Comics are Awesome II

[Onslaught Six]

Exactly--and this is why the reboot will fail, because it's not a fucking reboot.

Say what you will about Transformers, but at least when we retcon something, we do it right--quietly sweep it under the rug and pretend it never fucking happened. Furman writes that Cybertron is uninhabitable? McCarthy counters with "Yeah it still hurts to be here but it's not that bad." The Seekers look different now? Nobody says a Goddamn word.

[Sparky Prime]

Exactly--and this is why the reboot will fail, because it's not a fucking reboot.

DC said not to call it a reboot after they announced the relaunch months ago. Why are people suddenly surprised to find it isn't a reboot when they told us it wouldn't be?

Say what you will about Transformers, but at least when we retcon something, we do it right--quietly sweep it under the rug and pretend it never fucking happened. Furman writes that Cybertron is uninhabitable? McCarthy counters with "Yeah it still hurts to be here but it's not that bad." The Seekers look different now? Nobody says a Goddamn word.

Those wouldn't be examples of how to retcon something the "right" way in my book. If Cybertron is painful for the Autobots to be on, then why do they show no indication of it and it wasn't even mentioned until about half way through the series? Seemed more like an afterthought thrown in when they realized it wasn't flowing with the established continuity.

[138 Scourge]

Well there are certainly some exceptions, but still, DC clearly hasn't wiped away all of the continuity seeing that so much of it has been retained in the relaunch. Swamp Thing as well as Hawk and Dove I've read both reference events from Brightest Day. Batgirl, as discussed here, kept events from "The Killing Joke". GL will pick up right where it left off. And so on... The changes they've made seem to be very situational, with it being somewhat extreme for some characters, while little to nothing changes for others.

Right. Mainly Batman and GL are the things that are staying about the same, right? Makes sense, each book (Well, franchise, I guess) is one of DC's top sellers, and when you're making a bigass sales ploy like this, you probably don't want to try fixing what ain't broken.

The only thing I could see as being a problem is when all this is set. Because you've got "Action" taking place early on in Supes' life, you've got JLA taking place a couple years ago, and presumably other books taking place "now". I mean, I can keep track of this, but I'd wager it'd be a little confusing to the hypothetical "new readers" that DC's trying to get with this. Again, we'll see what shakes out.

Exactly--and this is why the reboot will fail, because it's not a fucking reboot.

"Fail" is a strong word. I don't think it'll sink the company or anything. Right now they're getting a sales boost (from what I understand), and while a lot of that might fall off long-term, I'd guess most of the DC die-hards aren't going anywhere just because of this.

And apparently it's working somewhat, because I bought three goddamn DC books this week, and that's more than I've bought the rest of the year.

Action comics was pretty okay. I'd probably like it more if Morrison wasn't such a damn good writer. When a guy that can make things that are just amazing turns in an okay story, it's sort of disappointing. Decent art, though, and I did like the whole train thing. And the more vulnerable Superman. Good enough to buy the next issue, anyway.

Static Shock: Said I'd buy it and I did, damn it. I like the new costume, but I'll likely always prefer the original. I get why Static's in New York now, but I'm not sure I like that. Half the strength of Static's character is how real a dude his alter-ego, Virgil Hawkins, seems like. And without Virgs' friends and family, I can't help but think something's gonna be missing. Also, I've always kind of liked Scott McDaniel's artwork. He's drawn some things that were really dumb (Hama's run on Batman that brought us "Orca the Whale Woman", f'rinstance), but damned if he hasn't drawn that dumb shit beautifully.

OMAC: Speaking of drawing things beautifully, damn, do I love me some Keith Giffen artwork. Dude's been one of my favorites forever, and I love that he's on a book where he just gets to go nuts with the Kirby creations in the DCU.

As for Marvel stuff: Spider-Island: New York: This is a book of short stories set against the Spider-Island backdrop. Lots of different art and story styles going on here, and I always have liked anthology books. Not great, maybe, but fun.

Punisher #3: The Punisher's more interested in going after street-level and organized crime than supervillains in this story, but the mob's not afraid to use super-muscle to take out Castle. So we get, in this issue, Frank vs. the new Vulture. It's a neat fight, the Vulture takes Frank high into the air, slices him up some, pukes acid on him (yeah, I dunno), and tries to drop him. Frank, on the other hand, has a knife. It starts looking like Thanksgiving day by the end of the issue.

