MIND MGMT: BOOTLEG #4 - Review

  

Marketing. It’s everywhere. It’s insidious. It’s pervasive. Our lives sometimes feel like we’re the product in the product placement; a data bullseye for the world of cost benefit paralysis. Comic books have always been filled with ads. You had to love those muscle ads that showed a scrawny nerd getting sand kicked in his face at the beach or the cheap plastic army ads from the 60s and 70s. Marvel always had tons of ads for its toys and it’s shows, whatever, no biggie. Comics have been intertwined with movies and video games yadda yadda so yeah, I get when a suit in a comic book office is like ‘Hey we can sell this AND this…at the same time!’ and other suits get a little duck butter in their pants.

 

I’ve always been of the mind of ‘Look, as long as you’re up front about what you’re doing and what you’re selling then it’s up to me if I want in or not’. What rankles me is when I realize ‘Hey I’ve just been sold, this was just a sales a pitch’. This attitude does not work well in dating apps since nothing is up front or real and you have zero idea who’s selling what or what they’re selling, if they’re even selling or if there’s even something to sell.

 

So this comic? A big sales pitch framed as a comic book. Seriously Dark Horse?

 

I absolutely loved Mind MGMT the series. It was a mind bending brilliant story of psychic espionage that encapsulated the world with eclectic bizarro characters that Matt Kindt spun perfectly amidst his fuzzy artistic style. It was a tour de force. So when I saw this ‘Bootleg’ thing come up I got pumped ‘Sweet, Mind MGMT is back, gimme gimme’ Little did I realize it was going to turn into a turd story designed to get you to buy a board game for 60 bux. Now, the game might be a dazzling table pursuit but don’t wrap me up in a comic tease about getting a coherent well developed Mind MGMT story when clearly this was all about a holiday stocking stuffer. I feel stuffed with Marketing energy. Blecch. Dark Horse, wtf?

 

I bought the variant issue for the final 4^th issue. Eight bux. It included a card for the game. I didn’t realize that every issue had a variant that had a card for the game. So you could pay 32 bux to have the right to pay another 60 bux, yee haw. This is the card I got:

 

It’s supposed to be the best card in the game. Great. That’s like saying you have a super duper get her to respond to your message bomb diggity dating powerup for a dating app that you’ve just deleted. Of course you’re going to think, hmm, that chick with the big tucchus in Encino who ghosted me, maybe I could use this! Of course I’m googling the game because well, marketing works duh, and blah blah how do you play it and are these my own thoughts or a suit's thoughts, blecch. Maybe this was what Mind MGMT the series was all about: A slow slow marketing campaign for a boardgame. Maybe it was always about the boardgame! As far as the comic itself, I mean, it gets gruesomely bad.

 

The Psychic Kids end up on an island to take down Mr Hyde and his disinformation memes. Instead of commandeering a speedboat and venturing out on a King Kongish mission they just could’ve flown coach to Silicon Valley and tracked down Zuckerberg’s clone instead (what is that thing that says he’s Mark, serious skinjob creepies).

 

When the kids get to the island everyone is involved in a torturous masked sexcapade, an animalistic bacchanalia. One of the kids is then apprehended and taken to the dais where Mr. Hyde (who looks like the Gay Thief from the Black Flamingo comic that just came out) stands in front of his grinning cat meme.

 

He then proceeds to slice her throat open. Umm what? Are we on Epstein’s island? Did Matt go to Epstein’s island or did the entire editorial staff of Dark Horse go? Is this their big reveal? Their Kubrick Eyes Wide Shut moment? I’m floored. What happens next is predictable, kids find Gay Flamingo, win, island burns, back to one. Nice little reveal in the last panel but so what, the back inside cover is what it’s really about…60 bux baybee, buy me buy me!

 

Look, during the lockdown insanity I went to a friends house who had a real social life and we played board games, it was great. One of the games I discovered is this game called ‘Ticket to Ride’ it’s highly addictive and fun, I highly recommend it. Well, my friend became one of the many many friends in my life who moved out of LA because it’s become an absolute shithole run by a bunch of incompetent nitwits. When she moved so did game night. So I got it in my head, man, that ticket to ride was great. I should get it. So I bought it at Target. Yay!

