WONDER WOMAN #2 - Review

 

After a promising first date with Double Dubz main title I’m back for more. Whether it’s punishment or a handy in my La-Z-Boy remains to be seen, maybe it’s both! I would love to get into a serious relationship with WW but man, she’s been a tornado of confusing story arcs that have made my eyes bleed for a long long time. Now the King is back on a DC book and issue one was probably the best start to a new Dubz arc that I’ve seen in over a decade. Problem is, I’ve seen this from Tom King before on a hero book. A title starts off like gangbusters and then it slowly devolves into mulch. Given his recent work on the spectacular ‘Love Everlasting’ title which has gotten through two scintillating arcs without a single hitch, I’m willing to give him a little more leeway. It’s kinda like after you break up with someone you see them doing all these amazing things on their socials, like detoxing, doing yoga, rescuing an animal, wearing a sports jersey, having a garage sale for all the things she stole from you while she was at your house; aww she’s being entrepreneurial.

 

So for second dates I’m a big fan of an activity assuming you did the standard meet for a drink/coffee for the first. This can manifest as a hike or cycling somewhere together. One of my favorite down low second date ideas that I don’t feel many people use quite often is a bowling date. Bowling dates are awesome! You see her bend over, she sees you bend over, grrr. There are high fives and silly dance moves in clown shoes; it’s the best. If your date can’t let loose, have fun, be silly, banter or be competitive with you then I feel it’s clear that it’s going to end badly regardless of how much of a babe she is. Well, that’s what happened in this second issue from King. I took Dubz bowling in her sexy AF golden dubz outfit and she pretty much just pouted on the plastic seats, insisted that she bowl barefoot and didn’t high five me once after I hit a ridiculously hard spare. Oh, and she just threw the ball at the pins, no dude likes a show off ladies.

 

 

 

First off, I would like to say that I think King writes his fucking ass of for this issue. His dialogue, narration, structure and descriptives are through the roof. I particularly love this line that Dubz says:

 

 

Secondly, it’s abundantly clear that Tommy loves him some timelines. Seems like every book he’s on has multiple or concurrent timelines running in them; maybe we should call him ‘The Timeline King’. This issue is no exception as he juxtaposes his present day story with Dubz as a kid challenging an Amazon in Themyscira twice her size during the Amazon trials or games. This time around it works wonderfully as both stories really play off of each other and color in the moments between Dubz as a kid and as woman. So for now, The Timeline King has got it poppin’, let’s hope he doesn’t drop 3 more timelines in issue 3, ya never know.

Speaking of Themyscira, I looked up the spelling just to get it right and saw a question on the search results that asked “How do they reproduce in Themyscira?” Here was the answer:

 

To reproduce and keep the Amazon race alive, the Themyscirans raid ships on the high seas and copulate with men. At the end of the mating, they take their lives and throw their corpses into the sea rather than marry them. Triumphant, the Amazons return to Paradise Island, and wait.

 

Is this right??? Holy shit! I didn’t know this! How is any of this okay? A bunch of psychotic Six Foot Black Widow Savage Babes jumping on a ship and banging a bunch of dudes and then killing them??? They toss their dead bodies overboard? And the world of superheroes is okay with this? Like, wouldn’t the word get out,

 

‘Yo here come those pycho chicks in the shiny armor and the swords, do not let them onboard and everybody think of banging Kathy Bates and Jill Biden! Get those dicks into turtle mode boys!’

 

Can’t they just order some baby juice online with a bunch of turkey basters? Oy. Anyway. So this issue, while immensely enjoyable, does fly off the rails a bit. First, Dubz is just by herself in the valley of some desert waiting to take on the US Army for what I assume is their face off over whether Amazons should be rounded up and kicked out of the country. There’s some dude in a suit who’s smoking a cigar who is running the Army operation that is sending Steve Trevor back and forth between he and Dubz before the attack starts. Why is it that all comic book army douchebags have to smoke cigars? Nick Fury, General Thunderbolt Ross etc. Is that really a thing? Has anybody ever met a General or Army Dude that smokes a stogie while on the battlefield? Seems a bit contrived. I feel like Generals would be more apt to be cokeheads than stogie suckers. I mean what seems more realistic, dudes like Thunderbolt Ross or J. Johah Jameson smoking Cubanos before continuing their obsession over finding and killing the Hulk or Spidey or the two of them doing a shit ton of rails off their desk before turning into the lunatics that they are?

