You know, I like the Black Widow a lot, and it's nice that Iron Man II is netting her all this attention...but have I really got to buy a book called BLACK WIDOW AND THE MARVEL GIRLS? Really?

Also, this cover just makes me roll my eyes. Look, she's an attractive woman wearing a skintight black leather jumpsuit. If you can't make her look sexy without giving her severe frostbite, you need refresher art courses.

An entire trade of Mary-Jane Watson? Prior to the Retcon Of Which We Do Not Speak? Complete with ''Parallel Lives'', the awesome MJ backstory GN? Sign me up for that, no question.

(I do find the opening of the solicit amusing, sort of. I thought we were meant to have forgotten all that...?)

So around the time that I was starting to get worried it would never actually come out, the complete black-and-white collection of Scott McCloud's Zot! landed on my doorstep. With a thump, presumably, because 575 pages! 575 pages of the best ridiculously idealistic hero ever and his terrifically 3D girlfriend and de-evolutionary cults and crazy techno-artist supervillains and the line between hope and cynicism and...oh, man I have glee. Zot! just rocks, and the book has a whole bunch of issue commentary from McCloud, to boot. *coos at book* Now if they'd reprint the color issues I would be an even happier woman...but 575 pages will probably keep me busy for a bit!

(And yes, the ending to Terry's story has been maintained. You know what I'm talking about if you've read it. :)

Re: ROGUES' REVENGE #1:

( THANK you, Geoff Johns. )

I love my comics shop. They're on the subway line, they have shelves and shelves of graphic novels, and every so often they do something like this: Marvel and DC presidential primaries on Free Comic Books Day. Totally my kind of political event. *g* Sadly you have to come to the store to vote, but if you live in the DC area I encourage you to come by--free comics and the chance to be heard about which superhero ought to be president!

My random thoughts on the nominees:

( Read more... )

Comments?

...and as one of the half-dozen Damage fans in the world, I just have to gripe.

( spoilers for JSA #4 )

Haven't posted in ages; trying to get back into it. Herewith some reactions to this week's comics; spoilers within.

( BIRDS OF PREY )

( DAREDEVIL #88 )

( FLASH #3 )

( HEROES FOR HIRE #1 )

( JACK OF FABLES #2 )

( LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #21 )

( WONDER WOMAN #2 )

( GREEN ARROW #65 )

Because I'm way behind on new comics: random comments on back issues I've picked up.

DETECTIVE COMICS ANNUAL #2—I pulled this one on the grounds that Mark Waid was one of the names on the cover, and it more than delivered. It’s a full-length story set back in Bruce’s much younger training days--he’s smart (when he remembers to be), physically dangerous, and an utter loose cannon. It’s charming watching him screw up again and again because he’s yet to develop that patented Bat-repression, and gives you some idea why he needs it so bad. It also features a proper, well-done mystery, an engaging detective mentor for Bruce, some nice emotional bits, and a coldly effective link back to the present day. All this and Young Bruce calling himself after the author of "The Hardy Boys"--really, what more could I want?

Also, apparently this story is the much-updated post-Crisis version of a tale in which Bruce used to be Robin. Hey, don't look at me--I just report these things, you know?

WONDER WOMAN #100—Last issue of the Messner-Loebs WW run. One day, I swear, I will get the rest of it. For the moment, I have very little idea what’s going on here--except that the role of Wonder Woman has been taken over by Artemis and Diana is wearing black leather--and I don’t care; Diana is brave and strong and caring, and Artemis's death makes me sniffle. A lot.

IMPULSE ANNUAL #2--That cover is still one of the most charming things I've ever seen, and actually I bought the issue primarily on the strength of it. Bart is having so much fun there. The actual issue consists of two stories; the lead is a piece of fluff in which Bart, Max, and Vigilante thwart the bad guys, with appropriately purple narration. The backup is an historical story retconning Max into the origin of Western hero Johnny Thunder. (No, not the one from the JSA, the other one. You know, the one none of you have ever heard of...) It's not bad at all--Thunder's father comes off pretty vividly, I thought--but after a while I really kind of felt like shaking the author and going "Look, I get it! His parents want different things from him and he's going to develop a dual identity to deal with it! Can we move on now?" Admittedly, the fact that I have in fact read Thunder's origin before and knew the score going in may be influencing me here.

GREEN ARROW ANNUAL #7--You know, I can almost hear Chuck Dixon talking here. "Playboy billionaire is stranded on desert island and is forced to survive and, to some degree, grow up? Boring, boring, boring. I want a fight scene before he even gets off the island! Hey! What if there was somebody else on the island and he was a psychotic serial killer! Wouldn't that be cool?!" *sigh* It's not dire; Dixon keeps a lot of Ollie's struggle to survive alone, and his interactions with Nicholas Kotero aren't bad; in another story I'd even call them fairly compelling. But they really don't suit what I think Ollie's origin story is supposed to be about. I'm also kind of dubious about the idea that early Ollie hit a waiter, and so the guy didn't call for help when he saw Ollie go overboard. Now, that does suit the themes of the character, with his own actions always being his biggest problem, but physical abuse is not a character trait I particularly associate with Oliver Queen (his lines for how far he'll go are drawn much further than most heroes, but that's a different thing than punching people over minor irritations) and we're really not given any reason in this story to think he got over that--so it comes across as just smearing Ollie for no particularly good reason. Nice one, Dixon.

