Batman: The Dark Knight Rises...Again & Again & Again etc.

 

What’s your favorite TV Show? Think of it. Now, think of it being everywhere at once. Think of there being multiple iterations of your show with different characters and different takes of the show going on all at the same time while you’re watching the main show. It’d be ridiculous right? Let’s take, I dunno, Breaking Bad, one of the greatest TV shows in the history of the Universe. What if, while you were watching Season 2 or 3 all of a sudden they said ‘Hey, tune in after the show for ‘The Maniacal Heisenberg’ a new show where Walt stalks the back alleys of New Mexico on the hunt for someone who is copycatting his signature blue meth. 

 

                 

What if they said during that show they said, premiering on Netflix next week ‘Jesse & Friends’ , it tells the tale of Jesse and his best buds before he met Walt. Then, while watching Cartoon Network Adult Swim you see an ad for ‘Wow. Walt. Wild’ a new anime style show about Walter White doing Science Guy things in his Science Class while he was also being Heisenberg. Then, while watching football on Sunday, Fox advertised ‘Walter: A Brutal Christmas’ a new show that tells the untold holiday tale of the one and only Walter White, and all of this is going on while you’re still watching the initial show of Breaking Bad and have no idea how it ends at this point. It’d be stupid. It’d be overkill. You’d wonder, why are they doing this? Let me watch the show in peace. They don’t release a new season of Stranger Things and then tell you to tune in to other Stranger Things shows do they?

Now, you may know where I’m going with this and you may say, well, comics aren’t like TV Shows. I would counter with, no they aren’t but, in a way they kind of can be. I mean, if I’m reading a great hero comic and it’s really hitting all the right notes for me I don’t need another one do I? Well, the Big 2 would say otherwise. DC would say, dude, eff you, here; take a dozen more and, wait, open wide, yeah, here’s like 3 or 4 that go down your throat and, oopsie, we just shoved a couple up your anus. Welcome to Batman Comics in 2025. 

 

                       

 

In fact, welcome to entertainment in 2025. If anything works, if there is any ‘IP’ that is considered valuable or potentially valuable they will replicate it until it can’t be replicated anymore and one could argue that it can always be replicated. We are in the thick of the ‘Just make another one’ philosophy that every company on the planet is implementing without fail. No risks can be taken, shareholders must be happy, bottom lines must be met. That’s obviously a deeply cynical take but as far as I am personally concerned it’s how I feel right now when it comes to anything in comic books, especially hero comics and especially my favorite hero of all time:

I’ve reached the point with Bats where, and I hate saying this, but I’m over it. It’s been too much. There is, too much. I’ve tried to cut down and focus on just a few but even then it’s become an unenjoyable pursuit. Let’s take Absolute Batman, the premiere ‘everyone’s gotta have it’ Bat book on the shelves right now written by Mr Bats himself, Scott Snyder.  I’m trying to figure out why I’m not in love with Abs Bats. I think a lot has to do with Bruce Wayne looking like an Anime Yo Let’s Lift Bro. I also think I’m suffering, and perhaps you are too, from ‘alternate imagined universe’ burn out. Where characters are interchangeable, attributes are whatever they dream up and there’s no accountability to canon. Now, Snyder is one of the best to ever do it and he’s definitely writing the shit out of this series. Nick Dragotta's art has also been top notch. I think this is for sure the best Bat Book out there. So why am I not gushing profusely over this series like everyone else? There’s no stakes. In all these alt Uni’s there ultimately no stakes for anyone because it’s just an alt uni that will cease to exist once the series does. So whenever they decide to end this it will also, in all likelihood, end these characters and you’ll return to your normally scheduled Bat Book where whatever’s happening in the main series is technically the one that will hold the most weight. Looking ahead I see a Joker that looks like a spiky lizard that Jock will be drawing. Okay, that’s a must pull but I’m pulling it out of curiosity not out of joy. I find myself going ‘ooh that’s cool’ a lot in this series but I’m not emotionally invested and that’s a big problem. If anything can happen to the character with zero consequences and canon is irrelevant then it's just a petri dish experiment.

I think that’s a big problem with a lot of these stories, they exist in their own vacuums and whatever happens in these stories ostensibly stays in these stories. There’s no accountability for whatever happens to Bats in these books. They just released the second installment of the ‘Long Dark Knight’ which is a sort of an origin story of Bats set in the 30s with all the vernacular of the time. The first one they did last year was amazing, but the new one? It feels rehashed, it feels a bit stale, it feels like a cheaper version of the original. It feels like they asked chatgpt for every single unique phrase and slang that was uttered in the 20s and 30s and are peppering the dialogue with one every chance they get. It’s like a gut wrenching version of Groundhog Day with these Bat Books where they try to make the same thing from a successful run and it never feels the same. You can’t just fall in the snow with Andie McDowell and make snow angels every night and every month over and over and not have it feel forced and awkward.  

 

           

 

Now we have the new Batman by Fraction. Oy vey. I mean, I absolutely love Matt Fraction. I would consider him one the Top 5 Best Comic Book Writers of the past 10-15 years. Of course I’m going to be interested in his take on Bats, which sucks! Why? Because I don’t need him to write Bats right now, I’ve got plenty of Bat goodness on my plate, it’s overkill. It’s like ‘Wow this pizza is amazing’, oh you like it? Here, let me just drop a whole other pie right on top of this one, now eat up! I’m finishing up Mark Waid’s run on Bats & Robin Year One which has been delightful and it’s like okay now I have two pizzas stacked on top of each other and someone sent a whole other pie to my place. So I’m gonna throw that in the freezer and deal with it at another time. I sit down, stuffed to the gills with pizza, and I read an ad that says ‘Oh hey, we’re making a pizza right now, want one?’.

Matt Fraction writing Batman should be an event. It should be the wow moment of the year. Instead it’s just another pile on of Bats on already out of control Jenga pile of comics. I read that Fraction first issue, you know what it was? Unnecessary. There was no reason whatsoever for that story to exist. It was useless. It could have been added into one of the dozens of Batman anthologies they put out all the time. It felt like such a waste of talent, time and money. Who’s to blame? I have no idea. Is everyone in the Big 2 in so much debt that you have just pump out your best characters in as many books as possible to make rent? Are DC execs deep in sports gambling doo doo like millions of other people?

