Green Lantern #36

Sometimes I think about quitting superhero comics and just reading good indie stuff and human interest stuff and focusing more on reading traditional novels, devouring some classics in my spare time. Then I see things like this:

and I say, “ah, fuck it. Tolstoy can wait”

The complete mindfuck of the green lantern books has been that a year ago after the epic that was essentially empire strikes back of Geoff Johns’ GL trilogy ended, the final page basically said “oh, in 2009 the dead will rise, create their own army and go to war with all of the living. your loved ones are not safe.”

and so it goes on and on and the different corps are established and armies are built, strongholds are made, the book of Oa is rewritten and slowly and surely with major character development and fantastic art and action, we get to march towards mount fucking doom with Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis.

If you aren’t reading green lantern you are fucking with destiny.

the pile for August, week 2

Of the several hundred comics coming out today, tomorrow I’ll be picking up the following, as they’ve conveniently been pulled for me by my local comic shop:

Action Comics #867

Batman #679

Final Crisis Revelations #1

Gen13 #21

Green Lantern Corps #27

Simon Dark #11

Trinity #11

Wonder Woman #23

Astonishing X-Men #26

 

I’m actually quite surprised to see that, in a little more than a year, I’ve gone from buying virtually all marvel comics to buying a vast majority of DC comics(though this week is not entirely indicative of my average buying, but DC or indies usually are the majority of my weekly books), over 90%.  

Green Lantern Corps is my newest addition to my pull list, this being my first week sans a massive GL/GL Corps buying spree of back issues(which has unfortunately left me with huge gaping holes in the runs of both books), and I’m not entirely sure I can even begin to read the book yet, but I find myself rather excited about it.  The Lantern books seem to be building on a massive and highly motivated mythology that are incredibly accessible to new readers, yet seem to genuinely entertain veteran fans of the franchise as well.

Of those issues being pulled, Simon Dark is in danger of cancellation, not because it’s not good, but because I’ve entered a stage of my life where I can wait for most books to come out in trade paperbacks, buy them at a discount and generally save $30 a year that way, while focusing that money on more important things that would make my life generally more enjoyable or on other books that are more deserving/in need of monthly buyers.  Generally speaking, I’m a Steve Niles fan, especially when it comes to his horror stories.  30 Days of Night was a book that really captivated me two years ago and lately he’s been churning out great serials for IDW Publishing.  It’s just hard to decide if it’s worth the money and effort to keep up with a book that is, at best, incredibly okay.

Which brings me to Welcome to Hoxford, which is Ben Templesmith’s newest mini-series for IDW Publishing.  It looks to be a horror book and I honestly can’t remember if I added this to my list or not, as I’ve missed many issues of previews over the past year and have only really gotten my shit back to manageable as of late.  I still haven’t decided if I want to buy it as it comes out or if I’d like to wait until it comes out in a TPB, which IDW are pretty good at pumping out at a pretty good rate.  I’ll probably end up thumbing through it in the shop and decided then and there.  The same goes for Mercy Sparx, a new min-series from a small publisher which I cannot recall the name of.  The 0 issues is only a dollar, so I’ll probably check it out, it looks promising anyways and I love a cheap jump on.

Trinity.  Oh, shitty Trinity.  I’ve put in my cancellation on this wretched semen dumpster of vile, unloveable waste but I’m waiting for the issues I signed up for to run out.  Unfortunately, I think that means I’ll be getting these issues for another two months. Once those two months are up, you can find all the issues I’ve been unfortunate enough to get on Ebay.

Indiscriminate shit-talking aside, I’m excited as hell about all of those DC books and I’m glad to see Gen13 back WITHOUT an unnecessary 0282029394303th #1 relaunch.  I felt really strongly about Gail Simone’s work on the title, as she’s a phenomenal character writer, and Simon Oliver’s run was good, not great, but good.  I’ll be curious to see who’s doing this new run in the Wildstorm Apocalypse timeline.  I’m very interested in the apocalypse, in seeing people get together and try to get through the day, to try to make things lieable as best they can and thus far, I’ve enjoyed the Wildcats and Authority issues to come out of Armageddon.  I believe this entire thing is being orchestrated by the usually crafty Christos Gage, who’s had a serious impact on Wildstorm over the past year, so they may actually be able to pull this thing off.  Two years ago a Wildcats and Authority #1 came out with the promise of a great universe shake-up for the entire imprint and those two titles never went anywhere and the strong starts that came out of the relaunch were diverted by too many creative team changes.  It’s sad to know that, no matter how hard Gage and company try to make this work, DC will probably find some way to derail it when they start doing a good job.