 

 

It’s been sitting unopened in my living room for months. Nobody’s coming over for game night. Nobody wants to. They’re too busy figuring out which state to escape to. I know a few who escaped to Portland. Listen, break into Dark Horse and demand that they send me the boardgame for the mental anguish I’ve endured by reading this fekukhta (Yiddish for crappy) mini-series that should have been called Marketing MGMT: 60 Buckaroonskis. It can sit next to my other unopened boardgame. Maybe I can give this Boardgame card to the cute Whole Foods employee next time I see her. Tell you what Dark Horse. If I give my 8 buck variant card to the Whole Foods employee and she gives me her insta so I can send my DMs to the vortex of her indifference then I'll give you a pass, deal? 

 

Rating: 6.0

Verdict: Have $60 on hand before purchasing.

DARK SPACES: WILDFIRE #4 - Review

Do you get the whole crypto thing? I don’t, not really. I mean, I know it’s based on bullshit, an idea, a pie in the sky illusion of value. Look, our whole financial system is based on nothing so it’s not really much different. Money is created out of thin air. Value is based on belief. If you believe nothing is worth something than it makes it so. It’s kind of how variant covers work. It’s based on this illusion that if we make a few of them and say they’re hard to get than they’ll be worth more than a comic book made 50 years ago that was created by actual legends of the comic book medium.

 

Variant covers are like crypto currencies, everybody’s frothing at the mouth rushing to get them and inflate the value of their collection when in reality they’re holding bubkes in their hands. Eventually our financial system will switch back to a gold/precious metal based system where the currency is actually tied to something of value and the entire fiat currency that we’ve been wallowing in for the past 100 years or so goes bye bye.

 

Who’s setting these variant cover prices??? Has anybody ever asked that? I want a complete investigation! If you go down the rabbit hole of the variant world you’ll probably come upon an imaginary Japanese figure like Sakoshi Nakamoto the imaginary person/persons that created bitcoin. Maybe he won’t even be Japanese, maybe he’ll be a crusty pudgy geek sitting in the basement of an old warehouse in Queens where un-purchased retail comic books go to die. Maybe he’s not even alive anymore, maybe his head is suspended in a tube and hooked up to an AI super computer that calculates the nonsensical value of variants. I wouldn’t be surprised. Look, doesn’t the fact that it’s assumed that whomever created Bitcoin is not real but a pseudonym for a bunch of people that nobody knows the identity of make the whole crypto thing an enormous load of snake oil???

 

I bring all this crypto stuff up because ‘Dark Spaces’ is about a group of convicts who are tasked for clearing brush fires. During one of their outings a member recognizes an abandoned remote home in the middle of nowhere that belonged to a wealthy guy that has billions of crypto stored on a server in the house. So the women agree to bumrush the house, transfer the crypto onto a flash drive, and then bounce before anyone finds out. Of course it all goes wrong and mercenaries descend upon the house and fire upon the ladies hitting one of them. Thing is, by the time all of this goes down and assuming it’s present day, the value of that crypto on that server might be worth the price of a several thousand Marvel and DC comics from the 90s: squat. The price of crypto is falling faster than a hippo on a Slip-n-Slide.

 

Google FTX and all the shady practices it’s been involved in while it’s claimed bankruptcy; it’s a shit show. I’d like to see this happen to the Variant Cover market. I’d like all those 1:100’s fall faster than Wile E Coyote off a cliff with an anvil on each ankle. At any rate, this series has been solid but unspectacular. The characters are all still very underdeveloped and I feel like the art has gotten sloppier through each issue. Nevertheless, Snyder drops an intriguing twist at the end of this issue and with the conclusion only one more issue away I feel compelled to see how it all plays out. Of course by the time the final issue comes out it may seem silly to see comic book characters fighting to the death over something worth less than a pack of gum but hey, it’s never too late to turn a drama into a comedy.

 

Rating: 7.8

Verdict: Pull

 

MIRACLEMAN: THE SILVER AGE #1

 

Miracleman! It’s a miracle that Alan Moore hasn’t trudged over half naked to Marvel’s offices and broken down the door with a sledgehammer demanding that all work on Miracleman cease immediately. Maybe he could track down Neil Gaiman half naked with a scythe and slash at the sanctimonious putz that he’s become in the past several months especially when it came to his Sand Dude show. For the record I have almost four pages of a review for ‘The Sandman’ show but couldn’t make my way past the halfway point, it was mind numbingly bad.