It’s just yucky and sad and ultimately, when you have so much of the same thing it cheapens the experience and that’s what it feels like: cheap. So for 2026 I'm going to be dropping all Absolute Books and it's going to have to be one the biggest wow drops ever to get me to open a Bat Book for a while. 

Aren’t you glad you read this post??? So happy, merry and joyful. Hey, I had to get it out, had to vent, whether it’s heard or not, it had to be said.

Here’s what I’ve been reading, it ain’t much. I should've posted this months ago but life got in the way...

 

Is this turning into a soonzefest? Ya, probably. This has been a delightful series by the Powerhouse Waid & Samnee team but, ehhh, the story is getting stale. I could look at Chris Samnee draw toilets all day long, he’s that good, but the overall tone and muddied brown and grey color palette that seems to be everywhere you look in this series is beginning to feel like a bummer. It’s rough enough in LA, I don’t need to open a comic book that looks like most of the streets around here. Feels like this should have been either a 6 or 8 issue series; twelve is kinda pushing it. When I look at the solicits hoping to see that a series is ending soon, it’s never a good sign. This is why Clayface stories usually end up sucking. When a villain can just look like anybody he wants it lends itself to cheap writing and staid plot developments since, well, ooh, this character can become anybody and move the plot forward if I get stuck or bogged down in blah middle acts. With a bunch of Bat Books now on the shelves that are way more exciting along with, oh I dunno, 758 that are blah or just suck, it’s time to put this bed already. I see a lot of comic book geeks clamoring for a season 2 as this book winds down. I wouldn’t be opposed to it but make it 6 tops. Honestly the real thing that needs to happen is somebody needs to get These dudes need to get back on Daredevil somehow. It’s where they belong. 

Update: So I just read the finale. It was sweet, nostalgic, classic Bats with a few awww moments. A truly enjoyable read. No regrets following this to the end. Now, I'm sure DC is readying a whole new 12 issues of this which is all well and good but I will not be joining them if they do. Get back on Daredevil you two! It sucks! It's been sucking. C'mon, make the dirty deal with the Mouse.

 

What a shit show. What a disastrous punch to my comic book face. That’s what reading this felt like. I sat down excited to actually read a new series for the first time in forever. I was praying that someone would rescue 2025 with a spectacular book, this fit the bill. I saved it for that special moment when I had the doggies napping and the world all to myself. I opened this comic and a fist of some hot pseudo anime babe drenched in blood flew from between the pages and punched me in the fucking face. Jae Lee. Genius. Variant covers suck. Jae Lee variant covers don’t. Gerry Duggan. Doing yeoman’s work on one of the best, if not wackiest, series of the year ‘Falling in Love on the Pathway to Hell’; monster combo. Well, these two didn’t just poop the bed, they had a fireball come out their bunghole and set the whole bedroom on fire. I can see how somebody might say ‘Oh this is a rock ‘em sock ‘em frenetic tale that grabs you and doesn’t let up. Strap yourselves in and -‘ No. No strapping in. It’s a bloody mess. Something about two families coming through a portal millennia ago and fighting, a truce, a kid exchange, elve ears  and some Male Stripper Bill Dickcock. Umm, no. Looks amazing. Still a mess. Heads are flying. Arms are being sliced off. People appear out of nowhere, get killed, next. Some ridiculous dialogue including ‘You have a date with the back of my hand'  'You have a date with a dentist arrgggh’ uggh. Couldn’t even finish it. I think the culture of comic books and entertainment in general has moved past senastionalized hyper violence. I believe it had its place. Tarantino came in at the perfect juncture and capitalized on it with his distinct brand of genius and craft. He drew from Asian Cinema that had not yet reached the mass awareness in the States and took it to another level. It inspired many to continue, copy and evolve his vision to the point that we’re so desensitized to it, it’s become a crutch for lazy writing and artists in general. Duggan pulls a fast one though, he cliffhangers the audience with the last page, it was all a hallucination, drugs, who knows as the pink moon sits in the sky. Dammit. As awful as this year has been for comics I’m gonna have to give this another pull. I’m halfway between this ending after I get up or this ending after another issue. 5.0

Update: I just finished the second issue…bleccchhh. C’mon guys, wtf? If you got rid of the text bubbles, which you probably should since there’s no coherent plot, this book is just a miss mosh of rail thin babes long legged babes miraculously avoiding bullets and the like while kicking dudes in the head amidst the copious pantie shots. Oh yeah, and let’s throw in some more decapitated heads. Trash. So disappointing. Me pulling another issue of this waste of my money? This ends today!

A backstory bingo issue that stopped the hurdling momentum of recent issues which seemed to be coming to a climactic boiling point of a resolution. Yup, let’s side step and tell you why this guy we just introduced in the climactic cliff hanger moment of the last issue is so important and why the cliff hanger moment was such a major cliff hanger with all sorts of drama. Now don’t get me wrong, this was a delightful issue that filled out the character of Asami a lot more and did provide a barrel of TNT to the moment we just left in the previous issue. That said, if I wanted to read a comic about the plight of female Samurai during pre-modern Japan I would happily do so but maybe, I dunno, finish this one first and then tease us with the ‘Life of Asami’ book in the back matter of your finale. The problem here is that the main trio of characters have nothing to do with this blast from Asami’s past so this issue is more of a distraction then it is necessary. Sound like social media. I’m gonna call this the Instasami Issue. Not going anywhere but let’s get back to our regularly scheduled wild premise mmkay?

 

Hayden Sherman and Jordie Bellaire are putting in work these past few Abs Dubz issues. The visuals for this book have soared into the stratosphere of comic book nirvana and every panel is becoming a feast for the eyes. It’s giving New 52 Batwoman by J.H. Williams/W. Haden Blackman energy. My goodness that book was amazing, I still feel jilted by DC ending it so abrutly because they didn’t want Bat Dubz marrying a chick; so ridiculous. Anyway, the paneling in these issues really reminds me of those interconnected layouts and it’s bringing me back. Wish they would put this book in a Prestige Format. I feel like they may have missed the boat on that by not releasing all the ‘Absolute’ books in Prestige Format, but what do I know other than I would’ve coughed up the extra 2-3 dillies per issue for the eye candy. Also, I’m not sold on this Thomson's wackadoodle plot set in a Minotaur Maze with fish people and a chick villain who really needs a spa day. That said, Abs Dubz has been the best DC book of the year in my humble opinion so they could run around a maze, an escape room or a cheesecake factory and I'd be knee deep in it.