I haven’t been able to come up with a rason why I’m not hostile towards Final Crisis and all of it’s spin offs and such, but I’m not.  It might be because I have a raging hard on for Morrison’s DC/Vertigo mythologies, or perhaps I just love the way comic book critics seem to be utterly terrified of him bringing real literacy into the operation.  On thing I will say, which is not an original thought, but something my comic shop owner interjected into the conversation last week, is that these spin-offs have all of my favorite writers – Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns and all those guys – writing stories in which the plots have been dictated by one of my favorite writers(Morrison) and I really don’t know how I feel about that or how the delivery will come out in the end.  Essentially, if it’s not very good, I will have no choice but to feel disappointed in someone I take a lot of pride in recommending to lots of innocent people.

And finally, there are apparently bad reviews out for Astonishing X-Men #26, by Warren Ellis.  Thus far the reviews I’ve read are by people who seem to have artificially powered erections for the x-men franchise, who aren’t really people at all, but artificial lifeforms powered by old disregarded meat and that weird fluid that flows out of old potatoes that you leave in the cupboard too long.  I guess I’m saying I’m entirely unphased.  Ellis is a very good science fiction writer and Bianchi’s artwork thus far has been nothing short of fantastic.  If x-men fans hate it, the books is probably pretty fucking good.

Action Comics #855

Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner

Art by Eric Powell

DC Comics $2.99

Finally, after that painful-to-read Busiek arc, Johns is back with Richard Donner and in less than 30 pages we get to go to Bizzaro World, Pa Kent gets kidnapped and an entire Bizzaro Metropolis storms Superman.  It’s good, classic Geoff Johns storytelling and Richard Donner helping out doesn’t hurt.  I’ll be excitedly following this arc as it progresses and I hope Action continues to ship at such an astoundingly fast rate.  If my count is right, they put out three issues last month.

Eric Powell’s artwork is really great and well suited for this sci-fi type adventure story.  Nothing looks too realistic, but not entirely cartoonish either.  It’s a happy medium and I don’t think ultra-realism would help this story out, the whole story of going to another crazy backwards(and cubed!) world isn’t meant to be realistic, so Powell’s art works great with John’s fantastic setting and highly personalized version of Superman.

Don’t miss this arc.

Justice Society of America

Written by Geoff Johns

Art by Fernando Pasarin, Rooney Ramos and Alex Ross

DC Comics $2.99

I’m fairly sure this is my favorite DC title. Alex Ross’ covers would be incentive enough to buy this, as would Pasarin’s great pencils that suit superheroes so well, but Geoff Johns is so good at writing conflicted characters and the trio is so incredibly pleasant. Thought I had never read a Justice League-oriented comic book before this new series started, I was lucky enough to catch it as it began. The past eight issues have felt like two years worth of story because Johns’ writing is so character driven while the art concentrates on high tension action. It works rather well.

I am really happy to see the focus of this book get back to Citizen Steel, because it’s not only an exploration of the bitterness that comes with a disability, showing how his youth was robbed by the loss of his leg, but it functions as the complete opposite of the common superhero story. I really like the idea of a superhero who doesn’t want to be a superhero but still feels responsible for doing his job. It really reminds me of the old Spider-Man stories I grew up on in the 1980’s.

The back story in this issue, as one would guess, is Liberty Bell, and how her childhood shaped who she has been at different points in her life. And they also kick the shit out of some Nazis.

New comics for August 03, 2007

I’m a week and a half behind, so this week I ended up picking up quite the pile. I was glad to see so many great issues in my pile this go around. I was particularly excited about walking dead, which is already reviewed, batman, dark tower and JLA. I’ll be putting up several reviews per day and working my way through my pile over the next several days.

