SUPERMAN: SPACE AGE #3 - Review

 

I finally got around to finishing this wacky 3 issue drop from DC. I’m not really a Superdude guy but I was intrigued by the series, Alldred’s art is always delightful and the page count was a definite bang for the buck. To be honest, I don’t know what the point of this series was and who it was necessarily targeting. It gives off a serious retro vibe and does a lot of revisionist history with its iconic characters. I’m not sure if this is an alternate reality or if Mark Russell was just tasked with the idea of just writing his take on the Supe and JLA origin story and their attempt to stop the world from being destroyed. Maybe they got wind of the Levitz “Avengers War Across Time” retro thingy and this was their response, wouldn’t be surprised.

 

First of all, the cover looks like what the costumed characters look like in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater these days in Hollywood but without the muscles. Plus, the chick in the upper right in the fishnets is eerily accurate as to what happens on the weekends there: Ho’s just be fallin from da sky upside down n shit. Who is that, Black Canary? Looks like any random Luciferian you’d run into at Bar Sinister in Hollyweird on any given night. Look at all those rips in her fishnets, why are they there?

 

Fishnets in the 80s and 90s never had rips in them, babes would parade around them in videos sexy as all get out. Now? It’s a thing to look like you just got into a fight with a mountain lion after you fell off a balcony in the hills at a late night after party. Is that supposed to be a turn on?

 

Wow, you look like you’ve been up all night doing drugs and fending off savage animals in a forest, wanna grab a coffee?

 

I have lots of questions about this book. First, I thought that Green Lantern was killed in the last issue, so why did the singer Maxwell get cast as him? Look at this dude, that’s the ‘Sumthin’ Sumthin’ guy! Did the JLA end up in a poetry slam in Brooklyn for some reason and see Maxwell perform and hire him to croon during their ‘Thursday Threesome Nights?’

 

We also get a lot of Lois and Clark living in the Fortress of Solitude raising their Super Kid. I have a lot of questions about this whole fortress of solitude situation especially once Supe brings Lois there.

 

1.  Once you bring a babe there doesn’t it immediately annul its whole ‘Fortress of Solitude’ status? Wouldn’t it turn into something like ‘The Bang-cicle’ or the ‘The North Pole Dance?’ Unless you’ve created a whole other ice house for her. Regardless, no self respecting intelligent babe is gonna wanna live in a spot called the fortress of fucking solitude. She’s changing that shit with a quickness. It’s probably going to become ‘The Palace of Communication’ or ‘The Armory of Saying Sorry and Meaning It’.

 

2.   What’s the kitchen like and how long does it take to get groceries? I would assume there’s gonna be an ice-island in the middle of the kitchen but what else? Are you just eating raw and vegan up there cuz you obviously can’t have an oven. One thing I know is that babes want to have food up in their domicile so Lois ain’t gonna be content to just get Super Banged. Plus, she’s gonna want to completely do a makeover on the kitchen. And, groceries. Clark! We’re out of butter! Like all day every day.

 

3.     What’s the coffee situation? Oh c’mon, a New York Beat Reporter? That chick drinks coffee like it’s Guinness at a pub in Dublin. Can you even heat up water in the Fortress? Iced Coffee isn’t gonna cut it and I’m telling you right now Lois without her coffee fix in the morning has gotta be a complete and utter nightmare. Supe and his “Mmm wake up to the fresh air of the Artic” ain’t gonna cut it with a caffeine addicted New Yorker who needs to feel useful and important.

 

4.     What’s the laundry situation? Holy Moly that’s huge! You can’t just sleep on the same sheets every day especially after Super Banging on them and bickering over who sleeps in the Super Wet Spot. She’s gonna feel gross and unclean and want freshly laundered sheets like every other day. Supe and his “I’ll heat them and clean them with my eye lasers”? Yeah, another ain’t gonna cut it. It’s either spin cycles or nuthin. My goodness this Fortress is turning into the worst bachelor pad in the history of the Universe.

 

5.     Now in this comic they raise a kid in the Ice Palace of Communication. Are you kidding me? You telling me a new Mom is just going to be okay without all the accoutrements that come with raising a baby?!?! Is there Super Formula? Is there a Super Baby Monitor? Just because Supes can hear every single breath of the kid doesn’t mean that Lois still wouldn’t want to make sure everything is alright in the – I dunno, where’s the kid sleeping? Is it decorated? Is there a place to change the kid’s diapers? DIAPERS! Where they getting diapers from???? Again, this is the 80s, no Prime!

