This Week’s Comics

DC’s Zero Month continues, partying like it’s 1994!  Here are this week’s new and noteworthy releases.

• ATOMIC ROBO FLYING SHE DEVILS O/T PACIFIC #3  – After a somewhat rough start with the first issue (I found the aerial combat too hard to read), AR: FSDotP (whew!) has really hit it’s stride.
• ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #6 – You DO know that Robo learns kung fu from Bruce Lee in here, right?  RIGHT???
• DAREDEVIL #18
• GHOST #0 – I spotted this in my first Previews and Portents column a couple months back, and the Kelly Sue Deconnick/Phil Noto tag-team is enough to make me give it a shot, even though I’m not really familiar with the character.
• ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #12 – Despite a fairly sleepy middle act, Snarked has been revelatory. It’s easy enough for kids yet complex enough for adults.  And funny!  With this final issue I’m somewhat afraid we’ll finally SEE the snark, since the running gag has been not knowing what he looks like.  I’m happy enough to NEVER know what Langridge’s looks like, content to have the snark of my imagination. Sad as I am that it’s going away, I’m equally as excited to see what Mr. Langridge has for us next.

That’s it for this week.  Expect reviews later in the week for Hawkeye, Rocketeer, and more.  What looks good to you?

Saturday Morning Comics

This week I’m settling down with a bowl of Cookie Crisp and taller than usual stack of comics. It’s a big week, and it’s a good week for comics. With that in mind, I’m going to keep most of the reviews brief.

The Muppets #2 story and art by Roger Langridge; published by Disney Comics (a Marvel imprint). With no color problems this go-round, the issue is much better. It’s summer and the Muppets take a crazy trip to the beach. What keeps this arc from being perfect are the damned covers. Kermit and Fozzie are horrible to look at here. Why? Why? Why?

Action Comics vol. 2 #12: written by Grant Morrison; art by Rags Morales, CAFU, Rick Bryant, Bob McLeod, and Andrew Hennessy; published by DC Comics. Yeoman’s work. After 12 issues we finally have a real clues as to the over arching conflict…and it involves the 5th Dimension.

 Love and Capes: What to Expect #1: by Thom Zahler; published by IDW. I’m so glad this is back. It’s still fun and a joy to read. As suggested at the end of the last arc and the title of this arc, we can expect a super birth by the end. It works well if you’ve never read any of the previous Love and Capes stories, but there’s an extra layer for those familiar with the world and the established character dynamics. Check it out; it’s clever with winks and nods to comicdom’s goofier moments.

Transformers: Regeneration One #82 story by Simon Furman; art by Andrew Wildman (p) and Stephen Baskerville (i); published by IDW. HOLY MOLEY! Hang on to your butts because Megatron is back and he’s more of a bad-ass than he’s been in a while. If your jaw was on the floor when we saw what he’s done to Earth in the last issue, this issue tops that.

Hypernaturals #1&2 written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning; art by Andres Guinaldo, Brad Walker, and Mark Irwin; published by BOOM Studios. Easily the greatest thing about this week’s shipment. When I saw that DnA had a new superhero book out I thought I give it a shot. I was not disappointed. The great strength of these first two issues is that they are fast paced, yet everything necessary to understand the world and the characters is apparent within the first four pages of the issue. Unlike the team books of Distinguished Competition, we’ve got a whole team in issue one and we know the threat. The characters are familiar but interesting. Math is used like magic and a villain leaves his fingerprint on an entire planet.

I’m reticent to make a comparison because it will make the book sound misleadingly too derivative, but there are shades of the JLA, the Legion of Superheroes, and the Guardians of the Galaxy throughout this book. Maybe it’s more fair to say that DnA have taken the best BIG concepts and feelings from these three titles and woven them into an original and enjoyable work.

If you’re a fan DnA’s work on titles like Guardians of the Galaxy and Legion of Superheroes, or your a fan of good story telling where real stuff happens before the sixth issue, this is the book you need to be reading. It’s one of those books that will make you feel you as when the Earth was new.

