-Man, and that gives the whole thing the same herky-jerky up-down quality that Wednesday Comics or Strange Tales had, where one's investment lasts only as long as it takes to turn the page and get let down again. Basically, this isn't Martin at his best, and since Stan Lee's story doesn't even muster up the brain damaged earnestness of that Spider-Man newspaper strip, the ultimate result is a thing that's just sort of there for awhile, and then is just sort of over. Like chlamydia, except you buy it in a store, and that means other people know you have it for a little while, although they'll probably forget an hour after they see you.

If nothing else, this thing actually increases the interest factor of Martin's upcoming stint on Daredevil, even if it's only going to be two issues. Mark Waid's the kind of guy who seems to actually enjoy giving artists comic-book-type-shit to draw, as opposed to these miserable fucks who seem to think that a 25 dollar book about poorly drawn heads arguing in poorly drawn rooms is the pinnacle of achievement, and you just know that he's chomping at the bit with some goofball shit after spending so much time with the poverty page rate crew over at Boom Central. Considering Daredevil's historical record as being extremely good for brief periods of time, with those periods often sandwiched between unholy garbage, this next slide might be the ticket. But even if Waid's run turns into Murdock Fucks 'Em, Then They Die, as so many Daredevil runs have before, Martin's still got the potential to make a neat poster out of the whole thing.

I couldn't really figure out a way out of that last chunk there. Do people still have posters? Teenagers aren't people.**

Uncanny X-Force #9
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Billy Tan & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

Somebody--it was Tim Callahan--wrote about how there aren't any conversations with super-hero comic book creators anymore on the same level of honesty that the old Comics Journal articles had***, and here's another one that was missed: somebody getting Dean White to explain why he didn't do all the backflip twists that he used in the eighth issue of Uncanny X-Force to make it look like Billy Tan deserved to be in the same class as Jerome Opena, because holy god did all that classic Billy Tan bullshit come right back into the mix this time around. It's like somebody throw a full diaper into an industrial dryer, there's just nothing in this issue that was left untouched. The story goes like this: Magneto comes to see Wolverine. And he cries a little bit, and then he hands Wolverine a picture of a Nazi and asks him to go kill the Nazi, because the Nazi is still alive? and so Magneto wants him dead, but for some reason he can't do it himself? and so Wolverine goes to kill the Nazi, and he arrives way too late, as in he arrives after the Nazi has lived a really full life that involved him being married to a pretty woman who loved him to pieces, and then she passed away and now he's just waiting for someone to come kill him, and that someone is Wolverine. And then, because Nazi characters are like kryptonite for intelligence over at Marvel Central, he has one last moment of being like "fuck you, I'm a bad ass Wolverine" before Wolverine cuts his head off with a samurai sword. And then the issue is over, and you're left wondering if the whole thing was a joke or something...because, seriously. This comic JUST STARTED. There was no reason to come out with so many issues--this is the third one in four weeks--when you just could have put issues out on a monthly basis and never done either of these Billy Tan issues, or at least just not done this one. 

Mainly, it comes down to this: unless you're doing the Red Skull or Hellboy, relying on Nazi stories makes you a lazy fucking asshole. They should set up a room at Marvel Comics, and that room should be full of all kinds of horrifying Nazi iconography, like buckets of stolen gold teeth and lamps made out of human skin and close up pictures of emaciated concentration camp victims, pictures where you can see what infected bed sores look like, and then everytime somebody wants to write a Nazi story they should make them sit in that room for an hour while listening to an audio recording of iFanboy or Awesomed by Comics or any of those kinds of comic book podcasts, and then after that hour, if they're still convinced that Nazis and super-hero shit goes together, they can do their story. Otherwise, grow a fucking pair and learn how to make a Mister Sinister storyline work.

Superboy #7
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Marco Rudy Daniel Kor, Jamie Grant & Dom Regan
Published by DC Comics

It would be an insult to waste time talking about the story in this comic, so let's just say that it seems to be a riff on that Man Who Has Everything story that a bearded wizard wrote back when comics cost a nickel and they kept Dr. Who fans in cages. But fuck the story, if Jeff Lemire wants to do that story, he should have at it, it is not like anyone on Earth gives a shit what Superboy comic book stories are like. He's a super-hero whose costume consists of a t-shirt and jeans, for christsakes. Fuck the story, because boys and girls, this is it, one of the ones that'll slip through the cracks if you're not careful: this is as weird as Big Two comics gets, now that Bill Sienkiewicz inks everything with a bunch of broken sticks he stole from a Boy Scout troop. Take a look at this opening page:

Make no mistake, sarcastic guy: this is the DC equivalent of Brecht Evans right here, in terms of coloring. This is somebody digging around for something in photoshop besides the regular SHINY and SHINIER and SHINY ENOUGH TO SHAME GOD buttons that everybody usually relies on over at DIGIKORE and SLICE and TWO LIVE STEWS as well as all those coloring places that don't use horrible names and yet still suck the life out of comics in a way that the most trans-media Hollywood pitchmeister fuckface writer type can't even begin to imagine, which of course is why they're plying their ten year old high concept idea about bears and knife-fucking in comics in the first place, because they lack an imagination and are probably Catholic. THIS:

These pages aren't really going to do the whole beast justice, but yeah, this is the other guy who draws the comic, and he really digs on these arbitrarily designed layouts (of which what you see above is a mild case), to which I guess one could thank JH Williams, because old Superboy 7 is right up there with those two Batman Annuals about how Batman will only hire Muslims who have no discernible accent to go along with an absence of any political awareness, and all three of these comics prove that DC's editors put "randomly designed panels" on the left side of an equals sign, and on the right side they put a picture of those Batwoman comics that will probably never come out. Because they can't tell the difference oh never mind, look at this:

 

So fucking weird, this comic. I'm really not doing it justice.

Moon Knight #1
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alex Maleev
Published by Marvel Comics

Has any other character had as many chances in the last few years as Moon Knight? I don't mind if Marvel wants to keep acting like there's a big demand for the character, it doesn't bother me or anything, but this is one of those titles that serves as a head and shoulders example of the same dearth of creative thinking that has resulted in millions of dollars being spent so that Zach Snyder can climb the heights of Mount Brainaic and remake Superman II, only in this case it's a bunch of guys who were actually working at Marvel during the last two attempts to make Moon Knight a palatable choice, and neither of those times was the comic in direct competition with 17 Thor books and 29 Captain America comics, none of which are distinguishable in terms of quality against Moon Knight, which seems to be a comic designed for the people who complain when the New York Post spoils plot developments on 20 year old reruns of Remington Steele.