Anyway so Dubz in so many words says in her thought narration that she knows exactly how this will go based on her training. First it will be the aerial attack (bombs) then the cavalry (tanks) and then the infantry (soldiers). So they send a barrage of missiles that hit her point blank and explode all around her…and she walks out of the cloud as if she was pelted with some soft serve ice-cream. Now, at that point, if you’re the fucking US Army, wouldn’t you be like ‘Umm, we just rained a shit ton of missiles on this chick and she deleted them like they were fake dating profiles’ wouldn’t you go back to the drawing board??? You wouldn’t say ‘Okay let’s send in some tanks and if for some reason they don’t work let’s send in some soldiers to fight her at point blank range’. WTF??!!? How stupid must you be if you think tanks and soldier dudes can outdo a barrage of missiles???

 

So the Tanks come and all of a sudden Dubz turns into the Incredible Hulk:

 

 

 

Seriously? Was she always this strong? I mean, I haven’t read Dubz titles like I’ve read Bats titles but I don’t remember ever seeing her whip objects as big as tanks around like she’s from Krypton. Is she invincible? I get the Warrior Bad Ass vibe but making her impervious to missiles while tossing tanks around like I do with doggie plush toys for my little princess seems a bit over the top.

 

That said, King leaves us with a solid cliffhanger/plot development at the end of the issue, so, I dunno. I mean, the 2nd Dubz Date was decent. She looks  great. She told some amusing anecdotes. Maybe she lied a bit but, you know, that happens when you're trying to impress someone. Clearly there's a bunch of red flags here but it's not like she's going to steal my little fur baby and take off to an undisclosed location in Palm Springs or set fire to my piano. I'll give it a day or two and text her a cutesy message, maybe send her a meme. 

 

I'm down for another date but we are far far far away from entering into a relationship. But who am I kidding? It's not like I got options these days. Dubz is the only babe on my phone giving me any attention. It's like that Eddie Murphy joke, when you haven't had sex in like forever and you finally get some it's like getting a Saltine cracker after not eating for several days.

 

 

Wonder Woman #2 in 2023. The best Saltine Cracker on the Stands.

Rating: 7.7

Verdict: Pull

GONE #1 - Review

 

Welcome to Comic Book Inflation everyone! Where Organic Non-GMO Non-Big 2-Garbage is gonna cost you an arm and a left nut. You want those cheap half dozen comic eggs that make you feel yucky after 6 issues then you'll pay your plebian 4 bux a book. But if you want grass fed stories made by comic farms that don't pump their creators full of anti-buy-otics then you're gonna haveta fork over at least 8 buckaroos or more. Enter DSTLRY and it looks like they’re putting their comics on the shelf at Erewhon which is the fancy over-the-top gourmet luxury grocery store here in LA where you can’t leave the store without dropping at least $20 or more and acknowledging that your chakras are out of wack..

 

I think we’ve slowly been nudged by the comic book industry into the land of ‘Plus Books’ even though they’re not telling us directly that this is what’s been going on. I mean, look at the landscape of comic books these days. For the most part, buying four dollar books is like eating a box of cereal called ‘Frosted Crunchy Stuff’ which is the fake yet cheaper version of Frosted Flakes. I don’t want to lump Image into this conversation because they’re still pumping out consistent greatness from their factory but they too have ventured into the land of pricy books.

 

Here’s the deal, if you want ad free, top shelf creators dropping deeply engaging books on high quality card stock or prestige format you’re going to pay almost double what a normal comic is going for these days. My response to this is, sure! It’s obvious you’re saving the goody good stuff for these formats so why should I continually bang my head on a wall by reading the cheap shit, it’s literally not good for my health just like it’s unhealthy to buy cheap chemically laden garbage groceries at the normal people grocery store where everyone is just contributing to their inevitable cancer diagnosis. Sure there’s good, maybe great cheap comics out there (looking at you Conan by Titan) but you’re going to have to comb through the solicits with a fine tooth comb to find them.