In other news, Rasl is out this week with a final issue. I’m missing a couple of issues so I’ll get back to you on how it is. Also, I’m reading James Robinson’s Earth-2. It’s James Robinson; it’s the Justice Society; who are you to judge?

THIS WEEK’S COVERS

This Week’s Comics

Oh, hello there.  I didn’t see you come in.  It’s another light week, but here are this week’s new and noteworthy titles.

• DAREDEVIL #16
• LOVE AND CAPES WHAT TO EXPECT #1 – For Matt’s creator-owned pull list.
• MUPPETS #2 – The Last Langridge Muppet Story is a bit of a lost classic, and it’s been nice to revisit old friends, even if they haven’t been gone that long.
• THIEF OF THIEVES #7
• TRANSFORMERS REGENERATION ONE #82 – And speaking of revisiting old friends I don’t think Regen One has quite recaptured the vibe of the first run 20 years ago, but I can see the spark.  And it IS a good book, it just doesn’t seem like Furman and Wildman have recaptured their groove yet.  It’s dumb, but I will mention that one of the best things are the word balloons.  Growing up on the old Marvel series, Transformers always spoke with rectangular balloons with those strange flared corners.  No other series since has gone that route, and it’s nice to see them back.

I also picked up the 100-Page Spectacular so I could get caught up on issues 76-80 from the original series before picking up #81.  I have
about half the issues and had never read the rest, so it was a good refresher for me.  I was very pleasantly surprised to see those stories hold up remarkably well, and not “for Transformers comics,” but as stories in their own right.

That’s it for this week.  What looks good to you?

Saturday Morning Comics

Weekly comics reviews are moving to Saturday mornings starting this week.

In honor of the move, the weekly review feature is getting a new name and a new look.

The Muppets #1 story and art by Roger Langridge; published by Disney Comics (a Marvel imprint). As Jesse mentioned earlier in the week, this is a story fans have been waiting for and worrying about. When BOOM! ended the series, shortly after Marvel was purchased by Disney, this (second to)last arc’s future was uncertain. Disney had already reprinted three of Langridge’s arcs in a large magazine format, and they promised Four Seasons would be on its way. The wait is finally over this week with Spring. True to the other arcs, it essentially follows the format of the television show: the back-stage story is broken up with on-stage acts in between. This particular issue celebrates spring with a love story between animal and a dancing gorilla. Like the previous issues and the current running Snarked!, the “musical” acts are poems made up by Langridge. Story and art-wise this issue is of the same high quality as the previous arcs.

I did have two problems on the production end. The first is that we’re deprived of the original Langridge cover. In its stead we are given  something less than satisfactory…almost…cute and cuddly. I’ll put both covers below in the cover section. The second problem is with the coloring. Kawaii Creative Studio is credited, and they should be ashamed. Outside of Fozzie not being the same color from page to page, the Pigs in Space uniforms are inexplicably red. RED? You see that Piggy’s skirt is also colored blue. The costume ends up looking more like one of those cheap Wonder Woman knock-off costumes. The last problem is that Statler’s suit appears grey/navy (as it should) in the first half of the book, but changes to a brown to match Waldorf’s in the latter half. This book appears to have been made piece-meal by a committee of people from around the world without any quality assurance. I’d have thought Disney might be a little more careful.

Wolverine and the X-Men #13 story by Jason Aaron; art by Nick Bradshaw(p/i), Walden Wong(i), and Cam Smith(i); published by Marvel Comics. Ugh. This issue gives us the back story of the Warbird assigned to protect Gladiator’s son while at Wolverine’s school. It’s really boring to read as all manner of interesting things appear to be going on in the background. Why aren’t we getting a view of what the students are doing/ feeling during all of this Phoenix foolishness? Again I say,”Ugh.”

Saucer Country #5 story by Paul Cornell; art Ryan Kelly; published by Vertigo (a DC imprint). After reading Jesse’s description of issue #1 some time ago, I decided to add it to my list. What’s not to like about the concept: popular and influential politician has encounters with UFO’s, decides to run for president, and conspiracy ensues. The problem is that there are two way to go with this concept. The fast paced exciting and interesting path or the slow plodding path. That Cornell is taking the second path sucks the life out of the book. This isn’t even story decompression. I read these issues and it feels like nothing has happened of interest. There is a story, but it’s pretty dull… I don’t know where this is coming from because I liked Cornell’s work on Action Comics and Captain Britain and MI-13. This is lacking his punchy dialogue and well developed characters.