Fear Itself #2
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Stuart Immonen
Published by Marvel Comics

Nina Stone will be handling the Factual's "official" take on this later in the week, and I'll be participating in something else somewhere else, but I did think it might be un-Christian of me not to admit that I liked the dialog where Odin and Thor talked back and forth to each other about humans and obligations, etc. It worked, whatever. The rest of this comic felt like the same kind of tired you feel when you're stuck in a conversation with someone about 'zine culture or how much things used to cost. At the end, there's a drawing of some flying versions of those battle suits they had in Avatar destroying the White House, and it was a great reminder of a simple rule that nobody ever mentions because I'm making it up right now, and that rule is the reader should never be able to count how many bad guys there are in a gigantic destruction scene, because it just makes it seem like it's not that big of a deal when there's a specific number of a thing.

The Boys #54
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by John McCrea
Published by Dynamite

I quit reading this comic. Dynamite is the fucking pits. 

Grab Bag

This was going to be where I dumped something on the other comics that came out this week, but I just can't keep going with these things. They're horrible! What a lousy week. Try this instead:

Onward To Our Noble Deaths
By Shigeru Mizuki
Published by D&Q

It's obvious that the marketing money is way behind Chester Brown's crybaby book about why girlfriends are scary instead of Noble Deaths, but that's okay, Mizuki was born in 1922 so it's not like D&Q have to dodge his phone calls that much longer. But this is a good one, a diabolically special book that stands in stark relief against so much World War II fiction that it ultimately makes a huge portion of the History Channel's programming block look shallow. Even if it was just the song lyrics that are being presented here, this book would be a revelation. Great stuff, and a firm (and necessary) return to the Tatsumi level of quality that had made D&Q's manga line so exciting in the first place.

Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 5
Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant
Art by Bolland, Dillon, Ezquerra, Others
Published by Rebellion

This is the Apocalypse War story arc that explodes out of Block Mania, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find something that does exactly what this story does to the extremes that this story does it. It's basically a perfect Judge Dredd arc--you can tell that he's going to win, because he's Dredd, but it takes a while before you really grasp how incredibly far he's going to have to go to get the win, and the skill at which Wagner (and Grant, apparently?) manipulate the basic "fascism works" Dredd shtick is really at its best. It's a crime how rarely Wagner gets mentioned in terms of quality serialized storytellers. I really wish I liked something else he did. Anyways: Apocalypse War. It's unmissable, and so much better than mini-comics.

I think that's it. Phoenix 1 (Tezuka) was really good, and that second Krazy Kat collection (second in terms of chronology, release wise, I think it was the 12th Fantagraphics book) was very good as well, but I don't know that I have the energy to say anything beyond that. The previous Krazy Kat book was a bit of a chore to read--some of the panels just went on and on and on, and I far prefer the ones that maintain the what seems to be Krazy's natural rhythm, which is a quicker, loping pace--and the latest installment had more of what I like. It also had a page where Ignatz explicitly attempts to murder Krazy by drowning him, which added a level of nasty to the relationship that I think only makes it more rewarding. 

*One of the things that I've been told about working at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is that they're heavily invested in one kind of humor, and that kind of humor is classified as "Lasers 'n Rape", and I totally believe it, because just saying that phrase out loud conjures up a very specific kind of person, and that person really likes improv, and is a total fucking asshole.

**Neither here nor there, but I was looking at the last issue of New York Five and it struck me that making comics, or books, or basically anything that involves reading for teenagers is probably the worst possible idea ever, because aren't teenagers the most unlikely group on earth to sit around and read? And wouldn't the audience of teenagers who sits around and reads be the bottom of the gene pool kind of audience anyway? Teenagers should be out screwing up their lives and banging into each other at concerts, they should be doing all the shit that college and student loans and credit card debt will eventually neuter and make terrible. They can sit around and read and get fat and be superior to each other later, when they don't have a choice and no one wants to kiss them anymore, but they shouldn't be doing it now, it's practically criminal to suggest otherwise. This isn't New York Five's fault, and it seems pretty obvious that New York Five isn't for teenagers anyway--one of the main emotional beats involves a girl dumping a boy's Compact Discs on the street, and if there's one thing that screams 30-somethings, it's punishing a man by messing with a box of *gulp* Compact Discs. It just made me think of teenagers, which is sort of (maybe? who cares?) what the Minx line, which New York Five was spun out of after being apparently one of the only ones people liked, was supposed to serve.

***Tim's half right--comics people don't talk shit in an actual print magazine anymore, but they still talk as much (if not more) shit than they did back in those old Journal interviews. They just do it via email, via twitter, via message boards, via signings and conventions and all the rest. And while that stuff is sort of semi-private at first, it never stays that way...but even if it did, there's shit out there worth looking into on the margins. The question is: why the fuck would you want to? Hickman gave a pretty telling interview of the original ideas behind what became that boring SHIELD comic he does, an interview that pretty much laid bare how the House of Ideas was embracing the House of Make Sure This Idea Won't Result In Us Sharing Movie Profits With Sony, but do you have the time or patience to listen to the 20 other interviews Hickman gave where he didn't mention that kind of stuff and instead stuck to the boilerplate ad copy? And if you do, wouldn't you be happier fucking whores, like Chester Brown did? I saw a picture of the way he drew himself after he paid a woman to fuck her, and he looked like the happiest skeleton that had ever appeared somewhere besides a vinyl sticker attached to a front door in October. All it took was money and the willingness to fuck whores!

Comics Of The Weak: Sometimes Being A Parent Means Hanging Your Head In Horrified Shame At What Your Loins Brought Forth

Avengers #12
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

Why push like this? Make Cappy Cap a fucking sell out liar, like Iron Man the sell out liar? Maybe this is the audience or something, but who wants to read about a super-hero like fucking Iron Man? Sure, he's got a cool suit, even if it's sort of fire-hydrant-y sometimes, but for christsakes the guy is a jagoff. He lies to people, wanders away after fights like a big dumb baby--rooting for him is like rooting for the CEO of Chase Bank in a footrace against a team of crippled Cub Scouts and volunteer firemen. Maybe it's just that John Romita Jr and Klaus Janson have been stuck drawing this coma-inducing exercise in how-boring-can-Bendis-get comics, but enough is enough: somebody needs to give this baby a hot bullet.

Invincible Iron Man #503
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Salvador Larroca & Frank D'Armata
Published by Marvel Comics

Nah, we're done talking about the character, fuck that bozo. But take a look at this shit, it's hysterical.