 

DSTLRY is a new imprint with the best creators in the biz that is promising the best monetary deal for those said creators so they can deliver us the best comic book content in the universe. Fine by me. They recently dropped an anthology book to celebrate their new imprint which included half baked stories from the great comic booky minds who had signed on to be a part of this imprint. The anthology was pretty much a wild mess save for one or two really good micro-stories. People were gushing about it, the ads on my socials were going bonkers about how it was going to break new ground and deliver ‘Oh my effin’ God never seen before’ content. It would be content that would get me to either spontaneously combust or content that would inspire me to wrap the book around my dick and walk outside naked with it. Yet if you want to get that Cock Sleeve content you’re going to have to pay $9 a book. That’s the deal. DSTLRY has officially called out the cheap books as just that, cheap. What started as a Black Label revolution last year from DC has now been taken up by these folks.

 

Jock, you’re first up to bat homie. I love me some Jock. His Bats Black Label drop from last year, ‘One Dark Knight’, was without question one of the best bat books of the year. The dude just puts out quality time after time after time. You could not have picked a better lead off hitter to start your line of comics; my man is like Rickey Henderson. The story is simple enough although I am completely exhausted over having to read another dystopian world book again. Seriously people, can we write a non-dystopian world book? Like, a world where everything actually turns out great and it’s a story of the putz who didn’t turn out great, something, anything other than a dreary techno world where the regular people crawl on their hands and knees in rags and crusted snot to scrounge for food and their dignity. In this world we have a kid (who I thought was a boy until way late in the story where it clearly is a girl) who is stealing food from space ships in the fancy elitist part of the city to bring back to her Hunger Game slovenly ghetto shit hole of a neighborhood.

 

Obviously this hits close to home because Los Angeles is slowly turning into the slovenly ghetto shit hole that Jock says is centuries ahead of us. Soon, perhaps by December, children of the next generation will be scurrying out from the shanty towns of Downtown LA with schemes in their minds to rob the Great Erewhon of their $43 Raw Goat Cheese and $150 sashimi sampler. These ruddy faced pigpen rugrats will have the proper tools to break the case that holds the $850 an ounce Manuka Honey so they can victoriously return back to their pisspot dwellings while sipping on market price reishi tonics.

 

 

For this story, the rugrats are joined by some older counter revolutionary scruff bags to steal the food off of a ship. The ship takes off before they can leave and what was supposed to be a basic food run turns into a sabotage mission that our lead rugrat gets wrapped up into. Jock really takes advantage of the prestige format to show off his penchant for making gorgeous splash pages. The enormity of the ship is really conveyed by the art; it’s a beautiful issue. That said, it's not a groundbreaking story by any stretch of the imagination despite the marketing telling you otherwise but there's enough substantive plot to bring you back; she's got model looks and actually reads books.

 

Look, here’s the thing, I would’ve bought this comic no matter what. I didn’t need all the bells and whistles by DSTLRY to tell me to do so. This could’ve been released by any publisher under the cover of night, anonymously tucked away on a solicit and I would’ve found it and purchased it. I didn’t need the countdown on the website. I didn’t need the yawn fest of an anthology to hype me up for it. I didn’t need the onslaught of targeted social media ads telling me of this ‘Cosmic Event’. I certainly don’t need your $100 variant covers and $300 plastic mascot. I don’t need your limited runs or digital cut offs. I could care fucking less of your alcoholic inspired imprint name. Dude, just put out good shit, period. All this hoopla from DSTLRY is completely unnecessary if you ask me. They’ve got the best in the business. You don’t need anything else. If you were hyping up a bunch of unknowns that would be one thing. Like, if you just grabbed a bunch of amateurs from an open mic and said ‘Here’s the best comics in the world, you’ll laugh until you pee and shit youself’ then the marketing would be warranted. But if you put together a show with Dave Chapelle, Louis C.K. and Bill Burr, do ya think that people would pay to see it? Or would you have to call it a cosmic event and have an Asian artist make a $300 plastic stand-up comedy mascot for the show to sell tickets?