 

Basically what I’m asking for is for Alan Moore to begin terrorizing the comic book community. The thing that fell out of the sky in the new LOTR show looks a bit like Alan Moore. I wish that thing would tromp through every editorial office and shrill until all the mealy mouthed editors in the industry sleeked off into the Netherlands.

 

Alan Moore is the Shakespeare of the Comic Book Universe. You’re not going to improve upon anything that he’s done. It’s not possible. The Miracleman run of the 80s is one of the most mind blowing WTF are you kidding me wow comic book events of the century. It is the gold standard of alt-hero books and probably influenced every brilliant comic book creator of the past forty years. Gaiman’s run is nothing to sneeze at. If there was anybody who could take the reins for the book it could only be him and he did a bang up job so even with the threat of Alan Moore rattling my door I had to pick up the continuation of this series. Thing is, I’d forgotten most of it and there was no way I was going to a. dig through dozens of comic book boxes to find the older issues or b. pony up a sizable chunk of change to read the omni-mega-gargantuan-colossus-bus that they just popped out into stores.

 

First of all, I have to rip Marvel a new one for their #0 issue that preceded this one. I thought it would be somewhat of recap/refresh of the series to get me up to speed; it was nothing of the sort. It was one of those ‘Hey we’re gonna get a bunch of writers and artists together to write and draw a bunch of stuff about the character/story! None of it will be amazing. None of it will satisfy you. Thanks for the 5 Bux!’ Can we please have a moratorium on these writer/artist comic festivals where everyone contributes something? Comic books aren’t ‘We are the World’ songs. They’re not a short film festival. You put a dozen or so different writer/artist styles in book it just becomes a mish-mash where nobody is given enough time and nothing is memorable. Stop with the Comicbook Gang Bangs!

 

Anyway, this comic. Kid Miracleman wakes up in the Miracleman Parthenon of Miracle People and is retold his true story. That’s basically it. We get a bunch of Miracle kids which I assume are the offspring of Miracle’s nuts. Gaiman has to get the word ‘Diversity’ popped in by a character. I wonder if he goes to the coffee shop and says ‘Do you have a diverse flavor profile for your lattes?’ When he’s giving head does he go ‘There are a diverse amount of ways I could search for your nubby nub’ Does he look in the toilet and marvel at his diverse poop shapes?

 

Buckingham’s art is wonderful. Bellaire’s words are perfect. Despite any gripes I may have with the history of this book there’s no way I’m not inhaling every panel that gets put out there. Let’s hope Neil has a tremendous path he intends to take with the conclusion of this story otherwise I’ll have to find a diverse amount of adjectives to rip him a new one too.

 

Rating: 8.4

Verdict: Pull

NIGHT OF THE GHOUL #1 - Review

 

Can a comic book actually scare you? I mean, honestly, has there ever been a comic that you’ve read where after you’ve read it you’ve been legit spooked? I see a lot of horror comics out there these days. Seems like they’re heavy on the gore and light on the mind. Not all of them but most of them. I think an actual book can scare the bejeezus out of you because your imagination is way more powerful than anything in the Universe and can freak you out right into a therapy couch. For the record I’ve never been to therapy. No need. I’ve taken acting classes for several decades. Winning!

 

The last comic book that I can think of that actually had me a wee bit on the edge of my seat/creeped out was Wytches by Scott Synder with art by Jock which way back in 2014. You really have to be a master of building up suspense and of panel sequencing in order to derive some actual shrieks from a comic and Snyder and Jock did it. Thing was, once we saw what the Wytches actually were the fear factor kind of evaporated. Why? Because our imagination per usual was way worse than the drawn thing. Yet for six issues I think that was as horrifying as a comic could be.