Oh no! Not another one of these Titan Licensed Characters Smorgasbords! Uggh. I thought this was a stand along story not Titan mushing all of the characters it now owns from Robert E. Howard or whatever and throwing them together in a disjointed mist mosh of a plot that spans millennia and locales. I fell for this once before, I’ve already memory holed the previous iteration of this major event. Well, I’m not falling for the banana in the tailpipe again or perhaps the Conan Sword in the Victorian Library again. Who thinks this is a good idea? Just throwing a bunch of characters that have nothing to do with each other in a story. I mean, if you had the rights to Snoopy why not add him? Isn’t Popeye in the public domain now? Why not add Popeye and Steamboat Mickey and Ralph Kramden from the Honeymooners. I don’t know what the point is. I suppose it’s to excite you about characters you wouldn’t necessarily be excited about so you could potentially buy their titles as well. Oy. Titan’s main Conan title is finally picking up some steam again after a lull, I suggest sticking to that and avoiding all their mish mosh books. They also just came out with a colorized SSOC (Savage Sword of Conan) which feels…silly? The appeal of SSOC is it’s gritty black and white newsprint feel. C’mon Titan, stop trying to make new fan dangled cookie flavors like lingonberry buckwheat crunch with white chocolate and mustard greens, just stick to chocolate chip. Simplicity is the new complexity in comic books.

I’m grasping at straws these days desperately looking for great new comics that are starting now before the year ends. My ‘Best Comics of 2025’ list doesn’t even have 10 contenders on it. What a horrible year. I figured why the hell not with this Spidey book and it turned out to be a why the hell did you make this book in the first place. Seriously? I mean, why? What’s the point of this book? Spidey can’t decide if he wants Gwen or MJ? Is it really that hard of a choice? So you’ve reduced Peter Parker to an Archie comic dillemma, is it Betty or Veronica, awesome, great job. This felt like it was meant for 5-8 year olds who have never read Spiderman before. Are kids reading comic books? Like, actual comics? Or are they just downloading them on their iPads? I saw a kid the other day get out of a SUV with two phones and an iPad, we are doomed. The ultimate silliness of this book is when the hot blonde stealing a book from a library turns into a demon with a tail and wings and flies away . Dude, this happens like allll the time in LA, it’s not that big of a deal. Spidey, torn. Yeah, I’m torn whether I should keep this or put it in a cardboard box outside with most of my other comics I’ve bought this year and label it free. Trash.

 

The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross is without question one of the greatest comic book series ever written in the entire history of the genre. It transcended the medium and made mincemeat of the more popular Harry Potter story with its own brand of boy becomes legend. If you have not read The Unwritten you are depriving yourself of a sublime feast for the mind and a comic book experience you will not soon forget. When I saw this Author book on the solicits I immediately thought of the Unwritten, same kinda vibe. Unfortunately, this one just plain sucks. Again, I’m not sure if editors are actively looking to dumb down plots and dialogue as they are in TV. TV writers, and this is real, are being told to dumb down plots and write dialogue that continually reiterates the story developments so that the millions of people who watch TV on their phones can keep up with what’s going on since they rarely watch more than 5-10 minutes at a time  The dialogue and exposition here in this book is so on the nose it felt like I was being read to as if I was a five year old sitting on a library carpet being read to by a high pitched librarian showing me the book as she turns the pages. I really had high hopes for this one. It’s like dating one of the greatest women of your life and then someone comes along in your later years who looks like her and talks like her but you soon realize she’s a complete phony. I tossed this drivel and began drunk texting Mike Carey to let me come over.

If you're going to have a grumpy, unlikable and unattractive main character for your story you're really going to need to do some heavy lifting around the supporting cast and plot development that will slowly connect your audience with your lead. You're going to have to make them root for the whiny troll somehow After almost a year of issues I don't think it's happened yet in this series and I'm officially checking out. I have zero fucks to give for Theresa the lead 'Ooh I think I have psychic abilities' chick. I also was generally disappointed in the tarot aspect of this book, I thought it would be a little bit more sophisticated. I don't think Lemire has any real knowledge of the Tarot and the whole 'I look at the cards and then get transported in my mind to some alternate dimension regardless of what the cards are' is super lame. Now we get this subplot of a psychic mystic loser cartel who are trying to sabotage the lead troll and it's officially a sillyfest. I see my future and it has no pulls of this sad uninspiring tale.

 

Yay Comics! So fun! Oy vey. I know this is about the time that I pop out a best of the year post but that's going to have to wait. Especially since I'm going to have to squeeze whatever drops of juice I can out of the three month old moldy lemon that was this year of comic books.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and received gifts of trade paperbacks of comics from long ago that will remind you that, yes, comic books were once the best thing ever.

Ay Yi Yi AI! From Comic Books to Comic Bots

 

Artificial. The googled definition defines it as something created by humans that is not natural. The secondary definition is listed as insincere or affected. It stands to reason that AI is then something that we created to be an affectation of unnatural insincerity. Read that again...and again. I’m not going to begin to launch into a diatribe against AI, positioning myself as some sort of Luddite pining for simpler times and organic means of production. Like any form of technology no matter where it's implemented, the Devil is in the way we use it not the fact that it’s there to be used in the first place. It is also the pattern of humanity to use something up until it loses its usefulness and is overtaken by something that improves its usefulness. So whether you agree or disagree, are excited or horrified by what AI will bring this planet, the fact of the matter is that it is here and it is going to get used until it can’t get used anymore. Where that takes us remains to be seen: Terminator Skynet World or an Idyllic Society where we are free to chase our passions and joys since computers are doing all of the menial work. I saw a video of a robot doing dishes. Dude. Seriously? Like, start there. Get those Dish Bots into every home and nobody will say no to AI robots. I literally do dishes all fucking day long. Please get Rosie from the Jetsons here stat and set me freeeeeeeee!