CHEW: Secret Agent Poyo #1 story by John Layman; art by Rob Guillory; published by Image Comics. I’m working on a review for CHEW that will see the light of day next week, but for now you will have to be satisfied with a review of a one-shot. For those not in the know, Poyo is a rooster whose famed for his cockfighting skills. Not that the world of CHEW is a serious one or one with a firm basis in our reality, but this one-shot devoted to a rooster pushes the boundaries of plausibility within the world that Layman and Guillory have created. Still, it’s a helluva lot of fun. It’s got everything you never realized you wanted or needed in a comic book: a homicidal cybernetic rooster; farm animals as precipitation, a battle against the hordes of Hell itself. It’s a fun book and it doesn’t really require a working knowledge of the main book to enjoy. If you liked Hitmonkey, but felt it a little too serious, this is the comic for you.

THIS WEEK’S COVERS

This Week’s Comics

Despite scrambling with a late-arriving list from Diamond, I finally got this week’s This Week’s Comics put together.  And don’t forget, comics ARE coming out Wednesday, despite it being a holiday.  Diamond has been really good about not having holiday delays lately, and I feel like we haven’t given them the credit for that.  At any rate, here are this week’s new and noteworthy titles.

• HE MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #1 – James Robinson writing He-Man is such a weird combination that, if I didn’t have a DC ban in place, I’d have no choice to check it out.  And yet the news has been Geoff Johns (who has nothing to do with the series!) creating a new character.  Sheesh.
• HULK #55
• MIND MGMT #2 – After hearing so many positive things about #1, I’ll give it a shot.  Well, assuming I can also dig up a #1.
• MUPPETS #1 – New Roger Langridge Muppet stories are here!  Well, technically they’re older than the Boom! series, but I’ve never seen them, so new to me counts.
• ROCKETEER ADVENTURES 2 #4
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS SHOWCASE TP VOL 01 – I think I may have just fallen into the nexus of the universe.
• THIEF OF THIEVES #6

Matt and I were both excited to see Chris Roberson’s announcement of Monkeybrain Inc, his new webcomic venture with ComiXology.  Roberson, the pen behind iZombie, Elric, Starborn, and the man who made sense of JMS’s disastrous Grounded arc, is a talent to keep your eyes on.  Unceremoniously dumped by DC after publicly expressing commonsense opinions about Before Watchmen, rather than fading into the scenery and never being heard of again he’s focusing on creator-owned work and now this new venture.  I’d be happy to follow him regardless, but after seeing the other creators he has lined up, including Colleen Coover, Curt Franklin, Chris Haley, Joe Keatinge, Chris Sims, Paul Tobin, and Bill Willingham.  I mean, damn!  That’s just a no-brainer.

God go with you, Chris Roberson, and you thirty-two comic creators. God’s not done with any of you, yet.

That’s it for this week.  What looks good to you?

Leaked San Diego ComiCon Rumors!

Summer convention season is upon us, and most publishers take the opportunity to use the bigger cons to announce their plans for the next year.  We’ve managed to intercept some of them from the L.E.M.U.R. satellite orbiting 22,300 miles above the earth, and are happy to spoil their plans.  For the children.

• DC
  

  DC will no longer publish comics. Instead it will create and sell lines of merchandise based on the art of Jim Lee. Look for a glut of Batman figures, figurines, and girl’s panties. Also expect more figurines envisioning DC’s famous properties in a hyper sexy anime style.