 

Well Synder’s back to rankle your nerves with Night of the Ghoul. The Premise? Guy and his son travel down a dusty road to the middle of nowhere looking for an old folks home that has a resident who (goes by a different name now) supposedly was the director of a legendary horror film in the 40s that never saw the light of day. Of course it’s a masterpiece and of course the elements of the movie are real and part of the facility. Right off the bat I’m like, why the hell are they doing construction for a facility like this in the middle of nowhere? Good luck getting a pizza or meal prep boxes like Blue Apron out here. Amazon Prime would be absolutely useless and the wifi’s gonna suck. I’m already upset at the logistics. It’s horrifying but not life or death…well actually it’s ‘first world champagne problems’ life or death.

 

The father goes to interview the decrepit director while the kid hangs near the front desk and chats with his estranged mom. Predictably he decides he wants to leave just as his phone cuts out while talking to a cabby who says the location is not on GPS. Yeah, no way this kid was getting any re-frikkin-ception to begin with let alone a call to a cab company. So does this story take place today or is it from a recent timeline. Because if it’s today the kid would be totally sitting there on TikTok scrolling through jiggling ass tok toks and streaming himself while he posed with the creepy old people.

 

Another gripe I have is that the ‘footage’ of the film was destroyed or burned so throughout the comic you see it the final frame of some footage burnt at the edges. Yet it just picks up again at another point and then burns out again. Is it burnt or not? Film doesn’t burn in separate chunks and if it’s burnt what was salvageable is going to look like sludge. I get that you need to suspend disbelief but now I’m suspending the basic laws of wifi tik-tok UberEats and film footage???

 

There was a series that came out last year called ‘The Lot’. It was bit similar to this one in that a horror movie was shot that was never finished and never saw the light of day but it somehow profoundly affected all those who were involved in the production. A Production Assistant end up tracking everyone down and gets to the bottom of the sinister secrets. It was wonderfully drawn and the story, though not terrifying, was gripping enough to follow to the last issue. I can’t say this series matches the spine rattling intensity out of the gate that ‘The Lot’ did. I’m going to give Snyder the benefit of the doubt here but he’s on thin ‘burnt footage’ ice.

 

I actually began reading this late at night on Halloween with just my reading lamp on and the lights off. I wanted to give myself every opportunity to get scared by a comic book. Didn’t work. In order to prevent trick or treaters from knocking on my door which would drive my doggie absolutely bonkers I decided to get a large plastic bowl and fill it with candy. I figured, hey, let the sugar addicts sort the rationing out for themselves. The bowl lasted for a couple hours and then it got dark. Now THAT was frightening. Having to creep outside to retrieve an empty candy bowl with zero intention of refilling it. I had to time it perfectly. One small misstep and I’d be tied up to my couch while teenagers dressed up as characters from The Purge would be pouring my bags of coconut sugar down their throats and laughing at my pile of comic books. I’d say:

 

Hey, that Night of the Ghoul book is actually scary

 

They’d pick it up, flip through it and go:

 

Shouldn’t this kid be live streaming?

 

Then they’d live stream from their phone as they made me drive to Whole Foods for more sugar. I’d beg them to allow me to take my phone and they’d say no. Then all the Whole Foods Amazon Prime discounts wouldn’t matter. I’m shaking. Deeply shaking. There Snyder, there, that’s horror. Write that in Issue 2 and I’ll fork over another 5 bux a pop for however long this snoozefest goes.

 

Rating: 7.1

Verdict: Pull on Alert

HITOMI #1 - Review

It’s Election Day! Shenanigans. Chicanery. Red. Blue. Purple? Can we vote Purple? It’s been raining here in LA for the past few days, clearly a lot of weather modification is going on so they can dissuade people from going to vote. As Angelenos sit in rainy snail crawling traffic they’ll just go ‘eff it’ and go home. This will allow the evil wackjobs to  ignore the will of the people and decide the winner by thumb wrestling naked at 2am in a pool filled with fish scales and rotting street meat tacos while hooded aliens look on. You know that’s what happens.

