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.
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