 

6.     So Daddy Supes is there all the time albeit as a algorithmic AI hologram, but still, no way Lois is just gonna be fine with Magic Daddy all up in their business 24/7. During one of their knockdown no punches pulled fights about the coffee situation Holo Daddy would probably float in and offer some sage advice which would only drive Lois crazier about there being no coffee. Seriously, Holo Daddy is getting unplugged within a week tops.

 

Yeah, I call serrrriouuuuss bullshit on the entire fortress scenario. Lois would like be down for a weekend getaway here and there but no way is she getting her homemaker vibe on Mr. Freezemeister’s vacation home.

 

There’s a whole Lex Luthor corporate takeover subplot which is neither here nor there. Basically it all comes down to something called The Anti-Monitor, who looks like a bunch of rejects from the Galaga video game, that is coming to devour the Universe of the Earth. So the fate of the world rests in the hands of these people:

 

Who's the Cat Dude??? There's a Cat Dude hero in the DC Universe? You know the Cat Dude is the guy who shows up uninvited to a Halloween Party with his cat mask and proceeds to drink himself into a stupor while grabbing the asses of all the taken women in the party before leaving. Then while everyone's upset and wondering who violated their wives/girlfriends someone pipes up 'It was a dude with a Cat Mask on, he was drinkin' and grabbin' mad ass and then just bounced'

 

I mean, can we just accept the fact that in the 60s or 70s the creators of DC got super high on weed and acid and wandered down from their comic book making offices one day and stumbled upon the Pride Parade in the West Village? Their eyes, and probably some of their crotches, bulged and they probably raced back to their offices to come up with all the costumes of the entire DC Universe. Look at them! That’s major pride vibe right there. Plus, you’ve got your token sad drunk babe who goes to gay bars to drown her sorrow over her cheating boyfriend, that’s Black Canary in the lower left corner. And! You also have your basic Drama Chick in the top hat who everybody in the cast of the Lower East Side play she’s in can’t figure out if she’s straight or not, that’s Zatanna. Zatanna, jeez, even sounds like the hottest girl in a cast who nobody even gets close to figuring out or smooching. Like, she’s either a rich dude’s girl that he’s letting have her fun slumming with the poor artist types or she’s a deviant who’s trying to play it off like she’s normal but she runs an S&M dungeon on the weeknights and sticks her heels in the earholes of Wall Street losers for oodles of cash.

 

So the world gets destroyed but Supes was able to collect the DNA of every human on the planet by offering them the cure for all the diseases on the planet by being able to diagnose and cure everything based on their DNA. Let me tell you something, I’d give my DNA to Superman okay? But under no circumstances would I give my DNA to annnnyyy of these Ancestor Family Tree Bogus DNA kits. I can’t believe people fell for this nonsense. 

 

 

Evil DNA Dude 1: Hmm, how can we collect everybody’s DNA and put it into a database so we decide how to kill any and everyone whenever we so choose.

 

Evil DNA Dude 2: Hmm, I know! Tell them if they do we’ll show them how they were related to a Cherokee Chief or  like a, I dunno, a Welsh playwright in the 1700s.

 

Evil DNA Dude 1: Yeah! Then we can just connect them with random people in rural areas that nobody ever talks to and tell them that they’re related, brilliant!

 

 

Unbelievable. You know that people have submitted DNA to the same or different companies and almost always get back different results every time? You’re not related to Sitting Bull okay? You’re still related to your creepy drunk possibly pedo uncle who runs a sportsbook out of Linden, NJ.

 

Supes then takes the shards with all the DNA of humanity and enters some alternate universe created by the Brainiac crew and creates a new Universe with an Earth in it. The real Superman dies but there's a new Earth that gets created with a new Superman and a bunch of mostly white people in head to toe white outfits that have a bunch of pets at their feet.

So now it's clear to me that the entire creative team of this book was baked out of their minds. I'm cool with that. I mean, if DC heads start doing acid like they did in the 60s and 70s and they start putting out quality shit who am I to judge? Clearly all that Marvisney is doing is strapping all of their writers and artists into a chair, peeling all of their eyelids back a la 'Clockwork Orange' and forcing them to watch 'Pink Flamingos' on repeat for weeks on end before they're allowed to commence on their work.