 

I had to step away from the intense pick pick me energy of the day and escape to another time, another space another way of life. So I picked up the first issue of Hitomi and flipped it open. Well, it’s definitely not modern Los Angeles although it’s probably quicker to get where you want to go by walking through a snowy forest drunk on sake back then than it is to brave the freeways here. Right off the bat I love the art and the feel of the book. The story? Hmm…

 

I mean it’s not doing anything special. A kid, this time a young Japanese girl, is spared while her parents and siblings are massacred. I don’t know why they were massacred. Were they election deniers? Did they bang on garbage cans to cheat at Samurai games? Did they say that Akira the Anime Movie was overrated? All valid reasons but we have no idea at this point. 

 

Well, she’s older now and searching for the killer who did it, a dark skinned (described as beet root skin in the book) Samurai who’s now been reduced to some sort of a lackey in a traveling sumo wrestling act where he’s throwing the match. It’s giving off female Conan the Barbarian/Kill Bill movie vibes and a lot of other revenge story vibes.  You’re going to root for her by default because she’s a girl in a man’s world. Plus she’s got a mouth on her and an attitude, which I do as well. Hmm, maybe this was me? I mean, I do think I had a past life back in Japan at some point. Did the writer HS Tak do some lucid dreaming and enter my dreamscape to question me on my life as a little obnoxious ornery Asian girl? I wouldn’t put it past him. My question is can I sue for plagiarism?

 

Your honor, clearly my client’s dreams and past lives are his and his alone. Comic book creators just can’t come in and rip off a story from the timeline of –

 

Get the hell out of my courtroom. Now.

 

Your honor, did you have a past life as a Samurai who massacred a –

 

Jail. You’re going to jail. Like, yesterday.

 

Anway, the kid falls through the ice of a lake and of course the beet root Samurai dude grabs her arm and saves her; conflict cliffhanger 101. She’s still unconscious, she wakes up and gives us an ornery look, and….scene.

 

That was quick. Okay. Well, Isabella Manzanti’s art is lovely so I’ll back. I’ve got this Marvel facsimile of Spiderman #1 sitting next to me as well. I think I’m gonna pick that up instead of watching election coverage. If you ask me the entire Marvel Comic Book Universe is a facsimile of a Comic Book Universe. I think what happened is while they were creating all these alternate timeline story lines that one actually worked too well and it bumped our Marvel comic books into another dimension while our dimension got these flimsy wackadoodle stories and cheap paper stock rags. It’s the only explanation I can think of. At any rate, Hitomi is a neat little diversion and Lord knows we need these right now.

 

Rating: 8.0

Verdict: Pull

CATWOMAN: LONELY CITY #4

It was my Birthday this week so I was off doing Birthday things and not a lot of comic booky things. When I finally did sit down I thought ‘Well, for my Birthday I want to read the best comic I have from my recent stash that I just picked up. I rifled through them and came upon the one that was clearly above and beyond the rest: Catwoman Lonely City. My goodness, what a triumph this comic has been. Cliff Chiang you are God amongst mere mortal comic creators.

 

I believe this may be Cliff’s first major book where he’s not only drawn it but written it was well. If that’s the case, more. Not even pretty please just more. Like foot stomping, arms folding, lips pouting, whiny sounding gimme what I want now or else, more. The last Chiang experience I dove into was the greatest Wonder Woman run ever which was back in 2011 when he teamed up with Brian Azzarello to reboot WW for DCs New 52. It was stupendous. I never even really read Wonder Woman before so I don’t have any context for previous runs but suffice it to say no WW creative team has come close at all to replicating the grandeur of those arcs and Chiang’s artwork was beyond stellar.

 

Hell, I never even read a solo Catwoman book before this one. Black Label has me reading Catwoman and Aquaman, holy frikkin moley, and they’re probably both the best books of the year. This is like someone getting me, a Jew, to eat pork. I only eat kosher Bats and maybe a little shellfish Wonder Chick but definitely no swiny cats or fish people. It had been a minute since the last Lonely City so I had to reread issue three and I was immediately brought back to how great this mini series was.

 

The whole idea of middle aged villains trying to pull off a caper in the shadow of the death of the greatest superhero ever is pure genius, especially when those villains are DC Icons. Catwoman’s got creaky knees and a butch haircut with grey streaks, Riddler has a paunch and a daughter, Croc is tubby and farts quite often and Poison Ivy looks like she could be running a Tattoo shop and a taco truck while doing roller derby matches on the weekend. They’re all mortal, they all have their flaws and their flaws rear their ugly head in situation after situation. It feels real and human. These off the wall characters really come to life. Croc was probably the best, a loudmouth fatso in a bar with a Mets shirt on who gets ribbed for his current failures while he boasts of a majestic past.