 

If they just called their imprint ‘Pricy Good Shit’ it would have been more honest. Maybe they should just save all of their marketing money for their creators which could in theory knock off a couple bucks from the cover price. Bottom line, this is a really really good comic and worth the price tag. This is what a comic book should be: engaging, compelling, deftly written and beautifully drawn. Unfortunately, we’re at a point in the comic book game where it’s become like buying organic produce. If you want a pesticide drenched pink lady picked from a tree that’s glowing from radiation, then by all means buy your $4 comic. But if you want an apple that actually tastes like an apple and not a gummy bear from a factory in Seoul, an apple that won’t make you infertile and bleat like a donkey every five minutes then you’re gonna haveta pay at least $8 for one. 

 

Maybe this is the world that Jock is really predicting for us. A world where you’ll scuttle along the pavements avoiding the AI sensors to find the LCS that has actual comics written and drawn by actual humans. A world where the elite will board a spaceship and eat real meat, have real sex and read real comic books. A world where I'll be sitting in my VR rocking chair telling kids in my VR connected world of an astonishing time where I only paid $8 for a real comic book. They'll flood my senses with WTF emojis and call me a lunatic. They'll tell me that there's no such thing as real comic books anymore. They've all been destroyed except for one that floats in the same vacuum sealed container that Bob Iger's head floats in and that's guarded by heavy AI artillery. I'll ask who runs the facility and the security that guards this floating head and real comic book? They'll answer 'The DSTLRY Corp'.

 

 

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Pull

October '23 Reading Round Up & The Streaming Solution

 

Living in La Land these days is challenging to say the least, with the entertainment industry taking a serious nose dive with the debilitating strikes, homeless zombies and tents everywhere, prices soaring, traffic congesting and a general feeling of blecch. Hey, at least I can walk outside and bask in the glory of a pristine blue sky and 80 degrees during November. The city may be turning into a cross between Walking Dead and Escape from New York but at least we're not freezing our asses off! Although, I would argue that when it dips below 60 most Angelenos are freezing their asses off.

I've been ranting on my social media about the Actors Strike and how I feel that SAG is a bloated out of touch mafia organization that should be completely dismantled and reduced to rubble. Having 90% of its membership either out of work or not making enough (25k a year) to qualify for health insurance is unconscionable. It's not like this is anything new or that streaming caused these numbers, it's always been this way. How on earth is a Union allowed to exist when 90% of its members make bubkes or don't even work? If this was a Tony Soprano led Union you know damn well he'd be making sure his Goombahs were all hooked up and provided with copious amounts of Gabagool.

 

So with all this time on my hands I've been able to contemplate the mechanics that make up the entertainment world and I had a moment of enlightenment the other day regarding streaming services the other day: We need them to operate like comic books do.

Right now everybody has got a plus, plus this plus that blah blah blah. So you sign up for all these services and next thing you know you're paying over $100 a month for all these streaming channels. Most of the time you don't even watch them! I can't remember the last time I watched anything on Apple TV+ or Peacock or Netflix. I just used Hulu for like the first time in forever and Prime? I mean, I get Prime for the Devil's convenience of Doggie Jerky treats delivered next day to my Princess, the TV stuff, not so much. Here's my thought, why can't we treat streaming services the way we purchase comic books? 

We don't subscribe to DC or Marvel every month do we? Yuck, can you imagine given the amount of pure drivel they're pooping out to the masses these days. We don't have an Image subscription. If we want to eliminate titles from our pull at any moment it's our prerogative. So why can't we do that with streamers? Obviously it behooves them to have paid subscriptions to justify their budgets and satisfy shareholders but it's not a sustainable model for consumers. At some point you're going to cut off the fat. So let's say that Max is $15 a month. You don't see anything you want to watch on Max but Succession. Why can't you just purchase the Succession series from them while it's airing? If it's 10 episodes charge $3-4 per episode just like a comic book does. Hey if it's top shelf shit like Succession charge $5 or $6. Now before you get upset, yo, that's $50 for one TV show, think about it. You'll pay about $50 for a 12 issue comic book series right? Why not do the same for a show?? 