See that shit? That grid shit?

Who you think you're fooling, lightbox? God, that shit is unreal, isn't it? It doesn't show up again, unfortunately. Hell, it only shows up in a couple parts of the panel, if we're being frank and castle. It's nowhere near the wrecking crew that is this little cameo:

So what's the problem here? It's that no fucking American in his right mind would disrespect Bill Paxton's fucking perfect face by layering on some frosted hair and that kind of cornball 'stache. Bill Paxton fought a Predator, an Alien, and the original Terminator: that makes him a bigger deal than every Marvel super-hero combined. Disrespecting Bill Paxton is like shitting on the flag while at a soldier's funeral and the flag happens to already be folded up and resting in the grieving mother's lap, so yeah, I mean shitting in the lap of a woman who just lost her son in the service of this great country, that's what it means to frost Bill Paxton's fucking hair. And sure, it's lame enough that Paxton is hanging out with some Asian Fusion version of Justin Timberlake and a guess-you-couldn't-find-a-copy-of-Sliding-Doors-or-Shakespeare-In-Love-so-sure, Nicole-Kidman-just-had-to-do, but ultimately, Bill does all kinds of bullshit to pay the bills, not the least of which is not cackling hysterically when Chloe Sevigny walks into the room dressed like a Prohibition era bootlegger, which seems to be her "style" these days. But some low-rent Iron Man comic? They're called standards, you fucking jackanapes.

Invincible # 79
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn & Niko Koutsis
Published by Image Comics

I've watched enough of the post-Roswell Katherine Heigl ouevre to know that crying at the sight of a baby is often an indication of a problematic relationship with those mothering feelings referred to as "common" by white male virgins who write shitty television when they aren't writing shittier screenplays, and I've watched enough of Kirstie Alley reality shows to know that binge eating is a common response to stress, but binge eating and compulsive crying? Say no more, it's gotta be an abortion. Game, set, match: that meat-hitting-the-floor sound you just heard was Kirkman putting a big fat W in the He's So Serious column. It's pure class! Do we have a challenger for Stephanie-Brown-gets-teenage-preganant in the most ill thought out pregnancy related storyline in a super-hero comic book? Only time will tell! (Probably not though. That thing was an agitprop masterwork.)

Uncanny X-Force #8
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Billy Tan & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

While a lot of this comic looks like baby's first steps towards reinvention, that's only a bad thing if you didn't see what this Tan guy's art used to look like, which was what the Lord lovingly called Canceraids on the Eighth day, which is also when Elijah brought low expectations down from the mountaintop. I'm not even sure what that last part means. But if you think that's my way of working myself into faint praise for a comic I will continue liking merely because I want something to look forward to that isn't the moment when I tighten this noose and not necessarily because this issue was particularly good, then wow you must be a goddamned mind reader. So tell me this, Encyclopedia Brown: is Psylocke supposed to be attractive? I'm really asking, I can't tell from this art.

Wolverine #8
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Daniel Acuna
Published by Marvel Comics

Did you know that there were still chapters of this Wolverine-goes-to-hell storyline coming out? Of course you didn't, because holy shit, eight fucking chapters!!! All of something that also crossed over into multiple Wolverine related titles without ever actually being interesting in the slightest except for the part where they revealed that Marvel's version of Hell is about the size of Whole Foods, to the point where even recapping what happened in the issues makes one tired because, seriously, this is the plot being used just so we can have comics where Wolverine fights his friends with his claws? It wasn't any better when Mark Millar had some magic manga characters with broomstick hair cut off Wolverine's head with a magic manga sword, but at least Enemy of the State didn't pretend that the reader actually gave a fucking shit why Wolverine was killing his friends, it totally got that you just wanted to see what happened when dude fought other dude. But hey, whatever. This has more bad jokes in it about the inside of Wolverine's head, where his sexual fantasies are....oh shit, like bondage! Bondage with his friends!?! That's what Logan jerks off to? That's insane! Now I see why Jason Aaron's feelings were hurt by Alan Moore saying super-hero comics were kind of boring and not that good! Bondage fantasies. Man alive. Alan Moore doesn't know what he's missing. He should stop praying to snake jesus and read Wolverine comics, he's totally missing out on some CLASSICS.

Dark Horse Presents #1
Written by Various, Frank Miller
Art by Various, Frank Miller
Published by Random House

Jesus, did this fall out of a time warp or what? Real quick, because whaaaat: Concrete comics always feel like they're getting ready to say something really preachy and new-agey, and sometimes they do. This one may have been a unmentioned cross-over with an old EC Comic, but it still felt like the characters were getting ready to bark about why you shouldn't watch Deadliest Catch at every turn. The Neal Adams thing proved that his Batshit Hideous Weirdo Bad Comics are infinitely less charming when they aren't narrated by naked Batman, the Finder thing was as adorably forgettable as all Finder comics ultimately are, unless you're one of those people who are just desperately committed to being a Unique Snowflake and it was thence important in some way that makes me uncomfortable, the Star Wars thing was drawn by Paul Gulacy and Therefore Hilarious While Still Unbearable, and the Frank Miller thing had one really balls out interesting page tagged in between some ramblings, a bad drawing of that African dude who used to help the X-Men teleport by swinging a bolo tie, and that was it. Except for the last two pages, which were pretty much perfect, but are probably available on the web somewhere for free. It would be interesting for future issues to include a list of how much each person got paid for their contribution, if only because then the people involved in this thing's creation would be as uncomfortable as the people who fucked up and read the entirety of that Neal Adams thing. BLOOD

Thunderbolts #156
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Kev Walker, Jason Gorder & Frank Martin
Published by Marvel Comics

Jeff Parker seems to have the same problem I do, which is a weakness for team-building stories, because while this comic consisted in halfsies of a decent-to-solid BPRD rip-off (which is fine, the BPRD is ultimately a rip-off of things I haven't read, albeit the ultimate rip-off model of all time), the rest of the comic was loser villains being barked at by C-lister heroes in hopes of joining up with a second Thunderbolts team, who--if things play to form--will probably see action when the Thunderbolts A-team gets themselves sidelined by World War I era German soldiers (nice way to avoid relying on Nazis, that) or whatever other thing they end up not being able to take on their own. Why this comic comes out as often as it does makes no sense, but for now, it's still hitting above the red line. HOIST IT