I live in LA. It’s a shit show. Curtains are being pulled back daily on the stages and foundation of the entertainment industry to reveal an inordinate amount of artifacts and useless relics of a bygone age.  Poop parades are collecting in the street with former Entertainment Apparatchiks marching against the impending doom of AI grabbing their industry by the balls and strangling them in its clutches with a smile. All this generative AI video  is signaling an end to Hollywood. It’s going to do to Film and TV what Pro Tools did to the Music Industry. Home Music Studio Software democratized Music Production so that anyone with a computer could make music. No more having to strip naked in front of Jimmy Iovine and swallow the combined genitalia of the Staff of Deathrow Records to get studio time and a distribution deal. Make it at home in your PJs. Record it at home. Blast it to the world. 

 

 

You can now take a video of a toy car being pushed in various directions on the floor, again, that’s a toy car, upload that and then turn it into cinema, put it into any location you want and cut back and forth between any angle of POV that you want. I just saw a new AI Video Software release where you could take any object you want, say a beer can or a stuffed animal, and place that object in an actual movie clip and the actor in that movie clip will immediately interact with the object. Insane! So you could take a Batarang, go to Star Wars, but the Batarang in the area of the scene between Darth Vader and Obi Wan and through AI the actors will use the batarang; Obi Wan could take it and throw it at Darth and it would look seamless. You could probably get Darth to rip off his helmet and appear as the Joker if you want. Yeah, say goodbye to Hollywood, say goodbye my Baby. This is signaling the complete end of Gatekeepers which is great for creatives but an absolute disaster for audiences. There’s a gajillion songs on Spotify, try and figure which is good and which is real. The same will be said for Films and TV. If you thought it was tough rifling through content on the Streamers now? Just wait.

Which begs the question, how will this affect the Comic Book Industry? I don’t think it’s any secret that if the Big 2 could eliminate their print publishing and have nothing but digital comic books they would do it in a heartbeat. The subhumans that run the Big 2 don’t care about your hard copy media; they don’t want you to own anything. So being able to manipulate music and film whenever and however you want will soon be coming to comic books. We’ve already seen artists use AI Generated Images as cover art or have relied on AI to ‘help’ with their work. Who’s to say Writers aren’t already running all of their plot ideas through AI or Artists aren’t utilizing it in a myriad of ways to inform their work?  The Big 2 don’t care about creating lasting iconic runs of your favorite characters, they only want stories and characters that will feed into their current IP, create new IP or create excitement for new Film or TV that incorporates that IP. Local Comic Book Shops are dying and the trajectory of their future does not look good. You cannot stop the onslaught of AI at this point you can only hope to reign it in or use it to your advantage.

 

I personally see Local Comic Shops being a new type of Build-A-Bear Workshops except for comic books. I think at some point you’ll be able to walk into a Comic Book Shop and have yourself inserted into any comic book you want and then have that comic book 3D Printed out for you while you wait. This is just like how Netflix will be allowing you to take pictures of yourself and insert it into a TV Show or Movie while you watch yourself interact with the story. I think you’ll be able to write your own prompts and parameters including the artistic style you want and get that comic right then and there, boom. I think printed media will be like Vinyl, either sold as back issue relics for high prices or only having specialized versions available for sale. I think you’ll soon be able to interact with all the Big 2 (and eventually other Publishers) story lines by changing arcs, character motivations and endings to your liking. Don’t like how they ended a Bat Book? Change it. Think their Mega Event sucks? Make your own. I think variant covers will expand to 50 or more for each issue. I also think you’ll be able to see upcoming story lines that are coming out, tell the Big 2 how you want them to go and it will release it right to you. If you want you can get a dozen or a hundred of different story lines popped right onto your digital lap or actual lap.

For example: Batman goes to Mars with Superman and fights an intergalactic space base that is conspiring to attack the Earth. That would be the premise. You’ll then be able to say, “Have John Hickman write it and have Jack Kirby draw it” and then you’ll get that comic delivered to you digitally or, for an extra fee, you’ll get a hard copy. You’ll be able to create your own premises, whatever you want with their licensed characters, and tell AI to draw it and write it in your preferred style. You’ll then be able to get it animated, turned into a Movie and you’ll then be able to put yourself in that movie either to watch on your own or to experience in a VR setting. Think all of this is crazy? That’s just the start. So tell me why do we need new Writers and Artists when we can have the greatest ever creating for us at the touch of a button on a screen?

 

 

I don’t think you’ll be able to stop any of this from happening. Inevitably, it will get to a point where consumers will want actual comic books again, will want humans to create their comics for them, their music, their films, their TV. But the shiny new AI Toy will have to be exhausted first; it’s just the way it goes. I feel like the great tragedy of AI from an Artist's perspective is that from this point forward people will always wonder how much of AI was used to create your work or not. The only form of entertainment that will be untouched, to a degree, will be live entertainment. AI can write the best Stand-Up Act in the world for you but 99% of people are still gonna suck at it. Stand-Up. The final frontier: Where sucking is still all on you. 

 

As for comics, I don’t know about you, but I see my pull list dwindling and dwindling. I see more facsimile issues being pumped out. I see more interest and chatter about variant covers than I do story lines. I think there will be gems along the way but we’re in for a bumpy ride the next chunk of years as this artistic transition works itself out.

But as of today, I can still complain about and wax poetic about actual comic books held by my actual fingers and that’s what I’m about to do baby! 