So if I paid $60 for Succession but don't subscribe to Max and never see anything else that piques my interest then I just paid $60 for a Max show rather than $180 for the year to subscribe to it. See where I'm going with this? If a show comes out on a streamer you don't subscribe to you should be able to pay for the single episode to check it out just like you would a comic book and if it sucks, as comics have been lately, you can drop it; no harm no foul. I believe some networks and streamers do this but clearly at this point in the game all should. Let's say a show is about to be released that seems great. They could charge $6 for the first episode or be like 'Hey buy the whole 8 episode season for $32! Get 3 episodes free!' It's like buying Trade Paperbacks of comics rather than single issues. Trades are usually $5 or sometimes $10 less than if you bought every issue one by one. 

The great thing about this approach is it puts the onus on streamers to create quality wow content rather than creating oodles of content for their subscribers to justify the monthly price. Of course you could still subscribe to streamers if you feel like you watch their stuff all the time but I'd prefer to have the choice to decide what I want to spend my $$$ on. For example, 'The Bear' Season 3 just got ordered. I would pay for that upfront in a heartbeat, yum, yum, yum, gimme gimme, but I would happily forgo the Hulu subscription since I don't use it. If I pay $500 a year for Streamers I'd rather take that $500 and divvy it up how I see fit. Maybe one month I'm dropping $200, maybe I'm not paying anything for 4 months; it's my choice. 

At some point this model will have to change because people are not going to continue to pay and pay and pay for what a channel or service deems to be it's 'premium content'. Dude, everything should be considered Premium Content. If you're calling something that you put out Premium that means you consider the stuff that's not called Premium to be mediocre or garbage, so why even make it? This is what's slowly happening to the Comic Book Universe. If you've noticed, comics are getting pricier. Well, seems to me that the pricer $5 and up comics are better: no ads, better creative teams, prestige format etc. The industry is basically creating their plus without telling you. The result for me is that I'm realizing that most $4 books are cheap trash while the ones with the price tags are worth my comic book interest. I am willing to pay $10 for a prestige bad ass comic provided that it's amazing versus $4 for run of the mill mind numbing hero nonsense.

It makes too much sense, which is why the Streamers will probably never operate in this manner, but at some point they may have to. In the meantime...just canceled Hulu, eff you Disney. I'll re-up when Bear Season 3 is out, maybe by that point your offices will have been swallowed up by a sinkhole like the image below and it'll be on another streamer.

Okay, that's enough for TV stuff, this is a Comic Book blog so let's recap a bunch of what I got into this past month...

 

Not gonna lie but Something Epic is hitting me hard. I’m not sure if this is a comic but rather a treatise on the whole idea of what creativity is and what it means to actualize one’s imagination into the real world. In examining these ideas Szymon Kudranski invokes the notion of a place where the imaginings of the physical world, that were never followed through on, exist in a specific reality outside of the realm of our senses. As an Artist, Comic, Writer and Performer I can relate to dozens if not hundreds upon hundreds of ideas of mine that never made it into the real world or are just sitting somewhere on a computer waiting to be completed. It’s made me commit more to what’s in front of me and to honor my imagination more and for a comic book to do that, that’s saying something.

 

As for the story, it’s started to veer off into a Disneyish quest by the lead as he makes his way through various challenges and realms while being guided by some old dude who’s seen ‘Epics’ like him before. The whole ‘World of Imagination’ becomes too ethereal, too empty, too muddy. It definitely feels a bit corny and less grounded but the book itself is transcending story so I’ll give it a pass and hope we find our way back to the physical world some time soon. Maybe this was an essay that Kurdranski turned into a comic. Maybe it should have stayed an essay? Maybe we can stop with this ‘End of Story Arc’ crap in comic books and just write a series until they come to an organic conclusion??? 

 

 

 

Barnstormers came to a fitting and satisfying end under the dutiful and competent navigation of Scott Snyder. Tula Lotay’s work on this book was absolutely beautiful and I will happily take in any pages she decides to work on going forward. She’s got one of those pricy DSTLRY books coming out at the end of the year and I will be all over it regardless of the premise. I was a bit surprised that this thick issue was only half story and half back matter. I guess they had to justify the price tag. I’m all for sketches and ‘Artist Notebook’ stuff, it can be interesting but a lot of times it feels like it’s just a a tool to knock out pages for content’s sake rather than as an extra bonus. I’m also don’t need to see the creative process for how you developed the logo of your book, that’s really neither a here nor there. Overall, really enjoyed this but could’ve used a little more smooching at the end.