Batman #709
Written by David Hine
Art by Guillem March
Published by DC Comics

If animosity were directed with more accuracy, more of it might be landing on David Hine, as his name seems to come up every time there's interesting art tied into a so-so story. At the same time, so much of Hine's work--especially on Batman--reads like classic DC editorial interference, and if these letters columns are any indication (or the constant spelling errors, or the inability to keep a creative team, or the multiple inkers, or the way nobody has any respect for them, at all, like...dude, you literally have to make it your life's mission at a NYC convention to not hear about how little people respect DC's editorial staff, because staff employees will just walk up to complete strangers and say "Mike Marts eats soup with his hands" and "Eddie Berganza thinks black people can't drink water"), most of Batman's comic-related problems don't start with the creative team. That being said: whoever thought it was a good idea to bring Azrael back is almost as dumb as whoever thought it was a good idea to color this comic only in the limited shades that can be found in an electric eel's aquarium. However! Guillem March does have some really nice panels in this, like the one where widdle Dickie Grayson watches a competitor get stomped by local yokels, and it's unfortunate that the guy's name is forever going to be attached to comics that are obviously headed for the biggest reboot since they killed headband Supergirl. I grade this one C, for curiously bad.

Green Lantern # 65
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Doug Mahnke, Keith Champagne and no, seriously, look at this art credit box:

You know it's a DC book, nobody else has the balls to just lay it out there like that. "Hell yes it takes five people to ink a monthly Green Lantern comic. Count the names, bitches!"

This is part of a Green Lantern mini-event blah blah blah, the only thing that's of any interest to anybody is whether or not the Peter Milligan Red Lantern book is going to have Mike Mayhew covers AND whether or not there's anything homoerotic going on in Green Lantern this week:

And yes to the second one, we don't know yet to the first. This installment in "why all the gay jokes, is it because of that fucking jacket? Because historically, gay male stereotypes actually HAVE fashion sense" is not as awesome as the part where Guy Gardner blew a frost dick, but it's still kind of awesome when you realize that particular issue was the issue right before this one, so obviously there's going to be more to come, and eventually somebody is going to try to top that frost dick, because holy fucking shit that frost dick is just laying out there like a sexed up challenge, all legs spread and balls-lolling. There isn't an artist at DC that isn't itching to rustle up a shot at the title; like Gladiator, this shit is going to echo in eternity. Right now, the frost dick is the king of all these sorts of panels. It doesn't have any context with which to ruin itself, because it's quite simply exactly what it appears to be, a drawing of a guy sucking white, ropey fluid off a thick penis-shaped shaft. There's even what appears to be musculature. I've been stapling it onto telephone poles outside schools, myself.

 

You know why this thing is such a godsend? Because there's absolutely no possible way for anyone to pretend that this is something other than what it looks like, and therefore, if anybody ever tries to tell you differently, you now have carbon paper level proof that You Are Dealing With A Crazy Person. That's it! This is the Green Lantern Acid Test that can out the sick amongst ye, the metal detector for the hidden tin foil hat wearers. You want to know if you can trust a dude not to corner you into some fucking-kill-yourself conversation about whether or not super-hero comics are literature, or why they shouldn't have cast Christian Bale as Batman because in real life he's not tall enough to convincingly portray Bruce Wayne, or how their private campaign to reclaim the word "geek" is going, or to interrogate you about possible costume redesign contests for Batgirl, or some motherfucking laundry lists of tips on how to customize motherfucking sisterraping action figures so they can build their own hypothetically "perfect" Avengers team, or what you thought of their latest six hour podcast of the 100 greatest Thor stories NOT by Samnee n' Simonson, or any of the other horrible, horrible things that make those of us with working genitalia want to forcibly sever our genitalia and hold it up to the sky like the monkey with the bone at the beginning of 2001, right before we bring that sloppy mess of wetness down on top of our own fucking childhoods, because I swear to God, I swear to God right fucking here and now, if somebody ever asks me what I thought of the trailer for the digital release of a motion comic prequel to the Thundercats cartoon relaunch, I'm going to break into a nuclear facility covered in Smuckers strawberry preserves, and I'm not going to be sorry even if everybody I've ever loved ends up looking like Michael Ironsides at the end of Scanners. That's how strongly I think that these comics above merely make literal what every sane person--man, woman or child--has known all along.

And that's that Hal Jordan is totally gay.

-Tucker Stone, 2011

Comics Of The Weak: The Preferred Artform For People Who Hate Art Just A Little More Than They Hate Women

Walking Dead # 83
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Charlie Adlard
Published by Image Comics

Well, since they've run out of characters that anyone cares about, it's time to just start slabbing randomly. It's not totally on Kirkman that this situation has occurred--Walking Dead isn't a story, character based or otherwise, it's a concept, that concept being "what happens if you remove the logical two hour time constraint most zombie stories have". In financial terms, it's a pretty mind-boggling success story of a concept, but in creative terms, it was always going to run out of steam, because it didn't have anywhere to go but onward, and "onward" eventually means "nowhere". But until it ends, there's definite potential for some embarrassingly awesome things that will someday be surrounded in regret and apology, especially if Kirkman takes the path of most resistance and turns Rick's kid into the brain-damaged simpleton that any of us would be if we didn't die when a bullet tore its way through our eyesocket and half of our skull. Can you imagine this crew doing mentally handicapped? Comedy can't get blacker than that.

Uncanny X-Men 534.1
Written by Keiron Gillen
Art by Carlos Pachecho
Published by Marvel Comics

Can you have normal conversations in helicopters without yelling? Will the screwed up letter balloon placements on the last page result in a scolding? Does no one have the courage to tell Frank D'Armata that Carlos Pachecho doesn't need to be colored like that Invincible Iron Man guy, because Pachecho can actually draw some shit? Is the inclusion of Gillen's knowledge of relevant pop culture memes going to make an unreadable franchise comic with editorially-dictated content readable? Anything's possible, except for the fact that it's the X-men, and who caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrres.