I don't know what to make of this whole 'DC Space Age' experience that I just had. I mean, it happened, I got it, it was goofy, I didn't feel anything but in some weird way I enjoyed it and appreciated the writing a lot, like, yeah, it was really well written. Well, now I have a good icebreaker for my next date whenever the hell that is. Literally, an icebreaker. I can ask my date what she thinks of the whole 'Fortress of Solitude' Situation and then sit back and watch her go on a rant for an hour.

Rating: 8.0

Verdict: Get it, it's, umm, it's pretty good! I think?

 

 

CLEAR #1 - Review

 

 Here we go again with Snyder and these 3 issue series. I’ve been burned before: ‘We Have Demons’ and ‘Night of the Ghoul’; those were both major oy’s to the veys. This one, per usual Double S, intrigues me. Apparently this has already been released digitally on Comixology so I assume it did well enough to warrant printing it? Uggh, I loathe that whole marketing premise: Release it digitally, see how it does and if if sells then print it for the world. Everything is hedging your bets these days isn’t it? God forbid you just say, hey I like your idea, write the shit out of it and let’s put it out to the world. No Risk=No Glory. I feel like Image is aligned with that thinking, for the most part. As has been lamented before in this blogamajigeroo, the whole 4, 5, 6 issues dropping at a time before there is an evaluation to come up with more is really bringing me down along with a lot of other comic geeks I know. They justify it by saying they’re story arcs where more than half the time they’re just a continuation of what the hell was going on in the first place; in other words…a series. I can’t say why this is the norm now but it sucks balls.

 

Does anybody actually read digital comics? I suppose many do. I mean, can you even consider that a comic at that point, it’s more like webpages with art on them. I would dry heave if I had to open up an app on a tablet and then swipe left on my digital comic; what a dehumanizing concept. It’s like dating apps for comic books. It feels like you’re reading a comic book but you’re not actually reading one just like it feels like you’re viably communicating with a prospective smooch prospect but you’re not. You’re looking at the ingredients of a comic but not actually ingesting one. You don’t go to a restaurant and tell the kitchen to bring you the ingredients to your meal do you?

 

I also can’t understand why digital comics cost the same as regular comics. Clearly that’s a misstep by the industry. Either make digital 4 bux and real tree juice comics all 6 or 7 bux or make the comics 4 bux and the digital 2 bux. Pricing all formats at the same price point makes zero sense and undermines the idea that it costs more to print, ship and deal with LCS human beings. I get that the argument for digital anything is convenience and that it saves space. Having traversed the entire rainbow path of having nothing but physical products to having everything be digital to 2023 I can say that actually feeling and touching something is way more of a fulfilling experience than just having it exist on a rectangular device somewhere.

 

Remember that moment in the ‘Steve Jobs’ movie where Michael Fassbender as Jobs is on the roof of a building at the end of the movie talking with his daughter? She’s upset or something or is about to walk away and he says “I can put 1000 songs in your pocket”. Clearly this was a reference to having the iPod in development which would turn the world of content upside down. If I was his daughter I would have rushed at him, pounced on his chest and with my fingers clenching down on his throat I’d growl ‘Nothing will replace Vinyl you degenerate NerdFuck!’.

 

Dave Chapelle tells a story where he was in a bar or something with Steve Jobs and Jobs was bragging about how he had the first iPhone in his pocket. Chapelle says he should have taken it from him and thrown it into the ocean and thereby would have saved all of us. Look, in no way am I luddite but digital convenience will, at least for me, never replace tangible objects that enrich our experience. You can’t bag and board a digital comic. I mean, you can snag the file and drag it to your bag and board gif but there’s something about bagging and boarding a comic you loved and putting it away for posterity’s sake that can’t be replaced. I do realize that since rents now average 3K a month here in La La Land that you need to be making six figures in order to afford a big enough place for your comic book collection; so there’s that.

 

Okay okay, ‘Clear’. Well, I’m clear that ‘Clear’ is the best thing Snyder has written since Wytches and his majestic New 52 Batman Run. Praise Jesus, Allah, Buddha and Prince we finally have a winner! Took ya long enough Double S. This is Sci-Fi Noir at its best. This is the Sci-Fi book I’ve been waiting for. A real Superstar Writer’s take on the whole Augmented Reality phenomenon. Snyder nails it on the head with this whole ‘Veils’ filtered reality concept wrapped around a hard boiled murder mystery. Couple that with Francis Manapul’s flawless art that captures this futuristic world to a tee and I’m all in. So this was just sitting on a digital cloud for months until it made it into the physical world? Ridiculous! This should have been front and center in my LCS like it was an overhyped Marvisney Multidimensional Multitrashbinfodder Crossover Event.