  • DC will launch Crisis on Finite Earths, except set in the Marvel Universe as the Wolverine of Earth-X and the Spider-Man of Earth 3 finally meet and push the Gwen Stacy of Earth-1 off a bridge.  Then the worlds collapse or something.  Look, it’s just time that Marvel did this, too. Trust us, we’re pros.
  • Feeling that Miracleman rights are a little too close to getting sorted, DC announces they will hire Neil Gaiman to finish his run for them instead of Marvel.
  • Rob Liefeld will become Deputy Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, assisting Geoff Johns.  They will also collaborate on a new title, tentatively scheduled to be a reboot of Jack Kirby’s Sandman.
• Marvel
  • Thor figures front and center this fall, as he becomes a single mom.
  • Marvel will incorporate hidden Mickeys in each issue of each title they publish. Readers are encouraged to document each occurrence and mail it in. Entries will be checked for accuracy and winners will be selected every six months for a free trip to Euro-Disney.
  • This will be Marvel’s last year at SDCC.  Going forward they will be Spotlight Guests at the brand new San Diego DisneyCon the last week of July.
  

  Marvel is being exceptionally tight-lipped about this Fall’s Namor War. Bleeding Cool reports that they’ve come up with a name and 6 promo images but have absolutely no idea what to do with them.

• Dark Horse Comics
  • In honor of Concrete’s 26th anniversary Dark Horse Comics ALL Dark Horse publications will participate “Concrete Month.” Stories will revolve around and feature Paul Chadwick’s iconoclastic creation.
• Image
  • In the largest crossover of it’s kind, Kurt Busiek’s Astro City will cross over with Ed Brubaker’s Fatale and Jonathan Hickman’s Manhattan Projects.  Nick Spencer’s Infinite Vacation will make an appearance, but 8 months late.
  • Top Cow has decided to drop the charade and simply call itself Tits Comics.
• Boom!
  • Roger Langridge will take over as Editor-in-Chief, put snarks in every title.
• Archie
  • Archie Comics will shock readers in November with “Who Killed Archie Andrews?”
• Diamond Distributors
  • In an effort to improve customer service, Diamond will be breaking itself into 12 smaller independent distributors based on geographic region. Griff Moran, a spokesperson for Diamond, assures that these “Diamond Chips” will only be 1/12th as incompetent as the original monopoly. Expect this change in January of 2013.

Alan Moore will write issues 9-12 of Adventure Time. You heard it here first!

This Week’s Comics

Despite a Memorial Day Holiday, this week’s comics will still be out on Wednesday.  Don’t be late!  With that in mind, here are this week’s new and noteworthy titles.

• AMERICAS GOT POWERS #2 (OF 6) – Well, it’s new if not noteworthy.  For the record, I didn’t especially care for it.
• CHANNEL ZERO TP COMPLETE COLLECTION – Interested in Brian Wood’s work before DMZ?  Channel Zero is a great place to start, plus Wood handles all of the creative duties here.  It’ll be interesting to see how it holds up after all these years.
  
• COW BOY A BOY AND HIS HORSE HC – By Nate Cosby and Chris Eliopoulos, whose FCBD preview hooked me good.  You can also check out the first four chapters completely free at cowboycomic.net!
  
• FF #18
• ROCKETEER ADVENTURES 2 #3 (OF 4)
• ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #8 – I feel like we’re getting close to the conclusion, but every issue has been a lot of fun.
  
• TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #10

That’s it for this week.  What looks good to you?

Saturday Rundown

I hate to say it, but I’m a sucker for a good cover, espcially on a first issue.  When I saw the cover Epic Kill #1 I was sold without any of the other evaluation I would normally do.  While Raffaele Ienco’s cover and pin-ups were solid, but his sequential art was not.  His figures look stiff and awkward, a series of drawings with no emotion or interaction.  The story is a mediocre “girl killer on the run” that’s by-the-numbers.  Ienco definitely has a future in comics, especially since he’s put together the entire package himself, but he’s got some work to do first.  Image approved Epic Kill a little early in his career.

Hoax Hunters #0 was another good example of a cover reaching up off the stands, grabbing my eyeballs and not letting go.  Fortunately, this was a better comic all around.  It’s a great idea: a TV show busting urban legends a la Mythbusters that REALLY seriously investigates the truth behind the rumors.  And the best part is that it could be done in any format but the creators chose to do it as a comic.  (Legitimacy!)  The art by JM Ringuet and Axel Medellin is adequate, but stiff and used fairly stock posing and acting. The previews for issue #1 appear to be a different artist in a different style, so I’m looking forward to seeing if there’s any growth there.