Brightest Day # 23
Written by Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi
Art by Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
Published by DC Comics

While Big Two super-hero comics will always be inherently more honest about their raison d'être than anything published by independent publishers simply because independent publishers are too fucking scummy to hire respectable p.r. firms, there's times when the confused scramblings of spandex pushers for releveance and profit are too clumsy to be rewarded, when they're just too damn obscene about the whole "fucking money, need fucking money, why can't i make firestorm make money". Case in point being, of course, this: Brightest Day. It's a comic that has wandered around without a plot for 23 cornball gross-out issues, to the point where nobody even needed to read it, they just had to glance at the cover to figure out which character Johns and Tomasi were going to brainstorm with for a while. If the comic were planned out, the story has apparently been about how a talking light fixture  wanted to manipulate (through lying and jokes) some B and C-level characters into a position where they were strong enough to fight a retcon of Alan Moore's take on Swamp Thing, which is bizarre on the face of it, because on what planet will Geoff Johns brainstorm comics ever outimpact (by sales, which is how you determine "impact" in Big Two cape books, another reason why they're straightshooting Cub Scouts) any Alan Moore comic, ever? On the meta- level, there's something vaguely interesting about a comic where a corporate guy's favorite hobby horses team up to kill Swamp Thing, which is one of those rare characters whose very name conjures up the memory of intelligent comics created by talented risk-takers in an environment where creative freedom was actually permissible.

Ultimate Captain America # 4
Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Ron Garney
Published by Marvel Comics

The story in this one is kind of funny--the miracle Steve Rogers gets in a jail cell, the one that saves him from certain death? It's a snake, whose venom he drains by way of being Capn' Golddanged 'Merica! That's not the funny part, the funny part is much later, when Hawkeye hears the story and says "hey, maybe the snake wasn't God but was, you know, the other fictional character that sometimes shows up to make deals and what not" and Ron Garney draws one fo those letterbox close-ups on the eye panels and you can hear the record skip because WHOOPS, Steve didn't even think of that! It never even crossed his mind! It's just a reminder of the simple, genius choice that Mark Millar made back when he came up with the Ultimate Cap, which is that Ultimate Captain America is just impossibly fucking stupid, like so ridiculously stupid that you spend more time struggling to believe he doesn't eat breakfast cereal with his fingers than you do trying to remember what exactly the point of any of his adventures has ever been beyond hurting people for hurtin' sake. And while nobody likes to credit Millar with anything, because that's like admitting that ejaculation does feel better when you're being quitely strangled, being one of those things that's just fucking true but would totally upset your mom if she ever found out, the truth is that making Steve a xenophobic idiot was a pretty audacious move. You only have to look at America's actual presence throughout the world to realize that being represented by an imperialist monster who punches everything he can find and threatens to kill children despite knowing full that the children's behavior might be the result of biological manipulation and genetic alteration, well...do we need to finish this one? It's fucking spot on, and even when it seems like he's being written by somebody who doesn't get the nuance--which maybe was the case here, you know?--Millar's basic premise is built on such a firm bed of unimpeachable cynicism that no manner of ignorance can dull its razored edge. The only thing ballsier would be to have made Steve Rogers a crybaby isolationist who just wants to be left alone to depressively worship his muscles in private, which is why Brubaker has that version reserved for the continuity titles.

Non-Player # 1
By Nate Simpson
Published by Image Comics

Supposedly in the works for a long time, this is a comic about a girl who lives in King City while living a VR life in the world of Orc Stain, and she and her friends only feel comfortable in certain parts of the color palette. She's also really good at the part of Inception where you create multiple levels in which to live in, but in keeping with the rules of whatever Robert Mckee style storytelling rulebook Simpson read, she keeps her oldest cliches closest, like a droll conversation-based-relationship with a harried but ultimately caring mother, or a salty, wise-beyond-her-years little sister who dispenses sarcasm and support in equal measure. Too many girls, you say? Well, you're a sexist pig, but don't fret: there's also a dude, a (possibly hot?) geek who has trouble in social situations and is clearly a fan of being boring in that way that all perpetually single weaklings always are. Future issues will undoubtably include a conflict over whether the game world is real, a will-they or won't-they style banter between our two leads, and, while this might be a ways off, a period of time when our female lead does get the amazing game design job she always wanted, only to discover that it's just not as life-affirming as she had long hoped. That's if, of course, the comic ever comes out again, which it probably won't, because all the Non-Player hype worked and that food wheelbarrow at Marvel probably hired this guy for some oneshot you'll have to pretend to care about next. See you later, Orc Stain for Kyle Rayner fans.

Izombie # 12
Written by Chris Roberson
Art by Gilbert Hernandez
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

There's a two page spread in here featuring the White Hornet (I guess?) and Kato (cuz he's Asian?) fighting zombies in those weird tunnels under Portland that's pretty unusual, but this is still just another Vertigo series in 2011, which means that it's a mind-numbing comic book with nothing to say. Vertigo used to be the sort of thing you'd point to as next level back when it was doing Enigma and Doom Patrol, and even as recently as 100 Bullets it wasn't a total job and idea hemorrhaging clusterfuck. Now it's just a landfill of repackaged failure and unwanted television pitches, but IDW, Image and Dynamite have had that particular beat locked down for so long that Vertigo's like the new kid again. And as nice as it might be to look at Gilbert Hernandez drawing some kind of anything, it's not like his art is going to magically generate interest in something as generically seat-filling as "characters tell stories to one another and the stories are illustrated differently to indictate their difference". You'd be better off re-reading pretty much anything else the guy has done, especially if it's Birdland or one of the b-movie ones, because that means you'll be orgasming soon afterwards. Those books have titties.

Jonah Hex # 66
Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray
Art by Fiona Staples
Published by DC Comics

Hysterical stuff. If you were starving to death, to the point where you had gone Guy Pearce movie crazy and started eating human beings, would you keep working as a prostitute? Would you keep working at any job, ever? It would seem like "not going to work" is a step that gets taken long before "become a cannibal", right? I mean--i get it, one of the big thrills in Jonah Hex is being able to get off on the character beating and murdering women, and "ravenous cannibal whore" is a unlimited credit card in terms of punch-that-bitch excuses--but really? Has "trying" joined "competence" on the comic book no-no list?

-Tucker Stone, 2011

Comics Of The Weak: The Only Power I Need Is A Power Bottom

FF # 1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Steve Epting & Paul Mounts
Published by Marvel Comics

There's something--"admirable" isn't the right word, honestly, neither is "interesting"--about the way Slappy Hickman keeps ratcheting out the gears of the Fantastic Four, like an obsessed cartoon mechanic streamlining an engine, parts a-flying every which way. Gone are characters, the uniforms; under his hand, even the letters are fair game. Underneath bland covers that answer the brain tickler of what it would look like if an Alex Ross obsessive finished a John Cassady convention sketch (hideous n' sickly), you'll find what seems to be the past and future Hickman ideal: multiple splash pages of mid-to-high end website design, which is what settles for art amongst those whose dvd collection ranges from Shaun of the Dead to Spaced. Maybe that's this future's foundation: stories made up of charts and font exercises? 