 

Man, there’s nothing better than seeing a battered and bruised dude with a hard lined jaw walking into his office with the blinds barely cracked open to find a smoky hot babe in a pencil thin dress bursting out of her top wanting to talk to him about her case. I’d like that. Maybe the Marvisney people can send me a babe from their marketing division to come here dressed like Mary Jane Parker to talk about their case and why I’ve been ripping them apart for the past 6 months.

 

Minor little gripes:

 

1.     It takes place in San Francisco 2052. That’s thirty years in the future which means that’s thirty years of deranged psychopathic homeless people pooping all over the city. By then there’d have to be poop neighborhoods and poop castles. There’d probably also be a Poop Skateboard Park where skateboarders drop into poop half pipes, poop ledges and poop rails. This would’ve added another layer of realism, maybe our protagonist hunts down the murderer at a poop dock, that would be cool.

 

2.     The pretext for the war that brought the US to its knees is pure caca legacy media lamestream news nonsense. So Snyder says that China took over Taiwan, then Russia invaded Poland like they’re Nazi Germany then North Korea invaded South Korea. China’s invasion of Taiwan would not cause us to do ske-wat because they own half of our land and we buy all of our cheap junk that lines every Target and Walmart from them. Enough with us fighting China, ain’t gonna happen. Plus, Russia would never invade Poland nor would The Jong Un invade South Korea. Some dipshit’s been watching too much Wolf and Anderson and needs to stop believing the tripe that gets reported on NPR and Apple News.

 

3.    Snyder then says that our military initiative was turned back by China because they programmed all of our missiles to turn around on us and blow up our shit. C’mon Snyder. This ain’t War Games and Matthew Broderick isn’t sitting in the Pentagon, come up with something a little more believable or just skip the whole geo political military stuff altogether.

 

Other than that, this was a super fun issue to read through and it was jam packed from front to back with pages of Manapul artistic goodness with zero ads; a serious clear bang for my buckaroo. Obviously given Snyder’s history on these three issue drops the second issue go could south and implode faster than a six pack of Bud Light at Kid Rock’s ranch but with this fantastic premise I think Snyder would be hard pressed to mess this one up. If you read this on Comixology only, I feel bad for you. It’s like you enjoyed this on a web cam. I got the real thing baby. Nothing like turning the page of an actual page. It’s called a Comic Book not a Comic Swipe.

 

Rating: 9.1

Verdict: Pull and Turn

THE AMBASSADORS #1 - Review

 

 

I'm not a big fan of the Mark Millar vibe. His whole oeuvre, it’s got this snarky sniveling pompousness to it. I feel like Millar is the 2000s version of Dane Cook of the Comic Book World. I did some shows with Cook back in the day. He’s very good, solid, no holes in his material or delivery, great energy, likeable. Yet his bombastic career vaulted into the stratosphere due to his ego, his viciousness in strong arming other comics who would dare confront him over the source of his material and his genius of utilizing the dawn of social media (mainly MySpace) to his advantage.

 

Cook was the MySpace king when it was actually a space. He capitalized on his ‘Yo Bro’ regular guy from Bawston act to be a vortex for the entire party people ‘Woo Hoo’ crowd. They flocked to his shows. He was a guaranteed winner onstage and he was just like you. Problem was that ‘Woo Hoo’ crowd wasn’t a sophisticated comedic savant crowd. They couldn’t tell you who George Carlin or Bill Hicks was. They wanted to take their dates out, drink a lot and go woo hoo to Cook’s middle of the road humor. Cook became the darling of the LA Comedy scene due to his shows at Dublin’s. 

Dublin's was a huge Irish Pub/Club with two floors that used to exist right at the edge of the Sunset Strip back in its heyday when cruising the strip was still a thing. It was a perfect storm. The Woo Hoo Social Media Guy Comic at the tip of LA’s Social apex. He killed you with laughter and then you could dance, drink and kill yourself with booze and lines off the floor of the Viper Room.