 

Chiang also has Two Face as an out of control New York City Mayor dealing with a fiery election against Babs Gordon. Gotta say, Harvey gives off major Gavin Newsom vibes. I wouldn’t be surprised if you dipped Newsom in a pool that half of his face falls off. Maybe that was him going after Paul Pelosi with a hammer while he was flipping a coin in his off hand,

 

Nancy: Gavin’s back with a hammer, Paul, run!

 

Paul: Where?!? Shit, I forgot to text him back.

 

Gavin: When I send you dick pix you’re supposed to send some back Paul!

 

Paul: Nancy! I’m stuck in the Sex Swing, help!

 

The conclusion of this book is perfectly executed. There are consequences for actions taken. There are sacrifices made. There are reconciliations. The final battleground of the Batcave is grounded. It’s not some out of control goofy bam pow wham. I can’t say enough about these four issues. Find them. Buy them. Revere them. Cliff, you have a tough act to follow but I’ll be following no matter what. Thanks for the great Birthday present.

 

Rating: 10.0

Verdict: Pull. Put in a Glass Case with a Light shining on it.

October '22 Reading Round Up

 

It’s Hallow’s Eve! I don’t go Trick or Treating anymore but if I needed a costume I’d probably pick from some of the comics I read this past month and just tape them onto my shirt. Titles like Kevin Smith’s Maskerade and True Kvlt were downright terrifiying.

I was definitely tricked a whole bunch by the comic book industry this past month to buy stuff I didn’t need. I’m looking at you Batman vs Robin and Batman One Bad Comic Book Day after Day.

There were a couple of treats. Pearl’s third arc has blossomed into one the best series of the year and Love Everlasting’s second issue was another winner.

Here’s the links to all the reviews this month:

Superman: Space Age #2

Batman: Beyond the White Knight #5 

Pearl #5

Batman, One Bad Day: Two Face #1

Maskerade #1

Trve Kvlt #2 

Mind MGMT Bootleg #3

Daredevil #3

Love Everlasting #2

Batman vs Robin #1 

Old Dog #1

Parker Girls #1-2 

 

Remember you pull your pull list, don't let it pull you! Happy reading - Issac

SUPERMAN: SPACE AGE #2 - Review

It feels weird reading a Superman comic. It’s like I’m hanging out in Pasadena or Glendale. Nothing wrong with Pasadena or Glendale, hear great things about the brunch options there. The Rose Parade is supposedly a grand ol’ time. Yeah, not interested. Too much of a shlep to get there and back. I feel like Metropolis would be in Pasadena or Glendale. I can see reading about Supes saving a bunch of old Ladies from a drunken bunch of Armenians in a White Mercedes. Hey, don’t give me a look. Armenians love to drive White Mercedes, that’s a fact! Them and women in Beverly Hills on their way to their plastic surgeon. That’s the White Mercedes market here in LA.

 

Anyway, Gotham City would definitely be Downtown LA and I live right near there so I’m for a sure Batman neighborhood kinda guy. This Space Age comic actually feels more like a Batman comic despite Supe headlining the bill. It's like a Dane Cook show but Louis CK drops in for a set and kills it. The story launches forward from the Sixties into the Seventies and the first action we get is Superman saving a bunch of hookers from an out of control Pimp named Scutch in the Bowery right outside of CBGBs. The hookers look like they got to the final round of auditions for Charlie’s Angels but didn’t make it. Scutch is wearing purple pants, a wife beater and a purple fedora. Apparently the word Scutch is Italian slang for Pest but this guy definitely looks like Danny Trejo so perhaps its not an apt moniker. I’m no Supe Expert but I can’t say I’ve ever seen him save a bunch of hos from anything. I’d like to see more Ho Saving from Supe, that can be a real cool angle! Superman: Leave Dem Hoes Alone. Scutch doesn’t seem impressed by a man hanging in mid air in a cape and flips his switchblade at him. Oh Scutch. It’s gonna be okay, in the future you’re going to own a Donut and Taco Empire.