(Then again, if the alternative is reading about old dudes with goatees and ponytails mustered alongside precocious children who fail to address Doom by that paid-in-blood PhD, maybe charts n' Helvetica should be the way to go.)

Batman Incorporated # 4
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Chris Burnham & Nathan Fairbairn
Published by DC Comics

Some of the text diarrhea pages in this one look like they might could've used some editing, but it seems the job of a Batman editor is just "make sure lots of shit Batman titles are available at all times", so you can't really pretend that anybody failed to live up to their job description. There's at least two other shitty Batman books out this week, and last week there was one--if anything, it's like clockwork over at the house of garbage. (That is not the actual name of the publisher, you can call them: Does this have Batman in it? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.) When is one of these Batman Inc comics going to deal with the horrifying state of things in Gotham City? When is one of these cities going to stand up and say "no, we don't need a Batman, we're doing just fine without the Joker shooting infants in a cellar, you can keep the fancy swing chains and combat boots". On the other hand, this comic is certainly drawn by Chris Burnham, and he has clearly seen a Frank Quitely comic before.

Neonomicon # 4
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Jacen Burrows
Published by Avatar

"I'd just jerked it off because my pussy was sore, and I needed to pee, there on the side of the pool. It started sniffing my pee and then...I'm sorry. Is this bothering you?"

Now, some people are going to get offended because that line is a callback to the rapeython that took up a good portion of this comic's running time. And some people, well, they're just going to get offended because that first group of people are getting so bogged down in being offended by the rapeython that the second group can't have themselves no serious discussions about Big Al's intentions with writing this little Lovecraft 2.0: Better Than That John Carpenter Movie ditty. 

Me? Well, here's the thing: I know that ain't no real lady, and that weren't no real rape, and this story has about as much to do with the patriarchy type of conversation as that story where the old man in the jumpsuit declares Martian Law and then everybody proceeds to hit the pretty fella in the jumble sack. And I know that talking about Lovecraft and Big Al's intentions with all that raping and sexifying and grotesquerizing is a conversation that can only be affected by the offense of others if you're trying to have it in a place you probably shouldn't, like a message board or a public pool, so I'm not much bothered by that neither. But I will tell you straight up what I do not like, which is the fact that that sentence above--the part where she says "and I needed to pee, there on the side of the pool"--is that. I think that's a dumbass way to write that sentence. And I think the fact that Jodie Foster's first name is misspelled on the same page, right underneath the aforementioned "my pussy is sore" bon mot is dumb as fuck, and it makes me all sad and mopey like to think that the next conversation about Alan Moore (the one we'll have after ya'll get done talking about whether or not he should read fucking Scalped, or the one where he acknowledges the supremacy of Geoff Johns skills as a badass writer of badass high five Green Lantern comics) is going to be about the fact that Alan Fucking Moore is too goddamn lazy to look up the proper motherfucking spelling of Jodie GoddamNNED mothefucking foster's FUCKING NAME, and how would that have affected his usage of RAPE AS A FUCKING PLOT POINT because MAYBE HE WOULDVE SEENALLITTLE PUBLIC SERVIE ANNOUNCEMENT BROUGHT TO YOU BY ACADEMY AWRAD WINNING ACTRESS JODIE FOSTER NAMED THE ACCUSED NOT COOL DUDE NOT FUCKING COOL AT ALL

Captain America # 615.1
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by the Breitweisers
Published by Marvel Comics

Jesus, you skip a few of these things after the publisher itself starts admitting that, yeah, even Brubaker is bored at this point and it all goes sideways. Like--remember how there was all that work put into making Bucky seem like a good fit for the Captain America title, and it actually made sense after a while even though you (meaning you, I don't know, you, I mean you) didn't think you'd ever really have an opinion about "Who Should Be Captain America" because that wasn't in any way distinguishable from the "Is Diana Hot Enough To Melt Butter On Her Carcass" kind of bullshit? Remember that moment when you were willing to ignore those hideous--and everybody knows they were hideous, sweet jesus why won't anybody admit they were hideous, does no one remember what happens when the German intellectuals didn't speak up at the first scene of horror--Alex Ross covers that looked like tin foil wrapped around a crazy mailman, just because you actually were enjoying the story of a character named fucking Bucky?

Welp, according to this, you're a stupid asshole. Only old ass blond Steve Rogers gets to be Captain America, you stupid asshole. And while yeah, you shouldn't take it personally, here's the kicker: the only reason you care is because you got asked to take it personally at the very beginning!

Batman Streets of Gotham # 21
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs
Published by DC Comics

This is a piece of shit comic about Hush and other who-fucking-cares characters, like Jane Doe and Italian people, but at least it's the last piece of shit of this particular iteration for the time being. Maybe someday a guy like Geoff Johns will come along and write a story arc solely focused on the Joker murdering all of these shitty side villains. They could call it "Clearing House" or "People Make The Best Fire Hoses". Until then, it's nice to know there's still a place at DC for people to write long love poems to shitty supervillains in the form of ongoing super-hero Batman comics.

Ultimate Comics Doom # 4
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Rafa Sandoval
Published by Marvel Comics

It's hard to figure out what the fuck this thing was or is supposed to be, beyond maybe the writers at Marvel got mad that Jeph Loeb was the one who got to buttfuck the Ultimate characters into oblivion, so Marvel decided to let Mark Millar and Bendis write their own versions of buttfucking the Ultimate characters into oblivion? Unlikely. Marvel doesn't make decisions like some kind of omnipotent voice, and there's no way that the most overproducing versions of Marvel's overproducers actually have the time to keep up with comics they aren't directly involved in the creation of, so they'd have no real way of knowing what happened in those Jeph Loeb comics. PS Ben Grimm marrying Sue Storm is the opposite of romantic, in point of fact, it would arguably be less gross for her to have sex with her brother, or maybe even a corpse.

Invincible # 78
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn & FCO Plascencia
Published by Image Comics

This is one of those aftermath/epilogue comics that come out after a larger super-hero storyline concludes. They're designed to be advertisments for the series in general, but since current practice dictates that no super-hero comics are planned any further out than a couple of issues (at best), they're usually advertisements for the next couple of months. In essence, it's the equivalent of a television show mixing the "previously on Nazi, Testicle Strangler" recap with the "on the next episode of Nazi, Testicle Strangler" trailer and letting that serve as an actual episode. And since the only thing interesting about Invincible is the hardcore violence and that gigantic white bipedal tiger who kills things, you would do well to give up on Invincible for awhile, because it is apparently going to be about how his girlfriend got pregnant (or maybe just fat?) while he was away. Don't believe it? Here's an example of what's to come: there's a reveal that a character is gay, which we are told to think of as not being a big deal, and that always works especially when the writer and editor spend the first few paragraphs of the letters column talking about how having a gay character isn't a big deal and really, you should look at the cool way they didn't big deal explain it in some big deal panel in the middle of the big deal comic. It's the equivalent of somebody writing the phrase "I've got a few black friends" and then constantly adding sentences around it in hopes that it can be smothered to death with more words.

