TF Views

Looks like Booster Gold also has some hints about the future.

http://www.newsarama.com/22215-spoilers ... verse.html

Blah blah blah pull lists, blah blah blah minimums, blah blah blah legacy, blah blah blah DC doing another crisis and likely going back on New 52 because fuck New 52.

Anyway, I found out last night that my comic shop is closing in a WEEK. I was there a few weeks ago and there was no conversation about this, but I have to assume this has been in the works for some time. The shop has been there for 23 years, the owner has been in the industry 40 years and he's retiring. So he sold the location to another small shop about 10 miles south. They are changing the name to their existing store name, Comic Bug, and aren't keeping any of the existing staff, people who have been a part of the community for years. They are supposedly going to keep existing pull lists, I guess we'll find out since they are launching next new comic day. Their existing reviews claim the discount at the other store works differently, I believe their original store is actually my mom's old store from when I was a kid, it burned down and moved to another location where it then was bought by Comic Bug, so there's a weird lineage there. This hit me pretty hard because it's hard to find as honest a comic shop as Comics Ink, a store that set its goal and never tried to be something it wasn't or grow into a neighboring space or fall into any gimmicks that so many other LA comic shops have fallen to (my previous shop, Meltdown, is now a national icon thanks to a tv show shot in the back, but as for comics, it's hit-and-miss). Farewell Comics Ink, you will live in my memory. Whether your replacement will be worthy or not remains to be seen.

The odd thing was that I hadn't planned on going in that night, I simply found myself nearby in the evening and figured I'd pick up my pull books. Normally I don't pick up books unless I've finished the current stack, especially when I'm short on money, so had I waited I wouldn't have known until after they closed and changed hands.


Finished Batman Chronicles vol 1, aside from a really bad visit to Vampire-town (because ugh?), this book had nearly everything crammed into Batman's first year! The first batarang ("baterang"), the completed costume (seriously, some of the drawings could have been silver age, some even '70s Bats), a bat-vehicle, the Joker, Catwoman (quiet or papa spank!), Robin, the origin of Batman (twice), and even "the Dark Knight". The writing is a little clunky and some is dated, much is dependent on an older style of comics that relied more on prose to carry the art than vice-versa, but overall there were great strides in storytelling. Lettering? That's another story, what the hell is up with some of the lettering? I didn't know Robin was based on Robin Hood, although Robin was the laughing dare-devil which was just a wee bit silly. Batman worked in New York and had a dumbass fiance, but still liked to check out the ladies. Also, he didn't kill the way his reputation had it, he more allowed villains to die most of the time when he could have saved them. There's a lot of this first year found in 1989's Batman and even Batman Begins.

anderson wrote:Batman - when Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams took Batman back to his roots, that means back to the way he was in about the first five appearances. I had no idea how quickly Batman went from this dark figure in black and grey to this fun-living, wisecracking guy in bright blue and grey who looks like he's having a great time fighting the crooks. And his puns are just as bad as Robin's. "Quiet, or poppa spank!" Goofy Batman didn't begin in the 60s, it started in 1940. Who knew?

In 1939, I'd say - some of the cover dates are a little ahead, I think. Yeah, Batman had death and violence, but he also became more fun, more free-spirited after surviving the worst vampire story ever.

Interestingly, I've seen both 1940s Starman and Dr. Mid-Nite both referred to in-story as "The Dark Knight", and I think Mid-Nite was even "The Caped Crusader" once. Ripping off Batman's nicknames, are they?

JediTricks wrote:Blah blah blah pull lists, blah blah blah minimums, blah blah blah legacy, blah blah blah DC doing another crisis and likely going back on New 52 because fuck New 52.

It is a little sad that it's not even the story I'm looking forward to next year, but just the chance to see certain versions of characters again. Why did you do this to me, DC, why?!?!?!?!?

Looks like Booster Gold also has some hints about the future.

Have not read it yet, but hardly surprising.

When flipping through it, I saw Booster on Earth 51, which (as a reference to "Final Crisis") is good.

But, it sounds like they might be going with "JLAxis" Earth 10, rather than the "Master Men" Earth 10, which annoys me. (Hopefully, I am wrong, and DC sticks with Morrison's plan for Earth 10.)

Booster's complaints about modern elements like Superman and Wonder Woman is likely a sign that New 52 is going away.

They are changing the name to their existing store name, Comic Bug, and aren't keeping any of the existing staff, people who have been a part of the community for years.