Roger Langridge would be a hero of ours if he had only ever done  Boom!’s first Muppet Show miniseries, but he has continually impressed us with work on Snarked and the rest of an incredibly well-written and drawn Muppet run.  So despite no more than a passing familiarity with the characters, I picked up Popeye #1 on the strength of his name alone.  It was a fine comic, and Bruce Ozella’s art seemed to mimic the original well enough for me, but to be honest, the sea voyage to retrieve a mystery creature was enough for me the first time in Snarked.  This just felt like the same story with licensed characters.  I’ll leave it to Matt or Brother of the Blog Stephen to decide how good it is in the context of Popeye, but I’m not really intrigued enough to go any further with  it.

It’s been a while since I read any Tick comics, essentially since the late 90’s when Luny Bin and Tick and Arthur came out.  I decided  that Tick #100’s Invincible crossover would be as good a place to jump back in as any.  And it was!  A great comic all around that brings both characters together in a forgettable enough way and then lets them go crazy together.  It’s a lot of fun, and completely accessible as long as you have a passing familiarity with the characters, even from the old TV show.  And kudos to Benito Cereno for referencing such craziness that’s been happening in this title lately that I have no choice now but to pick up back issues of the current run.  My only real complaint (and I find myself having this problem more and more lately) is the scene transitions are often abrupt or jerky.

NEC Press, knowing this was it’s chance to snag new readers (and recapture some lapsed ones like myself) then took the opportunity to explain the Tick’s publishing history, and how the original run and multiple miniseries since then fit in together.  It was an excellent chance to play catch-up, and quite appreciated.  However, there’s always a gotcha, and the catch with Tick #100 is that it was 7 dollars.  The main story was only 24 pages and the publishing history took up about half the book.  That is WAY too much for the amount of content.  The backmatter should have been more condensed (the pictures were beautiful, but filler) and it should have run 5 bucks.  Price aside, this was damn near a perfect comic.

This Week’s Comics

Monday in the Spring!  The time when a young man’s thoughts turn to love, and a young geek’s heart looks to New Comic Day.  Here are this week’s new and noteworthy releases.

• BLOODSTRIKE #27 – I thought the Bloodstrike relaunch was decent, but it’s also the Extreme title that stayed most faithful to it’s original concept.  In most circumstances that would be a plus, but since we’re talking about Extreme here, the more a title strays the better I’m finding it.  So I think I’ll pass.
• DAREDEVIL #11
• FF #17
• GOON #39
• POPEYE #1 (OF 4) – I mention this specifically for certain Popeye-loving readers of the blog.  I’ll pick it up because Roger Langridge is writing, but it will have to be unquestionably strong for me to keep going with it.
• TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #9
• TWELVE #12 (OF 12) – I mention this in the hopes that Matt will let me know how long it’s been since the first issue came out.  It’s got to be closing in on 4 years, doesn’t it?
• ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #7 – It feels like we’re starting to sail toward a conclusion.  And while that’s undoubtedly a good thing (all stories need resolution, after all), I hope it’s not an ENDING.

I’ve apparently betrayed my inability to repeat myself ad infinitum by not being able to come up with more to say about DD, FF, or TMNT, but rest assured they still come highly recommended. That’s it for this week.  What looks good to you?

This Week’s Comics

It’s reassuring to see all the independent titles on my pull list this week.  It makes me miss DC titles that much less.  Here are this week’s new and noteworthy books.