Another absolutely wonderful 2 issue interlude by Thompson & Co. on what is fast becoming the best Dubz book in over a decade. After the epic conclusion to the initial six issue arc this quick detour back to Hades reveals more of the Abz Dubz childhood with Circe. Thompson swiftly ratchets up the stakes in a victory or death battle before the King and Queen of the Underworld which all makes for a satisfying two issue GFE type weekend with Dubz. Mattia de lulis's work truly takes your breath away in these two issues with the last panels giving you all the feels that you can ask for. Where King may be faltering a bit Thompson seems to get better and better with a Dubz that really embraces the Greek Deities and the Amazons more rather than the goofball DC Rogue Gallery which tends to bend its way towards pure silliness. Abs Dubz has rocketed past Abs Batz on her Pegasus as the Absolute best Abs title out there. New arc incoming, cannot fcking wait 9.2

 

 

I’m sensing a pattern here…Two Issue Interludes! Dubz main title rocks a 2 Ish Tangent of Dubz taking Bats to Olympus to help solve the murder of a God that’s being blamed on Dubz Momz with a time limit imposed by Zeus himself, yes please. The concept sparkles: take the Greatest Detective and Darkest Knight and have him help the Amazonian Princess solve a murder in the land of the Greek Gods; simplicity, it works! King may have had Bats deliver the line of the year. While laid up in bed after being hit by a bolt of lightning and being tended to by Dubz, he responds to Dubz asking him if he’d be offended by a question of hers by saying ‘I let Dick choose his own outfit. Who knew he’d go full circus’ Hahahahahha, amazing! Guillem March joins in the murder theme and absolutely kills the art in these two installments. Is this a new power couple, King and March? King March! March of the King! We can only dream. I could’ve read a year of this story line but perhaps this little morsel is enough, perhaps more would’ve spoiled it. I won’t be continuing in this title as it transitions to the wonky Mouse Man story line; probably forced on King by Iger the King Mouse himself. I’m gonna let the delectable taste of these two issues linger on my comic palate for a while and not ruin them with senseless DC Drivel but oh what a taste it was. 9.9  

 

 

Abs Bats and his gi-normous 'Yo Bro Let's Lift' thighs rolls along and guess what? It’s another 2 issue interlude! And it’s great! I think we’ve found the sweet spot of DC, just write 2 issue arcs and enough with the drawn out plots and mega events. Drop a deuce then let it loose! This is by far the creepiest Mr Freeze you’ll ever see. It also fits in perfectly with Synder’s psychosis about lanky creepy ghoulish figures as villains which he’s been featuring in his stories for years. I’ve written about this ad nauseum how Snyder consistently has the same ’type’ of horrific look that he tasks his artists to draw going all the way back to Wytches and more recently Night of the Ghoul. I wonder if he had a crush on a tall lanky somebody who broke his wee widdle heart when he was young or perhaps he truly was hunted down by one of these ghastly figures in the woods at Summer Camp. Whatever it is, it’s this time around that it actually feels sinister and grounded in reality. Kudos to Marcos Martin on his phenomenal art work. I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the fact that the Abs Bats still looks ridiculous. I mean, c’mon look at this guy. This is Batman? This is not Batman. This is a Hit Man chasing down Marshall Cuso on 'Intended Side Effects’ (amazing show on Max highly recommend it) This is a lifting Bro at the gym. This a bouncer at a K-Town Ramen spot that recently had a shooting. This is the guy your goth artsy Wiccan chick that you were dating goes out with next just to give you the middle finger. Ridiculous. [insert pic]That said. Yo Bro, this shit was tight. 8.8

 

 

Jeff Lemire is the King of ‘What the Fuck is Going on Here’ books. I don’t know how he does it, psychedelics, wacky relatives with wild hippie stories, personal contact with extra-terrestrials; but he does it. Every Lemire book grabs you with a ‘What the fuck is going on here’ premise and doesn’t let you go. Even issues may bog down in exposition or backstories that draw out a bit too long at the expense of a driving narrative, it doesn’t matter. Because you’ll still be hooked on the ‘WTFIGOH’ premise and it’ll all but force you too keep snatching up comics until you find out. Sometimes the payoff is unbelievable, sometimes it’s a letdown; kinda like dating. I think Lemire may be an amazing online dating guru if he put his mind to it. I bet he could write the best dating profiles for dudes, in fact he should just hire himself out to do all the profile writing and messaging for guys, he’d make a killing. No way any girl is ghosting a Lemire dating profile or ignoring cryptic ‘Who the Fuck is this Guy’ messages that drive them to have to meet you to find out. You’re welcome Jeff, do mine for free and I’ll forgo the 10% I could charge you on all your money that you’d make from this side hustle.  Seems like this 'Upside Down World/Ley Line/Weird Alien Close Encounter 3rd Kind Beings and a Semi-Truck' book is about to wrap up. I don't think you'll ever be able to accuse Lemire of ever using AI, he's just naturally able to pull completely random elements from the ether and mush them together. Good ol' ChatGPmire. 8.1

Conan is back baby! Not that it truly ever went away. I mean, Titan Comics brought it back stronger than it’s been in decades since Dark Horse had it and then, I dunno, a bit of a lull. They seemed to water it down with other Robert E Howard characters in that wacky crossover tale that they had which felt forced. Then they had a terrible guest artist for two ishes that made Conan and Belit like they were extras in a Disney flick. Then a Zula story which was pretty good but not holy guacamole good and now, this. This feels like the triumphant Conan vibe that started this whole new Titan run that had me dub it the best comic of 2023. [artist] is absolutely murdering the panels with a nod to De La Torre who brought the ruckus to begin and a distinct style of his own. Zub is penning a captivating tale with none other than the sinister Thoth Amon, it’s shaping up to be epic and man, we can use some epic in year of don’t pick. 8.5

Netflix has definitely smeared my emotional connection towards two comic book properties which used to be a source of nothing but happy fuzzy memories; memories that would induce me to actually purchase new content should said content be on the horizon for comic book shops. Those titles are: Sandman and the Umbrella Academy. The Sandman series on Netflix (in my opinion) will go down as the absolute worst TV adaptation in the history of comic book adaptations. It was an absolute disaster on so many levels that ruined my enjoyment of what may very well be one of the most important comic books in the entire medium. That show was pure trash, not a single moment satisfied the curiosity of ‘ooh what will this be in live action’. A distant second was the Umbrella Academy series. It wasn’t nearly as atrocious but it was cringe enough to make me pull a major smh and place my head in my hands in disgust. Despite that, I was genuinely looking forward to a new Way, Ba & Moon book! My goodness I love Ba & Moon. Why aren’t they putting out multiple books every month, why aren’t they helming major comic book events? The first page was an absolute homerun. The text But then…ehhh. Mnyeh. I mean, seriously, mnyeh. It’s a bit of a tired and lazy concept, ‘oh there are actual better and more powerful dupes of our heroes and now they’re here to wipe them out. How will our heroes defeat the better and updated versions of themselves?’. Sounds like the workforce in most companies when looking at AI taking them over: you won’t! Did you see that the staff at the candy crush app are now being laid off after creating the AI that is now in essence taking their jobs? I guess it’s a cathartic experience to see heroes you care so much about actually overcome better versions of themselves but as most stuff that has found it’s way to revived sequels or new stories that will add to the ongoing onslaught of ‘Make another one’ that Hollywood is addicted to; it’s okay. Issue #2 has already been pushed back a month and I’m pushing that issue out of all but non-existent pull. Why? It’s painful to experience a mediocre version of greatness. I don’t want to see newer and improved versions of my favorite characters beating the snot out of the old ones. This isn’t erasing the Netflix yuck. I’ll go back and re-read some of my Umbrella-ellla ella ellla hey hey hey books and save myself the moment after the 6th issue of this mini-series where I’ll close the last page and go ‘Ehh, that was alright’. 4.5