Casanova#1: This series has a new subtitle, but I forget what it is. Apparently when Casanova Quinn was abducted from his home universe, it caused rather a lot of temporal distortions, manifesting in just a ton of divergent universes. And Cass' father, E.M.P.I.R.E. head Cornelius Quinn has decided that Cass needs to go cauterize these timelines. There's a lot of cool stuff done with the removal of all these universes. And man, they go into a bunch of 'em in this issue. Casanova is not a book that likes to waste time. Great story and fantastic art. Can't argue with that.

And finally, I picked up Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #1 because I've heard Clevinger say that every new story arc of Robo is a new jumping-on point, and O6 and Prowl told me that this is basically exactly the kind of comics I'd like. So far, they're right, I dug this issue a lot. Most of it is Robo trying to figure out how to get into space to save some astronauts, so what you got is essentially people talking to each other. But the talking's fun to read, as Robo's crew tries to figure out just how the hell they're gonna organize a space-shot within seven hours. And if that can be a fun thing to read, then man, this writer is on the fucking ball.

DC said not to call it a reboot after they announced the relaunch months ago. Why are people suddenly surprised to find it isn't a reboot when they told us it wouldn't be?

What the hell else would you call it? I know the official term is "relaunch", but when the whole world's suddenly all different now, and a lot of characters have new orgins, it's something that's pretty close to a reboot, at least.

[Sparky Prime]

What the hell else would you call it? I know the official term is "relaunch", but when the whole world's suddenly all different now, and a lot of characters have new orgins, it's something that's pretty close to a reboot, at least.

What's wrong with just calling it a relaunch? The whole DCU world isn't all different, given many things we are seeing are staying the same, while other things have changed. DC just calls it the launch of the new DCU.

[138 Scourge]

What the hell else would you call it? I know the official term is "relaunch", but when the whole world's suddenly all different now, and a lot of characters have new orgins, it's something that's pretty close to a reboot, at least.

What's wrong with just calling it a relaunch? The whole DCU world isn't all different, given many things we are seeing are staying the same, while other things have changed. DC just calls it the launch of the new DCU.

Nothing's wrong with calling it a relaunch, really, but "reboot" comes to mind more naturally. Relaunching is what they're doing with the books, sure. But "reboot" just seems like the word to use when referring to what happened to their world.

And of course, things may not have changed all that drastically overall, but you gotta keep in mind that I've only read three books worth of this stuff. And one of those certainly seemed like it was set in an entirely new world.

[andersonh1]

Anderson, glad you dig the Cap book. May I recommend the Cap and Bucky book? It's Cap and Buck in WWII, and by the same writer. Good stuff.

I might check it out. I can only expand my monthly comics-buying so much though.

Action Comics #1

The second cliché is the “renegade general” Sam Lane, who can unleash tanks in the streets of a major metropolitan city and cause all sorts of destruction with no regard for civil law and get away with it. Imagine David Petraeus, or some other US General trying that and tell me it’s even remotely plausible.

Nah, that's silly if you try to picture that being something plausible, but when you figure, what would Patraeus do if there was a super-powerful alien running around US streets? I mean, I like to believe that the US military has an answer to anything that might come up, but I doubt that there's an established playbook for such a scenario. Especially when said alien superbeing starts targeting the rich and powerful.

Yeah, but it's just such a cliche, the "mad general" who can get away with anything, at least for awhile. Star Trek used to drag it out way too often, for example. Just about every admiral we saw was some kind of power-mad extremist, or at least it often seemed that way. And we just saw an entire boardroom filled with "corrupt CEOs" at the end of Brightest Day. It's just old, tired, paper-thin villainy that I just can't be bothered to root against because I'm rolling my eyes at it.

If such a situation were to actually occur, we'd see the President in regular consultation with his generals, and coordination on every level, not one general with carte blanche to do whatever he likes and endanger as many civilians as he see fit, while consulting with someone like Luthor (though admittedly, we don't know just what Luthor's job is at this point).

Got one more book this week to review...