 

We then get a bunch of Bat stuff. Bats crashes through a window not once but twice to make an entrance. I don’t think the logistics of crashing through a window is as easy as it seems. They’re both high rises. I can see, oh I dunno, like a dent or a crunch but not a clear smash through. Maybe if he shot something to soften it up. I think we’re sending the wrong message to wannabe vigilantes out there that if you dress up in a costume and swing from a high vantage point to crash into a window in order to save some crime victims that you’ll make it in one fell swoop and be completely unscathed. Gotta knock some points off for that DC.

 

We get a lot of Clark and Supe being shy about telling Lois that he’s got the hots for her. I guess that’s what’s made Supes so endearing over the years. His sheepish ‘aww shucks I’m shy and gee whillickers she’s a looker’ demeanor. I wonder if Supes went on the dating apps if his attitude would change. Like after the 20^th time when he would message someone and they wouldn’t reply back or when he found out the girl he was chatting up was actually a guy would he get totally pissed and track them down. That could be an angle too. Superman: Deze Hoes better Message a Homie Back. I think if Clark was on dating apps long enough he would almost have to profess his hots for Lois because he’d be so worn out from getting bubkes on his phone that he’d beg for an actual date from someone he knows. Maybe all of this is coming in Superman Space Age: Gen Z.

 

At one point, while recounting a story about how his father was saved by a friend in the army while they were staying afloat on a log after their ship was hit, Superman reveals to Lois that it was because his friend lied to him that there was a ship on its way that his father decided to live. He then declares that “Hope is the Lie we make come True”. Well, you can hope all you want that the 23 Year Old Law student/Model will message you back Clark but that is the lie that will definitely not come true.

 

My goodness this comic just goes on and on; it’s quite long. I’m not sure what the point of all of this is. There’s a lot of corny/witty banter that gets volleyed back and forth between the JLA Members. It’s a whole lot of wacky 70s DC vibe so if that’s what they were going for they got it. I’m going to have to finish this book at a later date. This is 100% a ‘Have to be in the mood to read’ book. Maybe you’re in the mood, maybe you’re not. And maybe if you’re one of dem hoes this is the book you’ve been waiting for.

 

Rating: 7.5

Verdict: Ask Dem Hoes not Me.

BATMAN: BEYOND THE WHITE KNIGHT #5 - Review

 

Have you ever been with someone, got into a fight, went your separate ways, banged someone else, got bored, yearned for the one you fought with and then got back together with them? Of course you have. That’s what everybody does, at least once if not a couple times a week if you’re in your twenties. The problem will always be ‘Who the hell did you bang while you weren’t banging me?’ The Bang Replacement. The Meat Substitute. You’ll both (begrudgingly) laugh at each others and wonder how you both could be so foolish. A Ginger? Bahahahaha. An Asian Burlesque Dancer/Food Truck Owner? Bahahahaha.

 

It gets dicey when you actually have to see that Bang Replacement. For example, if they were a Bouncer at a club that you would frequent or a Barista or, who knows (it’s weird how Bang Replacements always seem to have a highly visible job). There’s that awkward moment when all three of you will occupy the same space. The Bang Replacement and the Bang Transgressor will almost always act casual like it’s not big deal. But the one on the outside looking in is going to stare deep into their soul and threaten their very existence with their eyes and any body part they can get their hands on. If tits or a pair of nuts could knock someone out they would in that moment. Don’t you evvverrrrrr think about banging what I bang everrrrr again THWOP Yeah! That’s my nuts in your face pal! THWOP THWOP More nuts! More face! THWOP

 

Well, at least that’s what's playing in your head. What actually happens is you hold out your wrist and they wrap a drink bracelet around you and you walk on in.

 

That’s what I felt like when I picked up this White Knight issue. After the Red Hood White Knight Two Issue Debacle by the Clay dude it was clear that the White Knight had a really awful Bang Replacement. It devolved into WB Afternoon kooky kiddie fare. A new Asian Robin Chick was introduced and it got all ‘Ooh you can do it, be all you can be’. Hurl. So I was a bit trepidatious in picking up this amazing run by Sean Murphy. Every page I was peeking around the corner waiting to have that awkward Bang moment. Yup there it is, there is the remnant of that really awful choice.