Uncanny X-Force # 6
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Esad Ribic, John Lucas & Matt Wilson
Published by Marvel Comics

This issue is actually way better than the previous issue, which almost drowned in a bathtub due to a single inch of trying too hard, but maybe I just feel that way just because there's a part in this one where a Deathlok totally breaks the tip off of an arrow and kills Hawkeye with it, which is total ironic poetic justice because Hawkeye is the one who shot him with that exact arrow. Also, a key part of this story hinges on the idea that the world would be an actual utopia if all super-heroes were murdered and resurrected to serve as the undying zombie slaves of smart human men, and that's an idea with just enough real world relevance to push one past the parts where the comic is sort of The Adventures of Fantomex, painted by computers. No matter what, the answer to the question "How many times do I like seeing Deathlok Steve Rogers cry and then commit suicide" is always the same: lots and lots and bunches and bunches.

Deadpool Max # 6
Written by David Lapham & Kyle Baker
Art by Kyle Baker
Published by Marvel Comics

While all of the Deadpool Max issues so far have benefitted somewhat from their connection to other issues, this is the first time one has come out that's expressly tied into the other issues in a way that almost--but not quite--makes those other issues necessary for comprehension. Don't be fooled: fuck comprehension, and fuck writing, you're reading this for Kyle Baker and Kyle Baker is somewhere to be found on every page. Enjoy this one while it lasts, there's no way in hell Marvel has the taste to keep it going.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man # 156
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley
Published by Marvel Comics

The grossest/funniest/creepy part of this comic is the part where Mary Jane and Peter Parker talk about how they don't understand why they split up in the first place but golly are they oh so glad they are back together now, and it's gross/funny/bleagh because that's the part where you remember that Mark Bagley and Bendis are also back together again and snide snide foo foo snicker snicker men kissing such 'n such. It's actually not too bad of an idea to have that kind of scene though, because reminding you that this is Bendis doing Archie will distract you from the part where Captain America starts dropping life lessons by riding around on one of those motorcycles where you have to lay down on the seat (imagine someone telling you anything serious in an authoritative voice while laying down on a motorcycle) and taking Peter to a cemetery to say "someday you're going to die, because we all die, like soldiers, and I like to fuck soldiers" or something to that effect because who can pay attention to what grandpa has to say, I watched the part of Saving Private Ryan where old Matt Damon cried and said "hope ya'll dead Barry Peppers like how i fucked and made babies, i did that fuckin' for you" and that was one time too horsefucking many if you ask me. Captain America. Fuck Captain America. Speechifying shitbag bitch on a red foreign lay-down motorcycle, real Americans would ride a Harley or at least that Honda that rips off Harley design. Who doesn't know that?

X-Men # 9
Written by Victor Gischler
Art by Chris Bachalo
Published by Marvel Comics

Probably the most effort dedicated to compulsive panel building that Bachalo has done in a little while, although he still takes the time to randomly draw lizards on the side of the page just in case anybody forget what the story was about. Like all of Victor Gischler's non-Welcome To The Bayou work, this isn't as good as Welcome To The Bayou, but it's surprisingly engaging for an X-Men comic, which is so rare that you'd think Marvel didn't actually publish these things anymore, even though they do, all the time, they are just horrible and sometimes ugly. This though--lots of meaningful violence, a huge amount of mean-spirited nihilism, and that the-90's-are-awesome X-Men line-up (Gambit, Wolverine, Storm, others) that appeals directly to people who generally hate X-Men comics. This: pretty weird.

Daken Dark Wolverine # 7
Written by Marjorie Liu & Daniel Way
Art by not Giuseppe Camuncoli
Published by Marvel Comics

Terrible. Why no good art in terrible comic?

5 Ronin # 4
Written by Peter Milligan
Art by Goran Parlov
Published by Marvel Comics

Another installment in the post-Programme library of Peter Milligan comics no one reads or seems to really care about, the weekly 5 Ronin mini-series is now making its period-required stop at the ever popular feudal Japanese staple: the hooker who stabs things. This time around, there's the twist of keeping the geishas sans-make up, in cages, which could totally be true, since my extent of research into this period comes from Lone Wolf And Cub, Usagi Yojimbo, and the clips of samurai movies used on Wu-Tang albums. But hey, maybe this comic is factually inaccurate: your feelings about that may determine how often your parents shrug and put your phone calls through to voicemail. 

Hulk # 31
Written by Jeff Parker
Art by Gabriel Hardman and another Breitweiser
Published by Marvel Comics

It's always really depressing when you figure out that you might actually be one of those fucking fingerjam shitbags who "just doesn't like that character", because that mental train has a lot of potential to crash into a bunch of custom-action figures of Infinity Incorporated, collapsed relationships, and one of those crotches that connects to the belly to form a perfect oval of fat piece-of-shittedness. Characters in comics are a fucking shell game, a trick that keeps people on the teat no matter the talent. It's meaningless shit, evidence of crazy, and yet, and yet, and yet: who likes the Red Hulk? Who likes this guy? He's so irritating, this guy! And yet--that point one issue actually seemed so simple and interesting, like a well made yoga dvd or a book about time management. It's just a comic about a guy wandering around trying to solve problems at the behest of absentee bosses, with robots as friends, one robot in particular that he wants to have sex with but doesn't seem to realize that he feels that way yet in a poignant pushbroom mustache fashion, and the whole thing is drawn in this really friendly, open style that seems to have no parallel to anything other than just making sense. This issue...it isn't great, and it manages to make that point one issue seem like an insult by recapping it entirely, comic style, on the first measly page--but it's engaging and pleasant, which almost no super-hero comic seems capable of being, if we're being totally frank. Everything is so mean, so gross, and while that grossness can be done well, and that meanness can be funny, it's still kind of absent and cloistered to pretend that fucking BOOKS made out of SKIN and Maxwell Lord's BODY COUNT and the X-men version of Dr. Fuckin' Mengele is so impressively mature and adult and oh so smart. Which isn't to say that Hulk 31 is some kind of bellwether--it isn't, it's a comic stretching out Marvel's gross mentality of over-publication, of crass saturation, no matter that it's a well made version of that thing, those kinds of things will ultimately destroy in the long term--but it is a quiet rebuke, one that's somewhat comforting to find. So what if it's about the Red Hulk? It's not like there's some better option available, or that if there is, that it isn't the same one there's always been: songs about fingerfucking, and more of them.