Action Comics #853 – Kurt Busiek(w), Brand Walker, Livesay, Lee Loughridge(a)
Batman #666 – Grant Morrison(w), Andy Kubert, Jesse Delperdang(a)
Black Panther #29 – Reginald Hudlin(w), Francias Portela and Val Staples(a) Arthur Suydam(c)
Black Summer #1 of 7 – Warren Ellis(w), Juan Jose Ryp(a)
Chronicles of Wormwood #6 of 6 – Garth Ennis(w), Jacen Burrows(a)
Countdown #39 & 40 – Paul Dini, McKeever(w), Jim Calafiore and Jay Leigten(a)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #7 of 7 – Peter David and Robin Furth(w), Jae Lee and Richard Isanove(a)
Deathblow #6 – Brian Azzarello(w), Carlos D’Anda, Henry Flint(a)
Fallen Angel #18 – Peter David(w) and J.K. Woodward(a)
Futurama # 32 – Ian Boothby(w), Mike Kazaleh and Andrew Pepoy(a)
Grimm Fairy Tales #16 – Ralph Tedesco and Joe Tyler(w), Andrew Magnum and Roland Salvidor(a)
Justice Society of America #8 – Geoff Johns(w), Fernando Pasarin and Rodney Ramos(a)
Metal Men #1 of 8 – Duncan Roleau(a & w)
Midnighter #10 – Keith Giffen(w), Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Randy Mayor(a)
Raise the Dead #4 of 4 – Leah Moore and John Reppion(w), Hugo Petrus, Marc Rueda and Ivan Nunes(a)
Speak of the Devil #1 of 6 – Gilbert Hernandez(Spider-Man Fairy Tales #3 of 4 – C.B. Cebulski(w), Kei Kobayashi, Christina Strain(a)
Star Trek: Klingons Blood Will Tell #4 – Scott and David Tipton(w), David Messina and Elaina Casagrande(a)
Star Trek: Year Four #1 – David Tischman(w), Steve Conley, Leonard O’Grady(a)
Uncanny X-Men #489 – Ed Brubaker(w), Mike Perkins and Andrew Hennessey(a)
Unholy Union #1 – Ron Marz(w), Michael Broussard(a)
Walking Dead #39 – Robert Kirkman(w), Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn(a)
Welcome to Tranquility #9 – Gail Simone(w), Neil Googe(a)
Wetworks #11 – J.M. Dematteis(w), Joel Gomez and Trevor Scott(a)
World War Hulk #3 - Greg Pak(w), John Romita Jr, Janson, Strain(a)
World War Hulk: Ironman #20 – Christos Gage(w), Butch Guice, Dean White and Gerald Parel(a)
World War Hulk: The Incredible Hulk #108 – Greg Pak(w), Leonard Kirk, Scott Hanna and Chris Sotomayor(a)
World War Hulk: The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 – Robert Kirkman(w), Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Bill Crabtree and Val Staples(a)
X-Men #201 – Mike Cary(w), Humberto Ramos, Carlos Cuevas and Edgar Delgado(a)

Justice Society of America #6

DC Comis – $2.99

Geoff Johns – Writer

Dale Eaglesman & Roy Jose – Artists

To be honest, I really only started reading JSA and JLA because I wanted to see Alex Ross’ velvet elvis covers, I love his work and he’s been doing an amazing job on these covers, I always look forward to them showing up in the shop each month.

This is chapter four of the Lighting Bolt Saga, which is a story involving some time displaced, amnesia-stricken teenage superheroes from the future. It’s been pretty interesting, not because this miniseries crossover with JLA has been incredible in it’s execution, but virtually JSA’s entire run has been leading up to this and it has been executed in a way that makes all the revious issues so much more relevant to the greater storyline that has been unfolding for the past year.

Remarkably, I just noticed that, throughout this crossover, there has been a rush to save the planet from some kind of imminent villainous threat that everyone seems to think they can surely stop, but that threat has never actually been revealed. I like the idea that they aren’t actually going to tell you what the real fight is about until the end, when it just might be too late.

The more of these uber-planned crossovers I see from DC, the higher regard I have for them over Marvel, who’s books I spent my entire childhood reading nad noticing the lack of sensible continuity. DC has such an amazing amount of organization and planning in their stories, reading new issues makes me go back and read old issues. Countdown and the Justice series have been like watching new episodes of Lost(which I sadly am not watching right now), where a new scene gives you a key to several old scenes. Upon finishing the new issue, I go back to see what I missed back when I didn’t know what to look for.

And it’s Geoff Johns, you can’t go wrong.