In other news, I will one day watch a TV show that is not twenty years old and vastly obscure. Just not right now, apparently.

Well, if they're going to keep giving me targets...

( Irritated snark about GREEN ARROW #53 )

A few days ago, I commented elsewhere about my bitterness about the death of the Manhunter of POWER COMPANY (yeah, I know, no one but me cares; I'm still bitter). And it got me thinking, again, about how much of my version of the character I'd just made up, or extrapolated from what bits of canon I had, and for some reason it started to arrange myself in my head in the form of that "My ____ is" meme--which I've never done before, and I have no idea why I'm starting here. But apparently I am, and here it is, just to get it out of my head.

( On the off-chance that anybody else reads this, the short version of the character's backstory )

( My Manhunter... )

So apparently the rage-inducing comic of the week is ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN. And I don't doubt that it was very rage-inducing indeed, but I didn't read it (actually, I'd forgotten it was coming out until the screaming started), and consequently, the book I want to take apart with a hammer is GREEN ARROW #52. Because I have Issues, oh yes.

( Identity Crisis...again )

Very good thing about rereading my FLASH: getting reintroduced to two of my favorite members of the Keystone PD (okay, so they're just about the only members of the KPD we know, but still), who've gotten a little bit sidelined lately. Jared Morillo is a too-smart, much-too-arrogant homicide detective from L.A. Fred Chyre is a blue-collar beat cop with a temper problem. Y'all can imagine how well they get along, right?

I really do love Morillo.
But I can't blame Chyre for not sharing my feelings.
Subtle. Very subtle.
First they fight, then they team up...
Morillo is the world's greatest husband. No, honestly.
They look so thrilled.

Mmm, odd-couple partners, how I love them. You know, for all that I really truly do cherish the Rogues and am delighted to see them given all this space (am less than impressed by certain aspects of how they've been handled, but...), I kinda miss my constantly bickering cops. Ah well, I'll always have back issues...

And a bonus pic, because I do occasionally pay attention to the star of the book, plus it made me giggle: Oh, Wally. I love how he's clearly gearing up to remember about partnership and not doing everything himself, and then Linda turns out to be thinking about something else entirely. I *heart* practical Linda.

Lots of good comics this week.

( Spoilers for BOP #76, Ex Machina #6, Fantastic Four #520, Madrox #3, Manhunter #4, Teen Titans #18, Wonder Woman #210 )

...oh, I love/hate Mark Waid.

Even when he's writing an issue of a mediocre '90s crossover, even when I know what's coming, even when he's admitted that this story was a mistake, he still makes me cry. I just--god. I can't think of anyone else in comics who punches my buttons quite like this; sometimes I can see exactly what strings he's pulling and it still works on me. And then there are the times when he just hits the genius high and it's all so good...

It does augur really well for my liking his LSH. Hurry up and get here, December!

Also: I had a conversation with caia_comica last night, which led to me thinking about Booster as a knight in golden glowing enchanted armor, and the picture just won't go away, which would be less of an issue if I could draw. Or if I was going to write it. Which I'm not. Especially since trying to translate Beetle into the same context is giving me a headache, even though Guy translates just fine with his magic sword. (Okay, so technically what's he's got is already a magic ring, but what's the point if people stay the same? Besides, I like visualizing Guy with a magic sword.) But just having Booster and Guy would be a disaster. So I'm not thinking about this. Really.

I love Dejanews; you can find the most wonderful bits of trivia there. Presently I'm fascinated by the revelation that in his earliest pre-Crisis conception, Booster Gold was supposed to be a walking collection of Superman memorabilia: Superboy's Legion flight ring (he kept that one, although presumably it's been retconned out by now), Brainiac's forcefield (I have no idea if this differs in any significant way from Brainiac 5's forcefield, which is what he wound up with), and...Lex Luthor's purple-and-green battle-armor. You know, that one, or some variant thereof.

I mean, it's not a bad design for a villain, but I'm utterly at a loss to imagine vain, flashy, ultra-image-conscious Booster Gold wearing the thing. Booster is all about being pretty and shiny. You wouldn't think it would help his PR any to show up looking like a supervillain, either; I hope they at least meant to let him repaint it. And, well, there's the skirt. If Booster is grateful for nothing else in his comics existence, he should be grateful that he did not have to go through his JLI membership wearing a skirt; the mockery would have been endless...

...or, when '80s crossovers attack. Completely random and pointless; mostly for my own amusement.

( Snarky but mostly-accurate summary )

Also, MILLENNIUM #5 really, really makes me wish I had a scanner. There's just no verbal way I can get across the effect of a page with an entire roomful of super-heroes yelling "Way to go, Batman!"...

Oh, and in less squealy comics news, I finally picked up GL #181. (Yes, a week late. I was serious when I said I didn't much want to read it.)

Do I need to explain to anyone the enormous logical problems with this story? Ron Marz's total and unsurprising ignorance of anything that was added after he left the book? And how incredibly insulting to Kyle the big emotional moment was?

No? Didn't think so.

I appreciated the twist in the plot, both on its own merits and that it made the villains look less dumb. And miss_porcupine is absolutely right in that it could have been much, much worse. I'm happy for that much, I really am. But it's still pretty thin comfort.