Cockgobbler's Knob

-Tucker Stone, 2011

Comics Of The Weak: Hold On A Second I Think This Asshole Likes Coldplay

Night Animals
By Brecht Evans
Published by Top Shelf

This is the heavyset version of the American comic book staple. It consists of two stories, the first being an uninspired (and unnecessary? Does that word have any substance anymore?) update on Where The Wild Things Are, which the trying-to-sell-this-blurb explains in the most cloying non-macaroni necklace fashion possible. The second story might have been a bit more interesting, except for the fact that it was done way, way better by the people who did the cartoons on Wonder Showzen, and also for the fact that this version of "little girl has first period, goes to gigantic orgy-like party drenched in the color red" ends with the girl disappearing from her regular life forever, which would seem to have all kinds of weird negative connotations regarding the maturation of femininity. While terrible stories, both are, of course, extremely really well drawn, but this is essentially the art/indie/non-cape version of Chris Bachalo Wolverine comics.

Ultimate Spider-Man # 155
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Chris Samnee
Published by Marvel Comics

It turns out that the cancellation of Thor: You Know The One might have actually been a pretty good thing, because whoopsy, doesn't look like Samnee has quite yet mastered what it looks like when two people kiss each other on the lips, and that Mama's Fuckin/' Thor comic was going to have tots kissing, there was an entire six-issue arc dedicated to tongue jockeys, composed entirely of fan fiction. As those two panels of misfire show up in the final pages of the comic, it might unfairly sour the rest of the issue, which is actually kind of sitcom ripoff okay in that way Bendis comics can still occasionally be, especially when they are in the hands of an artist who can successfully use hipster iconography to update J Jonah Jameson in a way that's surprisingly accurate. (Meaning that, yes, it totally fucking makes sense that he's the kind of prick who would wear one of those Great Gatsby party hats in 2011, because math.)

The Walking Dead # 82
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Charlie Adlard & Cliff Rathburn
Published by Image Comics

Here's the thing: this comic used to be fun to read becuase you wanted to see what was going to happen next. Nowadays, it's fun to read because you want to see what bizarre piece of gonzo morality its ridiculous cast of characters are going to produce, like in this issue, where a guy who got his arm cut off lays in bed talking to a little kid and going "don't you lose that goodness" and "you ain't going to make new friends, but you promise me you'll still skateboard inside your heart" and also "i got a fever" while another guy (the kid's dad) sits around needlessly saying fucked up things like "i don't care if other people's kids die because they aren't our kids" and then, in case you don't get it, he repeats some manner of his fucked up no-reason-to-say-it-out-loud weirdness in big letters, usually on the last page. (Which is better than some of this comic's occasional last pages that depend on a drawing for their impact, and which invariably result in the reader going "huh?" and then realizing that the boring two-page dawing they're looking at is supposed to be IMPORTANT, so they go back and read the previous pages and then go "oh" while still secretly knowing they don't care.) Remember how people used to say "it's not about the zombies, it's about the people", and then we all silently agreed "okay, it totally is just the zombie apocalypse part, not the people, but i'm cool with pretending if you are" and then that didn't come up again until they started advertising the television show? This is why.

Batman Incoporated # 3
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Yanick Paquette except for two pages, which are done in this imitation of Yanick Paquette
Published by DC and okay, the weird thing about imitating Yanick is that he's actually spent most of this series so far imitating Kevin Nowlan, so when this Perez guy shows up and imitates a guy imitating another guy, it just gets exhausting, and you're already doing a shitload of work reading super-hero comics as an adult in the first place
The best part about the variant cover is how its actually a blacked out version of what the cover would have been if this comic had come out the actual month it was supposed to, which was that month when they did all those white background covers

This issue was confusing, unfunny, and in certain portions, super-fucking ugly to look at, and yet it was still more engaging than those Paul Dini Batman comics about the Hush character--and that's the way these things work, ultimately, and part of not being Charlie Brown is realizing that you can't complain about her pulling the football. Better doesn't mean good, and while this is better than the Outsiders, that doesn't mean it still isn't fucking irritating. And while it's obvious to everyone that the whole Incorporated idea exists primarily so that people's cousins can get their own Batman design for their very own city, the idea still has some solid SHIELD level possibilities, and maybe--if Morrison can turn in a script frequently enough to keep the rest of the DC bat-office playing calmly in their vats of strawberry flavored excrement--this ship will right itself enough to, at the minimum, entertain.

Batman & Robin # 21
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason
Published by DC Comics

As an alternative, Batman comics could also be like this--curious updates on old Pander Brothers mini-series mixed with the hardcore extraneous brutality that DC has become famous for providing. It's always possible that stories like this--ones that aimlessly cram in the idea of civilians n' baby slaughter like styrofoam peanuts--are building up to 2018's next summer comics event, where all of the DC universe stops and goes to grief counseling, tortured with the thoughts that their good deeds can never outweigh the gruesome holocaust that the collateral damage of heroics creates.

Batgirl # 19
Written by Bryan Q Miller
Art by Dustin Nguyen
Published by DC Comics

This is another one of those overwritten DC Comics that lives in a totally inoffensive space, following around a bland blond as she blands her way around Gotham City, all with a Skerritt-level radar lock on the most boring people imaginable: an old man named Clancy, a computer nerd in a wheelchair who acts like her mother, and of course, her actual mother. And sure, these people are all some level of super-hero, especially the mom, as she's a civilian related to a Bat-character and has yet to die screaming, but they're essentially banal mirrors reflecting back how little of Batgirl's potential was ever used. This was the one, you know? Stephanie Brown was the highest profile piece of non-villain white trash this company ever produced, she was the one chance either of these hero companies ever had for some Winter's Bone/Justified style plotting in their spandex sagas--scummy, sleazy Stephanie, with a dipshit loser (and eventually dead) father, her burnout alkie mom, and of course, Steph's own hysterical bout with teenage pregnancy and all the great Dixonion ramifications that followed that minefield of insanity. We squandered our only redneck, and I, for one, think the shame tastes like moist semen.

-Tucker Stone, 2010

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

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

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