 

 

 

The great thing about Rick Remender is that it’s crystal clear that he absolutely loves what he does and loves the medium of comic books. Despite the fact that some of his books have made it to the screen it still takes nothing away from his original concepts and desire to keep pumping out great stories for comics and comics alone. The Sacrificers is another fully realized unique world of the likes that we’ve never seen before with a tale that is both intriguing and rich in potential. It’s important to support comic dudes like Rick for tis’ dudes like this who maketh the world of comicdom a wondrous place to be. That being said, wondering what's going to happen to a kid that looks like a pigeon is, well, kinda weird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well well well here we are with another hiatus for the ever brilliant Saga book. Given the fact that their stated end issue is 108 we’re basically looking at perhaps another 7 years for this tale to come to an end. Since Saga started back in 2012 that would mean it might be a whopping 18 years in sum total for BKV and Staples to knock out this run. Not that I’m necessarily complaining, I’ll take 18 years of Saga over six months of DC dropping 30 Bat Family Books that reek of stale mediocrity. I will say it does feel like this story is running its wheels in the mud at this point. Basically every month its someone looking for Alana, Hazel and the Bot kid and those three figuring a way out to survive, stay low and escape. Hopefully when it comes back next year there’ll be a renewed vigor to ramp up the excitement. In the meantime, their annual costume contest was a hoot although I disagree with their choice of 1^st place. I thought the 3rd place winners (Robot Kingdom Royalty) was by far the best.

A rather miserable retelling of Dicky D’s tragic life as an abused orphan in an orphanage is the gist of this Miracleman issue. Dicky continues his search to find out who he is with the help of a purple haired babe in an X-Men outfit while Double M sits in his Double M throne wondering where Dicky D is and perhaps if he smooched him too early. Maybe  the guy who wrote the smooch into the story in the first place made a huge mistake. Seeing as how he’s Miracle Man and he can jump into comic books or whatever medium he so chooses perhaps Neil is going to write about him jumping into his living room and walloping him in the chops for slowly turning this highly anticipated climactic ending into a snooze fest. Next issue is the final one, c’mon Gaiman, make it a humdinger or you will have ruined two major creative properties in the span of a couple years, one being the unwatchable Sandman Netflix series and now this.

 

 

 

I’m not sure if What’s the Furthest Place from Here is a work of genius or pure caca poo poo; it’s a fine line. It might be both, who knows. Despite it only being 15 issues in I feel like this book has been droning on for several years. It started off wonderfully then veered off into wackadoodleville after numerous issues that had backstories in them. I appreciate the fact that the last two issues at least attempted to get back to the main narrative but there’s still a whole lotta WTF going on. Maybe that’s what they’re counting on to keep us hooked, well, fuck, it’s working. Boss & Rosenberg are either doing enormous amounts of hallucinogenics while working on this comic or soberly crafting a story that will be dissected by Liberal Universities for years to come. All the main characters in this book have had the shit kicked out of them, unfortunately so have the readers. Wrap this up already guys, I’m dying here!

 

 

 

That cat's paw reaching out from the abyss in the latest installment from Monstress is exactly how I feel about this series. This comic has turn me into a complete and utter pussy, an undeniable wussbag. I should have the balls to just dump this comic as I have so many others that have been penned by a certifiable lunatic author who must be having major issues come up in her therapy sessions; and yet I can't. I've been through it all with this comic, it's been 8 long years at staring at seaweed eyes, pirate cats and lesbian psychopaths born from wolves. It seems like Liu injected a couple of pitch black panels to indicate she's returning back to the main plot. Maybe she actually went on a shroom bender and blacked out for a couple of days and her hubby Junot Diaz looked deep in her eyes when she came to and said 'Baby, it's time to return to the main narrative and wrap this puppy up'. That's why there's another hiatus for this comic, it's going to take Liu several months to cry about the painful journey she's put her readers through before she starts writing. It's okay Marj, I get it, but no more prison colonies and flying cat statues in outer space mmkay?

That's all I got people! I've got some big ol' prestige issues to dive into including Christian Ward's Batman and 'Gone', DSTLRY's first comic by Jock. 

Happy reading...