Gargoyle Bat Comic say what now? Where you been bro? Dude, how long has it been since - when was the last fucking issue of this thing, over a year ago? You expect me to remember what the fuck is going on in a Batman comic book from 2023? Dude, I’ve read enough Bat Comic Solicits to make up a 12 issue maxi-series throughout 2026 you think I reserved space for 3+ issue limited Bat Comic that started in what feels like a hundred years ago? This is like Psychotic LA Actress Chick, who has a tat of demon on her neck that looks like it’s eating her chin, who ghosted you forever and a day ago and then she unexpectedly texts you a ‘Hey’ a year later. You’re like ‘Huh? What does she want? I am not driving to Mexico to pick her and her druggie boyfriend up…again! I scoured boxes for Issue 1, which I didn’t find, Luckily I still had the 2nd issue on my rack. Ohh yeah it’s the crying dark Matrix coat dude and some creepy Church dudes possibly murdering Arkham dudes and, oy, I don’t care anymore. Something happened to this writer between issue two and this one, he totally lost his mind. The level of violence is through the roof in this ish to the point where a dozen heads are being decapitated and some psycho toddler is impaling people. Either he watched way too many horror flix or is butt hurt about a relationship or both. It turned into a scribble gobbledygook fest in the same way that the Monstress comic did. Somebody put this dude in touch Marjorie Liu and get them to a folding chair in the basement of a church with a cup of watered down coffee so they can work through their feelings rather than ruining our comic books. 1.0

That's all I got! I still haven't gotten through Heavy Metal #1. It's been sitting near my La-Z-Boy for months. I started it. It sucks. I've got like 150 pages left. I wanted to love it.  Now it's a paperweight except the only thing it's holding down is my floor. Which, living in LA ya never know, might be the difference between a Quake Shake moving the building off of it's foundation or keeping it stable; it is quite heavy.

Not gonna lie, or as the kids say 'NGL' I am super stoked about the Fraction "Bats" book. Dammit. It's like they were saving this super weapon or crashed the 'break glass when necessary because your whole comic book line all but sucks except for a couple of Abs Books' cabinet. Uggh. Please be amazing. Like, jeez, just give me a wallop of a Bat Victory and a saving grace for this brutal year of comics. Talk to y'all in the Fall!

Just the Facts-imile Issues & Reviews

        

 

Yeah, I'm back and I know it's been a while. I don't know where the time went. How is it June already? I feel like it was only last Tuesday where I was cursing Valentine's day and pouting that nobody invited me to a Super Bowl party and now it's fucking June. Well, I'm back because it looks like some Marvel Intern or Lackey has been snooping around this blog for ideas to boost their sales and revenue so I figured I should post something. How do I know they've been doing that? Well, they finally decided to take me up on my idea to not only release facsimile issues of their great comics of the 60s from Issue #1 but to do them sequentially so it feels like you’re in the 60s reading the comic for first time the same way readers experienced it back then. Marvisney has been dropping facsimile issues of the initial 1961 run of The Fantastic Four this year and it’s been fun fun fun. 

 

 

At first I was giddy and thought ‘Wow, maybe this will be a thing for other titles’, then I realized it’s just a prong on the multi-pronged multi-dimensional marketing approach to get us to get mentally prepared to shell out our hard earned dillies for the 169th new Fantastic Four movie that’s coming out this year. Now I feel unclean and soiled by the Dark Demon of Disney. Some intern just blurted out my idea at a marketing meeting and Bob Iger popped his head out of Satan’s buttocks and wailed ‘I love it!’. Of course what followed after Bob Iger peeking out of Satan’s buttocks was the latest cut of the new Fantastic Four movie and they’re still trying to sanitize Buena Vista Studios and most of Burbank from the stench. Repeat after me Casting Bozos: Pedro Pascal is not Reed Richards.

 

 

I’ve been reading a lot more facsimile issues lately. Seems like the comic book industry has really been upping the amount of facsimiles they release which makes sense since right now in Hollywood the War Cry is 'Just make Another One'. DC has also been releasing a run of Batman facsimiles from its initial 'Hush' from 15 years ago ostensibly to get you hyped about their new Hush run that's started up this year which admittedly looks poopalicious. After dropping money on a bunch of these I’m not so sure that any of them are deeply satisfying reads. I think the legends of comic book publishing were goofing around a lot more and having fun with the medium rather than aspiring to create great literature. 

 

Take the Fantastic Four, in their 2nd issue they convince the Skrulls, an Alien Race prepping to invade our planet, that Earth is overrun by monstrous beings by actually showing them pictures from comic books (Weird Tales and Tales of Suspense). Reed & Co then turn the Skrulls who were left behind on Earth into Cows so they could graze and lead a peaceful rest of their days without being hounded by anyone. I suppose at some point somebody ate a Skrull Burger without knowing? Or maybe a Skrull Kebab? Å Corned Skrull Beef sandwich?

 

 

These enormously oversized Batman reprints which are going for like $13 have been a trip back to the 80s when Bats was Emo, corny and prone to self deprecation and rash maneuvers. It’s an odd experience to thoroughly enjoy something while consistently rolling your eyes at the abundance of silliness. I think it’s safe to say that Modern Comics are way more sophisticated, grounded and properly structured. Where early comic books beat the snot out of the modern books is, for the most part, they didn’t give a fuck. They were throwing whatever came into their brains onto the page, as long as it either made them laugh or giggle with excitement at the novelty of their ideas.