 

Thank goodness it barely happened. I got one, maybe two panels of the The Crimson Hoodie and that was it. The rest was classic White Knight Batman happy joy joy from the infinite goodness that springs from the bad ass mind of Sean Murphy. More Joker in the head. A Psyche switch! Now Joker is Batman doing Batman things with Batman looking on from his own head. Now Joker is proposing his love to Harley which is really Bats love, it’s all love, I love it! The great thing about Murphy is his uncanny ability to throw a twist at you at a moment’s notice. I don’t know of any other writer out there now that is so deftly dropping turn on a dime plot twist/character developments. It is a masterclass in story telling and I can’t wait for what I think is the finale next issue? Is it? Comes out this week. Woo hoo!

 

White Knight has been the best Batman story running for a couple years now. For the love of all that is good and holy in comicbookville don’t end this thing! I get it, it may have reached its organic conclusion by next issue but I’m going to miss the whole alternate universe despite its Bang Replacement. A universe as bountiful and majestically created such as this one can endure a bang replacement. Well maybe not, hold on, THWOP THWOP THWOP. Okay, now it can.

 

Rating: 9.2

Verdict: Pull

PEARL #5 - Review

 

It’s been a rough week of comic book reading, people. I don’t buy everything that comes out. I like to pick and choose and what I like to pick and choose are titles that I think are going to be great if not downright wowzarooni. So if I’m reviewing it I bought it thinking it had a chance to be downright wowzarooni. Sometimes things start out wowza and turn bozo really quickly. Hey, it’s not easy telling a compelling, yank you right in and hook your soul, type of story. But these are the pros, they’re being paid to do it. You stroll up to that comic book plate and knock it out the park, that’s your job. You might swing and miss but if you’re going to do that do it gloriously by swinging for a concept with all your might. If it fails it fails, but you went for it.

 

At any rate, I had a bunch of comics lying around and I needed a sure shot. I needed one to pull me out of the comic dung heap that has been this week. Remind me why I traipse back and forth to my LCS to get a form of media that many want to see become obsolete. They want a digital world with digital art and digital eyes that read and pay for digital things at the same time. Show me some words and sequential art that I can point to and say ‘Here, this, this is why we put up with four and a half thousand Bat Books and a Marvel Dumpster Fire every month’. I picked up Pearl #5.

 

Right from the get go you realize you’re in the presence of greatness. I mean, Michael Gaydos is absolutely murdering the art in this series. Brutal as the brutal Yakuza assassins he’s been tasked to draw. Page one and Boom! There’s a tattoo of someone’s entire back, full page, staring at you and it’s bananas awesome. The rest of the issue just gets better and the paneling layout is sublime. The full page action sequence with Pearl on pages 8 & 9 is off the rails. Gaydos has officially entered the ‘Whatever the hell you draw I will buy’ conversation. That’s a small conversation in a tiny booth in the back of a club with an eye popping hot server in sequins that will take your rare loose leaf oolong tea order.

 

Bendis has also been clicking on all cylinders. His ability to jump back and forth in time and still keep everything cohesive has been masterful not to mention the fact that he’s got a fully fleshed out cast of characters and a world that could support 100 issues if he wanted. The interlude with ‘Boyfriend video confession’ is a palate cleanser until the 'oh shit cliffhanger' that sets up the grande finale. I can't find anything off about this issue, it's just what the Comic Proctologist ordered

 

This is how comics should be done. Again, I don't know why it's only six issues. For God Sake keep it going; make it an ongoing series. Pick up it's option, give them an office, a Zoom Pro account, something! After suffering through that Kevin Smith caca earlier this week it's the least you can do Dark Horse. Like I dunno, do you like making amazing comic books? Oh and take notice Big 2. You’ve been taking too many number twos. Original Number One Bad Ass Takaka, the Ghost Dragon, should set her sites on your offices next. We can only dream.

 

Who woulda thought that an Albino Tat Chick from Frisco who becomes a Yakuza Boss in Training would be one of the best series of the year. Get your hands on all of them and thank me when you're done.

 

Rating: 9.8

Verdict: Pull