Justice League International #1
I picked this up solely based on fond memories of the old Giffen/DeMattis/Maguire series that I enjoyed so much. I didn't expect it to be the same, or as enjoyable, and it's not. It's very much a plain vanilla middle of the road team book, with functional art and story. Neither stellar nor bad. Dan Jurgens isn't the best at writing dialogue, but he came up with some decent plots for Superman back in the day. He does manage to get the entire team assembled in the first few pages, something Justice League #1 didn't do, or try to do. Jurgens tries as best he can in the limited page space to give all the JLI members some dialogue and personality, but it's going to take time to flesh everyone out. The highlights are probably the interaction between Booster and Batman. Batman has a high opinion of Booster, which I didn't expect to see. But I guess Booster's a lot more mature and competent than he used to be in the bwah ha ha days.

Overall: Could be good, given time. As I said, not a bad book, but nothing all that exciting or gripping. Nice to see a version of the old JLI league again though. I still need to read Generation Lost. I did enjoy this issue, but whether or not I want to collect it going forward remains to be seen. If I had plenty of hobby money, sure, but with limited funds I have to prioritize.

[Sparky Prime]

Nothing's wrong with calling it a relaunch, really, but "reboot" comes to mind more naturally. Relaunching is what they're doing with the books, sure. But "reboot" just seems like the word to use when referring to what happened to their world.

And of course, things may not have changed all that drastically overall, but you gotta keep in mind that I've only read three books worth of this stuff. And one of those certainly seemed like it was set in an entirely new world.

I can see calling certain books a reboot with how drastically they've changed, but other books we already know will be picking up essentially right where they left off. Calling the whole relaunch a reboot just isn't accurate because not all of it is a reboot.

[Onslaught Six]

Exactly--and this is why the reboot will fail, because it's not a fucking reboot.

"Fail" is a strong word. I don't think it'll sink the company or anything. Right now they're getting a sales boost (from what I understand), and while a lot of that might fall off long-term, I'd guess most of the DC die-hards aren't going anywhere just because of this.

I'll consider it a failure when the books drop down to selling exactly as much as they were selling before, and they end up rebooting most of the characters again (with varying amounts of time between how often they reboot it).

And apparently it's working somewhat, because I bought three goddamn DC books this week, and that's more than I've bought the rest of the year.

I've heard Animal Man is literally the best DC book right now.

And finally, I picked up Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X #1 because I've heard Clevinger say that every new story arc of Robo is a new jumping-on point, and O6 and Prowl told me that this is basically exactly the kind of comics I'd like. So far, they're right, I dug this issue a lot. Most of it is Robo trying to figure out how to get into space to save some astronauts, so what you got is essentially people talking to each other. But the talking's fun to read, as Robo's crew tries to figure out just how the hell they're gonna organize a space-shot within seven hours. And if that can be a fun thing to read, then man, this writer is on the fucking ball.

You will not be disappointed. Also, Clevinger isn't exaggerating--many issues of Robo are so self-contained that you can pick it up 'right in the middle' of an arc and figure out what's going on pretty quick. Also apparently next issue is where everything goes to hell and starts getting awesome and actiony, so.

But yes--every Robo arc basically is its own story that requires only knowledge of, really, who the hell Atomic Robo is and that he runs a giant awesome science lab. There will be references to things that happened before but they aren't essential. And also, sometimes within the same arc the thing will just change time and place entirely--the third volume starts in like 1920 and ends in 1999 or something.

[BWprowl]

And also, sometimes within the same arc the thing will just change time and place entirely--the third volume starts in like 1920 and ends in 1999 or something.

Oh god, I loved that arc. I kept wondering what was going on with the endings of each issue, and then about the second-to-last issue I got the idea of what was going on. The payoff was awesome.

Scourge, you need to find and read every issue of Atomic Robo with Doctor Dinosaur in it. Like, now.