• FEAR ITSELF #7 POINT ONE – Err…I thought the Point One issues were jumping-on points for new readers.  Isn’t Fear Itself over?
• GOON #36 – Always a solid read, last month’s issue (written by Evan Dorkin) was more hilarious that usual.  I hope they get the band back together soon.
• HULK #44 – I recently finished reading the first year or so of Jeff Parker’s Hulk and it’s everything you could possibly want.  Namely, the Hulk beating the tar out of Marvel’s classic giant monsters. Highly recommended if you enjoy big things hitting other big things without taking itself too seriously.
• INFINITE VACATION #3 (OF 5) – I really enjoyed the first couple issues of Infinite Vacation, a sci-fi tale of hopping bodies with other-dimensional yous, but then…It dropped off the face of the Earth.  I’m really glad it’s shown up again, and looking forward to seeing where Nick Spencer and Christian Ward take us.
• LAST OF THE GREATS #2 – With the grand experiment in full effect, I’ve picked up more Image and indie titles with strong covers that I’d ordinarily buy.  Last of the Greats had an amazing cover by Brent Peeples, but unfortunately the story by Joshua Fialkov was a somewhat generic tale of humanity’s betrayal of 7 godlike aliens and their attempts to get the last of them to save us from another attack.  Oh, and the “Great” is a huge dick.*  The interior art by Peeples was passable, but stilted and not very dynamic.  I’ll not be picking up the rest of this series, beautiful covers or no.
• PEANUTS #0
• ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #2 – Roger Langridge’s new Alice in Wonderland-style book has impressed both of us, with Matt’s tolerance for the poetry a bit higher than mine.  This is an all-ages title that is truly for all ages, and the jokes don’t stop with the dialogue, as Langridge crams each panel full of jokes.  Highly recommended.
• STRANGE TALENT OF LUTHER STRODE #2 (OF 6) – Much like Last of the Greats, Luther Strode is another title I picked up solely on the basis on a strong cover and an intriguing blurb on the Bullpen Bulletins (or whatever thing they’re calling it) on that month’s Image Comics.  Unlike LotG, I enjoyed this book a lot.  Luthor Strode sends away for a Charles Atlas-style bodybuilding kit and is turned into a huge punching machine.  While there are enough internal organs and splatter effects to fill a Mark Millar comic, I felt there was enough heart in the story to get me to come back and see how it turns out. Recommended with reservations, as it could turn either way.

Rick Veitch is an enormously talented comic creator, both as a writer and an artist.  When I saw The Big Lie in the aforementioned Bullpen Bulletins, I thought it had a solid chance of being a good read and expected something like Brought to Light, by his frequent collaborator Alan Moore.  Big Lie concerns Sandra Mansfield, who travels back to September 11, 2001 in an attempt to rescue her husband Carl from the World Trade Center before it collapses.  Armed with her trusty iPad full of evidence, she sets out to provide enough proof to convince him to evacuate.

In itself, great idea.  In practice, it’s a mess.  Veitch spends too much time establishing the pseudoscience for how time travel works, when we all know it’s just a plot device to cram in all of the evidence he wants to tell us that 9/11 was an inside job.  Once he gets to that, all we get is a bunch of rushed strawman arguments and proof that the Carl is such a huge douche** that I find it hard to believe she would cross the street to save this asshole’s life, much less invent time travel to do so.

In the end, the only people who would buy this book have heard this argument already, told better.  You may be tempted to check this one out, but it’s a book better suited for laying down and avoiding.

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters started off really strong with just it’s premise: Godzilla and a bunch of monsters are going to pound the stuffing out of each other.  And it started like that, but then it turned into The Walking Dead, where the monsters are just the backdrop for telling the survivors’ tales.  Which is fine, just not what I picked up the book for.  Phil Hester stopped doing the art with issue 4, Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh are leaving, and there’s no third act anywhere in sight.  Truly, it’s all middle, which is okay, but we still need story arcs with beginnings and endings.  KoM feels like it’s meandering along, and I’ll pick up the next issue to see what the next writer can do with it, but everything that got me hooked is now gone and unless something changes I will be, too.

Apparently I’ve had a lot to say this week!  My ongoing pull list is still a thing, and going well.  Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @LEMURComics (Hi Larry!).  What are YOU looking at this week?

*Seriously, I can’t believe that this is the only new take anyone’s had on Superman in 20 years, since The Rob created  Supreme in 1992.

**She’s 10 years older and he doesn’t recognize her at all.  Sorry, 10 years doesn’t add THAT much baggage to your face.