That sucks. It also does not make much sense. They may as well keep the existing staff if they are going to keep the physical store open. Maybe they are considering closing the store?

Watch the flow of new arrivals over the next few weeks.

Normally I don't pick up books unless I've finished the current stack, especially when I'm short on money,

Ditto.

Dominic wrote:

They are changing the name to their existing store name, Comic Bug, and aren't keeping any of the existing staff, people who have been a part of the community for years.

That sucks. It also does not make much sense. They may as well keep the existing staff if they are going to keep the physical store open. Maybe they are considering closing the store?

Watch the flow of new arrivals over the next few weeks.

I agree on the staff, they should have kept them. The location is choice in that there isn't a lot of competition for the neighborhood and it's the comic shop closest to Sony studios so a lot of staff and execs come in, so I don't think they're planning to close it as they'd gain nothing from the buyout, their other location is too far to make it a branding issue.

I intend to, but I have a feeling it's after next quarter that they'll start changing things significantly if they do change things, when Diamond contracts change years.

JediTricks wrote:

anderson wrote:Batman - when Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams took Batman back to his roots, that means back to the way he was in about the first five appearances. I had no idea how quickly Batman went from this dark figure in black and grey to this fun-living, wisecracking guy in bright blue and grey who looks like he's having a great time fighting the crooks. And his puns are just as bad as Robin's. "Quiet, or poppa spank!" Goofy Batman didn't begin in the 60s, it started in 1940. Who knew?

In 1939, I'd say - some of the cover dates are a little ahead, I think. Yeah, Batman had death and violence, but he also became more fun, more free-spirited after surviving the worst vampire story ever.

And the thing is, it worked for the character. He survived in print for the next 30 years as a light-hearted crime-fighter when just about everyone else was gone by 1950 except for Superman and Wonder Woman (and Aquaman and Green Arrow who survived as backup features). Batman is so different from the character he started out as and which we're used to today, but the approach sold comics for decades.

Thor #1 - fuck you, book! What a misfire what a fizzle. The new Thor and NOTHING HAPPENS AT ALL, this is not the story you want to launch new readers with, especially coming off a much more interesting run. So fuck it, here's the whole thing. This was 3 pages of story decompressed out to 22 bland pages of

Spoiler

Frost Giants attacking the Roxxon sea floor base and Thor on the moon surrounded by his kith and kin crying like a little bitch over Mjolnir refusing to find him or anybody else including Odin worthy (this is apparently a pickup from something in the previous series, Nick Fury whispering something that causes Thor to instantly become unworthy). The only pretense of an interesting thing is Odin's return clashes with Freyja's reign over Asgard(ia) because she's going feminist 'n junk. Then the Asgardians leave the moon, Thor takes some other random weapon to fight the Frost Giants, gets his arm chopped off by Malekith and apparently drowns, and without any connective tissue or mention of the passage of time, some woman is on the moon and grabs Mjolnir and is turned into Lady Thor AND THAT'S THE END! Literally female Thor does fuck all, not a damned thing, and it takes 20 pages to get there. Who is she? "Fuck you, chump. Thanks for the money, see you in a month" except not really, why would anybody new come back to this series after they've been jerked around by this nothing of a book? How did she get on the moon, much less know where Mjolnir is? "Guess." (If I had to, probably Freyja or another female Asgardian.) Why would Thor's alter-ego change who Thor is? "Sales!" Bite me.

Batman '66 #14 - the giant Batrobot of the cover isn't so giant in the story, it's a brief story and has amusing stuff but ultimately feels hollow and too cartoonish to fit well in this series.

Death of Wolverine #2 - an interesting setup delivers an unfortunately brief confrontation with Viper and Sabertooth that just peters out, and Lady Deathstrike shows up with nothing much added to the story. This doesn't live up to the potential of the first issue, and at $5 the extras don't deliver enough to justify anything.

Batman '66 meets The Green Hornet #4 - all setup, no payoff, and terribly unexciting. I'm really losing faith in Kevin Smith after botching what should have been a fun crossover.

andersonh1 wrote:And the thing is, it worked for the character. He survived in print for the next 30 years as a light-hearted crime-fighter when just about everyone else was gone by 1950 except for Superman and Wonder Woman (and Aquaman and Green Arrow who survived as backup features). Batman is so different from the character he started out as and which we're used to today, but the approach sold comics for decades.