Anyway, I read the first trade, plus issue 5 of Archie's new Megaman comic! The trade was pretty good, but man does it blow by quick. Like, the first issue is a decently paced origin story for the whole thing, but then all the issues after that really race to cram in the levels, the battles with the Robot Masters, and even some character development. It all gets *really* busy, with some of the Robot Master fights taking up barely a page (Fire Man even points out that it feels like he got beaten too quickly!)! It's not *bad* per se, since I wouldn't want them to waste too much time, but I feel like the series overall could've benefited from maybe one more issue to space things out a bit better. That said, they do do a solid job of translating the rudimentary plot of the games into comic form, with more solid character development than I was expecting, honestly. Rock's whole conflict over using violence to stop the Robot Masters was a surprising angle, not one you usually see in this kind of media, but it's handled well. What's more surprising is that they go the extra mile and actually try to characterize the Robot Masters a bit! They can't do too much, given the limited page space of each boss, but they all get little defining traits, at least, with Elec Man and Cut Man coming off as the most well-rounded (Elec Man in particular really breaks out, you get the feeling the writer has a soft spot for the character). The resolution between Megaman and the Robot Masters was really surprising, and well-handled too. This good characterization contrasts with Dr. Wily, who is kind of...all over the place in this book. First it's just like he's jealous of Dr. Light getting all the credit for building the Robot Masters, but then they make it like stealing and reprogramming them to TAKE OVER THE WOOOOOORLD was his plan all along, and considering he'd only committed crimes bad enough to 'lose his credentials' in the past, it seems like kind of a big fucking leap. And he can't really decide if he thinks the Robot Masters are awesome pinnacles of technology or bumbling nincompoops. I dunno, as a main villain, he just came off as kind of arbitrary and weakly-characterized. Guts Man and Elec Man have far more charisma, at least. The art in the first volume is terrific; I can't tell you how happy I am they they didn't 'western up' the MM art style at all, this works perfectly. And the coloring is just stellar, it really pops in a good way. And even when stuff is shrunken down to fit into tiny panels as a result of the compressed storytelling, nothing loses definition or feels like less time was spent on it. The only thing that really got to me about the art was the way they couldn't decide what hand Rock used the Mega Buster on, or whether it was something his hand turned into, or if it was a separate piece that he took on or off. But whatever, it's a solid, really pretty beginning to the series, even if it moves a little too quickly, in my opinion.

The first issue of the next arc (#5) seems to chill the hell out and rectify the pacing problem, and I like it for that already. It's able to introduce an actual plot and let the characters play off each other a bit, which strengthens things, and the 'Dr. Light is under suspicion' angle is one that really should've been around since the first arc. I do have to question some choices with this though. Why are Time Man and Oil Man, a couple of bonus bosses from a remake, apparently getting a whole arc to themselves after the original, more iconic Robot Masters all got squished together into the first arc with hardly any breathing room? Just feels like odd priorities. Also, I'm super-nervous about both the introduction of 'Original Characters' in this issue, and the writer's notes identifying them as the 'first' of such a thing, implying there will be *more* OCs to come in this series. Look, Angry Detective and Assistant Girl aren't super-grating or anything, and may even be somewhat necessary for this little storyline, but I'm somewhat concerned about this getting out of hand if they continue. I mean, this is the same guy who writes the Sonic comics, right? I haven't read those, but I know enough to know that OCs turned that universe into something of a train wreck. Look guys, MM has about a billion characters in it already, use some of those before you go sticking your own crap in. The new art for this arc is okay, not as crisp or well-rounded as the first arc, but serviceable, and the colors are still nice.

At first I wondered why the title of the new arc ('Time Keeps Slipping') only referred to Time Man, then realized that the 'Slipping' was in there for Oil Man.

Really though, comparatively, this at least beats the pants off of Udon's Street Fighter comics, as far as adaptations of Capcom games go.

This 'review' turned out far longer than I intended it to.

[Tigermegatron]

Since this is the comics thread.

I noticed a few things at my local comic book store.

Apparently IDW is doing a comic series with nudity in it. It called "Suicide girls." the comic is on shelves & up to a few issues already.

While I was at my local comic book shop trying to find the transformers comic section. apparently the guys who work at the store get bored & re-arrange stuff every few seconds. I noticed tons of comics done by other companies having nudity in the comics,partial nudity. or cleverly showing off the womens nude bodies by coloring them in different colors & pretending the women are wearing spandex.

I noticed a comic that was just weird. it featured a extremly hot & curvy women dressed in black spandex with what look like a square hat. the WEIRD PART,The comic title was called "KOTO",Which some know is green hornets male sidekick/servant,who was played by bruce lee in the television series decades ago.

I saw another EXTREMLY sexy comic series with tons of nudity in it. it was called "Tarot,witch craft" I took a peek inside a few comic issues & this cute red head was so beyond sexy & curvy. she had the best "EVERYTHING" I've ever seen in comic styled art.

It seemed like the various comic companies are getting desperate due to poor sales. so their trying to show more sexy women in spandex or naked,to get more sales