I’m also not sure why I’m being charged more than $4 for any of these facsimiles (except for the oversized ones). What’s the reasoning? You’re just reprinting every single page of the comic, nothing is new! Shouldn’t these be $3 at most?

Meanwhile Marvisney and DC continue to implode and spit out caca. Their  movies are mostly tanking one after the other even after they pour hundreds of millions into them. Nice job with the recent Captain America. Hire a dipshit who says that Captain America really isn’t about America. What’s next? A Spidey who could care less about neighborhoods being friendly? Daredevil, the man with a couple of Phobias?  I think they need to create a D.O.C.E., Department of Comic Efficiency and rip apart the Big 2 to see how they’re spending our hard earned dollars. How much for this new Pooperman? 363 mil? Why? On what??? 225 mil? That's still stoopid expensive. You think Supes saying 'Hey buddy up here’ in the trailer like a Tech Bro is cool? Why does Lex Luthor look like they told AI to make him look like a young Michael Stipe? Why is YoBro-Perman yelling at the Marvelous Miss Maisel? Why isn’t he ordering Chinese Food with her and shopping for technicolor dresses? 

 

Dude, look, you people need to stop with the trash movies and watered down TV shows and put a major chunk of your revenue and budget back into, wait for it - COMIC BOOKS! The wellspring of your entire empire! It's built in IP and they don't care anymore.

And what the hell happened to DSTLRY or as I like to call them Dusty Larry??? I don’t think they’ve released an issue since January! Was their ‘$9 a book for 3 issues’ a big bust? Was it just a drug front for the Cartel? Have the actual CEOs of the company been deported? Seriously, their stuff was the best thing on the racks. Were they even real? Did META or the D.O.D,  target me for psychological torment again ‘Let’s give him some great comics and just turn off the faucet’. Am I in my own Mandela effect?

 

My pull is duhhhh-win-dling, that’s dwindling, as in I’m not buying a lot of comics these days and it’s sad. I bought 7 in May. Sevvv-ennnn. That's ridiculously low, the lowest ever for me. Perhaps that’s why I’ve not posted on here much if at all recently; I’ve been bummed by the state of Comcbookdom. There’s still more than half a year left so I’m praying that some way some how we get some Holy Moly releases or runs but as of today my Best of 2025 doesn’t even have any major new contenders on it yet. Am I just going to be ranking Facsimile Issues? Bottom line, I think having a facsimile issue dropped every now and then was fun but clearly they realize people are buying them and now the market is being flooded with them which takes away the novelty. They're also just being used as marketing tools, if they're about to release a movie, show or dust off an old character expect facsimile issues, blah.

Oy, oh well, there ya go, for the record this is not Ragebait this is CrankyJewBait. Here’s what I actually have been reading for the past several months…

 

 

 

If I was doing a 10 minute Stand-Up Comedy set and for no reason whatsoever at the 5 minute mark without warning, I changed my voice and starting telling jokes with a Russian accent or, I dunno, began imitating Billy Bob Thornton in Sling-blade it would be - weird right? Especially if after a minute I switched back to my normal  voice. That’s what it’s like when you get a new Artist thrown at you in the middle of a story arc with no warning or no reason whatsoever, you’re like, wait, what, which comic did I buy? Is this the - let me find the previous - oh it is. You wanna swap out after an arc, fine. Right smack dab in the middle, it’s annoying and usually it’s disconnected or tangential to the actual story which is what happened to one of the recent Abs Batsy issues. As a stand-alone issue it was great, but dude, like just either finish the arc or take a break and come back when your main artist is ready to keep going. I mean does the artist say, yo I’m hitting Tulum in December with my bae so I’m not gonna be around to draw your Bat-Kira book and does Snyder say ‘Like I give a fuck, I got all kinds of Artist Baes on stand-by boyeee'. Yes, Bruce Wayne looks like Anime Akira in this book so it’s hard to take this too seriously. In my Sling-Blade voice: "But it’s good mmm hmmm, and its Snyder and Bats which is better than that other cockamamie batty stuff so I reckon I’ll a keep a puling it mmm hmmm". 7.8
 

 

 

Another banger from Dusty Larry aka DTSLRY. 'City Beneath Her Feet' was the last Dusty Larry book I purchased before they all fell off a cliff into the abyss into another dimension; this book came out last November. Elsa Charretier is fast becoming one of my fave artists what with her work on Love Everlasting (and what the hell is happening with that, it's been months, jeez). Since Tynion absolutely crushed ‘Spectregraph’ his collab with Christian Ward on the same imprint I thought this was also going to be a Home Run and I was right. These two walloped this story way over the wall, a supremely interesting and perfectly executed ‘grab them and don’t let them go’ first installment to have you clamoring for more. The fact that they just called this the prologue at the end of this issue has me wondering if this might go longer than 3 or 4, that would be fantastic. Dusty Larry can use some long form series and no better place to start than with these two at the helm. Unfortunately it seems the spigot has been turned off for this publisher. I look at this cover and it feels like I'm looking at the dating profile of hot babe who messaged me back once and then hasn't replied since I messaged her back; serious PTSDating Trauma vibes. Puhleez gimme gimme more yum yum books that rate 9.1 or more.

 

 

 

 

Hickman, Dude, what the fuck? Are you going to clone yourself or not? Can they make a HickGPT of you and have your AI Version just write comic books? It’s unbelievable how much better you are than mostly every one. Like, there should be a big button that says ‘HICK ME’ in the center of every main conference room for every comic book publisher. Each month the editors of these publishers should gather in these conference rooms and let a bunch of comic book geeks read the comics they’re about to send to print. Any time one sucks a Comic Geek should just slam the ‘HICK ME’ button which will let the editors know that their comic sucks ballz and needs to be written by AI Hickman. Pull lists will balloon. LCS retailers will experience a boon and the world will be a better place. Ultimate Spidey, my goodness, so fucking good. What an amazing twist with Gwen and Mysterio, just brilliant.  Can you do the Hulk and Moon Knight and, oh, I dunno, take over Saga for a bit and, aw hell just hit HICK ME for the entire industry for a month and see what happens 9.6. 