I think it's safe to say that lightness AND darkness fit Batman well, but extremes in either become embarrassing quickly.

Star Trek #37
The Q Gambit part 3

The DS9/new Trek crossover continues. Sisko and Odo take Kirk to Earth, which is controlled by the Klingons and ruled by Worf. In this version of history, the Dominion came through the Bajoran wormhole much earlier than they did in the prime timeline, but while the Federation tried a diplomatic solution, the Klingons decided to just take over everything and wage war. The quadrant is pretty much divided into the Klingon Empire (including Earth and many former Federation planets) and the Dominion. The war has been going on for some time apparently. Meanwhile Spock and McCoy are processed into the labor camps on Bajor, where they encounter Dr. Bashir, Quark and Kira. No sign of O’Brien or Dax yet, but I imagine they’ll turn up sooner or later, with three chapters left in this storyline. Q makes an appearance as a Cardassian and taunts Spock and McCoy a bit.

Kirk meets Worf, and they discuss plans with Sisko, only for Worf to be suddenly attacked and assassinated by changelings who had been posing as Worf’s brother Kurn and two Klingon bodyguards.

The novelty of this storyline continues to be the very welcome appearance of the Deep Space Nine cast, illustrated with almost photographic precision by artist Tony Shasteen. I suspect he’s using Photoshop, but I don’t really care. I’m just glad to see Trek characters in a comic who look right for once. The premise of the story isn’t all that original, and we’ve seen this “heroes must prevent the bad future” type of scenario many times before. But the execution is enjoyable thanks to the crossover between old and new Trek, so I’m enjoying it. I just wish it was Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley’s likenesses instead of Pine, Quinto and company. I like new Trek, but they’ll never replace the originals. They’re just reminders of the classics as far as I’m concerned.

My only real criticism of the story is that so far Kirk and the others are just being carried along by events. There’s a degree of realism in that since they’re vastly outmatched by the Dominion, so it’s not a major concern. I suspect we’ll see Kirk and crew act in a far more proactive manner soon, though since Q put them in a no-win scenario, I have to wonder exactly how things will turn out.

Spoiler

How did she get on the moon, much less know where Mjolnir is? "Guess." (If I had to, probably Freyja or another female Asgardian.) Why would Thor's alter-ego change who Thor is? "Sales!" Bite me.

It will probably be explained next issue. Why are you so upset by this?

The hammer does not make somebody Thor. It confers the power of Thor. Thor (the Asgardian) gets his Thor-power (which sets him above normal Asgardians) from the hammer. But, the Thunderstrike had Thor's powers in the 90s. And, Beta Ray Bill has a hammer that works like Thor's hammer in that it gives him Thor type powers.

This new Thor series is probably going with that idea.


I would have bought in on this series, but there is too much other stuff coming out right now.

Dominic wrote:

Spoiler

How did she get on the moon, much less know where Mjolnir is? "Guess." (If I had to, probably Freyja or another female Asgardian.) Why would Thor's alter-ego change who Thor is? "Sales!" Bite me.

It will probably be explained next issue. Why are you so upset by this?

Because the big fucking push for this book was "Girl Thor!" and the book apparently didn't even deliver that properly in the first issue? The entire reason JT (and pretty much everyone else) grabbed this book was because of all the hype over New Girl Thor, and when the actual comic released is just Old Regular Thor for twenty pages with New Girl Thor only showing up at the end FOR NO RAISIN, you gotta expect some backlash.

I actually completely forgot that series came out yesterday. I grabbed the first issue of Gotham Academy instead (and didn't realize until I got home and had read through it that it was only $2.99). That was a fun little read that I'll probably come back for. Between that and Multiversity, it feels weird to be giving money to DC again.

Also got a REALLY entertaining horror-themed issue of Edge of Spider-Verse. That series might make this potentially-messy Spider-Verse thing worthwhile, 'Spider-Man as an anthology series' has turned out to be a pretty terrific idea.

The hammer does not make somebody Thor. It confers the power of Thor. Thor (the Asgardian) gets his Thor-power (which sets him above normal Asgardians) from the hammer. But, the Thunderstrike had Thor's powers in the 90s. And, Beta Ray Bill has a hammer that works like Thor's hammer in that it gives him Thor type powers.

This new Thor series is probably going with that idea.

So why not open by exploring that idea like the people going in for this want to see instead of just having Old Regular Thor punching dudes for twenty pages?