 

 

 

Oy vey. Why is everyone gushing over this comic? WHY? It’s pee to the oop. Poop. Are we that starved for content and innovative plots that we’ll take some half baked creative writing class idea from High School that’s been sitting in a Trapper Keeper notebook for 30 years and call it genius? Every day a girl wakes up to a new apocalypse, all timelines are at play, they’re all colliding into one another with no rhyme or reason, this chick is bumping into historical characters and remnants of other dimensions and whatnot - dude, ask any actress living in LA what life is like and they'll tell you the same thing: 'Every day is a fucking apocalypse'. This is not thrilling or mind bending or a shattering of conventions. This is lazy writing, shallow character development and messy world building. This is not elevated material, it's pedestrian. You love it, great. I know spectacular when I read it and this ain't it. I can understand being impressed if you were in High School and some quiet mop top haircut art student with serial killer eyes is scribbling these panels in his moleskin notebook during a Period 4 math class. This final panel of issue one is classic 'Death Metal Art Dude with Acne Doodling in Class' vibe:

 

 

 

I’d look over at it and go ‘Wow, that’s dope’, he’d just grunt and shrug in his jean jacket that’s covered with Scorpions and Black Flag patches and go back to scribbling and I'd think 'I bet that guy goes on to make millions. Or maybe he'll go to Visual Arts School and end up like one of Claire's loser Art School Boyfriends in Six Feet Under'. Assorted Crisis Events, is that a euphemism for Los Angeles right now? Because we got some serious crisiseesz and they definitely are assorted. Suck on this concept’s dick for as long as you want but it’s a hard 13 year old boner looking at girls hit volleyballs in High School gym class pass for me 2.5. 

 

 

 

Yadda Yadda Mr. Burns aka The Sovereign keeps losing everything bit by bit yadda yadda, his empire that has existed for centuries is being unraveled by babes who do pilates in primary color spandex. I am all for a protracted story in comics but this felt like it had been dragging a tad for several months. I understand the set-up of the meticulous and strategic take-down of the ‘Sovereign’: taking down all of his assets, strongholds and guardians but it’s been such a drip drip drip downfall that it lacks tension. You’re just reading and saying ‘Wow this guy is getting royally fucked by Dubs all while he's narrating his own demise, sucks for him’; and that was the basic gist. Maybe it would be better if this was put online and you could have AI face swap somebody you can’t stand so you could watch Dubz royally ream them for several months on end; that sounds great. Mr Burns ended up nekkid in front of Dubz and it finally wrapped up in a good but not great way. I expected more from King and more from a 19 issue arc which they pulled like taffy for the last several months. You can tell they felt bad about drawing it out because the issue right after this story ends is a Batman Team Up, “wait don’ go anywhere, we have Bats, Bats is here, hey look, Batman, doing things in this title, hoooooh ha, Bizz to the Izzatz and Dubaroonski, everything is fine, it’s all fine, come back, pretty please 6.7

 

 

I’ve been enjoying the Waid/Samnee Bats & Dickie D series, but you know what? I’m calling BS on Clayface. The whole Clayface story device is bullshit, it’s too convenient. This amorphous brown poop blob can magically, and seamlessly, become any body it wants to. C'mon Dude. Whenever the Brown Poop Blob has been used in any Bat medium I call BS. Why? Ya think that Bats, after having dealt with Poop Dude over and over, wouldn’t have figured out that Poop Dude had a distinctive smell? Okay fine, you can become and look like whomever you want but that doesn’t mean that you can change what you actually are on a molecular level, am I right?  This is just as lazy as 'Oh every timeline is colliding into one and any historical figure is at our fingertips' from above. That said, Samnee's work on Bat's fight scenes and escape at the end of a recent ish was pure gold. As the arc continues and it gets into Crime Boss/Kidnap Robin stuff it does feel a little too much like 66 Batman Bam Biff Pow without the camp. Yet these two are just such great collaborators I’m down to finish up their run even if it means a bit of a yawn here and there. It’s a delightful read and Lord knows this world demands you escape to a delightful read when you get a chance 7.5

I just can’t anymore. I’m done. At this point I think this comic is being used by Marjorie Liu’s therapist as a way to work through her trauma of not being able to properly develop a plot. Her mania has drawn in the great Sana Takeda and reduced her to manic scribblings which at this point looks like a toddler hopped up on Mountain Dew. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is coherent or sensible. I think people are basically just losing their minds these days and that obviously includes comic book writers. The fact that Image, who has slowly turned into an unreadable publisher, enables her lunacy is even more egregious. Like at what point do you as an Editor have to make the visit to the basement where the half naked unkempt wacko scribe and her 37 cats lives to tell her you're pulling the plug. You’ll probably have to bring some cue cards that breaks down the concept of a ‘Finale/Ending to a Story’. Clearly this editor will be in a bulletproof Hazmat suit to deal with the frenetic rage that Liu will unleash on them. Unfortunately, the 11 of us who are left actually reading this disaster have no way of really knowing how to get in touch with each other and if we truly exist. What a shit show. If I had to sum up what this comic has looked like the past several years this panel from their most recent ish would be what I would show someone; just pure arrrrgghhhhh -

 

 

 

This is a mess of a script and a fever dream that has com-puh-leeetly lost it's way and I can't in good conscience continue paying for this self inflicted madness anymore.  Sana Takeda is a brilliant artist and I love supporting concepts like this but there comes a time when you look at the person you're dating who's frothing at the mouth with a lighter near your comic book rack and you realize it's time to move on and cancel your dating app subscription. Speaking of which, I just matched  with someone. I messaged them about their profile with a 'What and a Why?' question, as in what do you etc. and why are you etc. She answered back with a 'Yes'. Clearly she reads Monstress. 10 years, 57 issues and all I got for it was bagged and boarded comic cat litter. 1.0

 

 

 

Well, that's all I got. Actually, no, I have one more, one big Mamma that's sitting right next to my La-Z-Boy that hasn't been popped open yet: the new Heavy Metal; ooh baby baby. Now, I'm not an anthology type guy but this looks special. Yet as everyone in LA knows, 'looks' can stiff you with a $400 dinner bill, plant an eight ball on you and have you in handcuffs in less than an hour so ya never know.

 

Happy Reading...