 

Cook’s biggest show on planet earth was broadcast in the round from Madison Square Garden if I’m not mistaken. It was his moment to cement himself as one of the greats. The ‘Woo Hoo’ crowd was there but you could feel how off the energy was. The Woo Hoo crowd didn’t want to sit down in an arena and be far away where their dates could barely see one of their own. They were restless. They didn’t have the attention span for an hour. They wanted twenty minutes so they could go back to the bar, order drinks, text their friends, maybe get a quick bang in the bathroom with their dates. This was asking too much from them.

 

Cook’s film career also tanked. You can’t go Woo Hoo in a cinema unless it’s in the Bronx of course. The final downfall came when another regular shmo Louis C.K. called him out as a thief. Louis wasn’t just a regular shmo like us he was also a comic’s comic. He was one of us; a guy who put the years in as a nobody because he loved what he did.  So the vitriol and desire for retribution over Cook poured through C.K.’s shtick. His ascent to knock Cook off the top of the mountain was rooted for by everyone who saw Cook as a fraud. Of course, C.K. became exiled from the kingdom of comedy when it was revealed that he liked stroking off in front of female comics in the heart of the Me Too error, oh Louis.

 

Anyway, so this Millar doofus. This yutz who puts his name at the top of every comic in BOLD 150pt FONT. His books are events! They’re part of his World! Millar World! They’re can’t miss arcs of never seen before work in the comic book medium. He enlists the greatest artists and tells the most riveting stories! Millar World! Where comic geeks go to experience all the best that comic books have to offer under a sky where MILLAR hovers in 17,000 pt font as a hologram. Yeah. Whatever.

 

I never found anything he did to be so gobstopping wow. It was like Cook: good, solid, standard fare, no flaws, solid delivery – but so fucking what? You’re not Stan Lee or Jeff Lemire or Jonathan Hickman even. Millar’s stuff gets made into TV Shows! He’s always got something in development that will break new ground in the world of entertainment. The fusion of his mnyeh comic books with streaming content will take the world by storm!

 

I bet this dude goes to Dominatrixes a lot. Like, he’s one of these tightly wound neurotics who hob knob in such high stakes meetings and business shenanigans that he needs some Amazon with sawed off heels to put a ball gag in his mouth, hang him upside down and put his fingers in a nutcracker. I bet he likes to crawl around naked on Star Wars comic books from the 70s panting like a dog while his Dom whips him and seethes ‘You’re not Lucas, you’re not big time, you’re an aborted Ewok’ while he whimpers ‘Yes Mistress Lay-uh’.

 

So this ‘Ambassadors’ book comes out. Mind you, I’m toiling in a world where my pull list is dwindling by the week due to the incessant blecch that seems to be pouring out from the Comic Book Universe these days. I’m flailing about, looking for something to grab me, to take me away on a journey. Millar isn’t stupid. Never said that. No, he’s cunning and a brilliant salesman. He knows how to grab people. So what does he do? He drops another ‘This story is holy guacamole good!’ but he gets Frank Quitely to draw it. Fuck. Quitely. Quitely can draw a pile of poo on a bar napkin and it would be frameable. Quitely. Dammit. Art Genius. Okay. Fine. I’ll get it, I mean how bad could it be? And look, Millar reduces the font of his name at the top of the book and makes it equal to Quitely! Okay, maybe he’s chilling out a bit.

 

The premise, from what I can gather, is some wrongly accused middle aged Korean chick who is rotting in a jail cell somehow creates the ultimate super hero of some sort and has downloaded herself in its consciousness in another body that’s out in the world somehow. Her douchebag husband who I assume either stole the tech or just flat out betrayed her had her put in jail either for being smarter than him, not making good homemade kimchi, or both. Meanwhile we get a subplot B story of your basic half assed ‘Antarctica is a base for the intelligent agencies/shadow govt’ where the future of the planet is created/experimented on and super intelligent beings/monkeys who escape and have to be tracked down by Men In Black who don’t dance like Will Smith nor have wives you need to keep out yo fuckin’ mouf.

 

Korean chick is now a babe and is levitating in front of a bunch of elites in Korea. She offers her superpower tech to anybody, any regular person who is worthy of it from the entire planet. Who will it be??? The crusty dude who yells ‘Tamales’ at 8am up the street from me? Megyn the Horsy or whatever she is? A white blonde Christian woman who loves Jes – hahahahaha I’m sorry I couldn’t even finish typing that; you're kicked off the casting list sweetie for about 10 years. Well you know what? This question has already been answered! It’s in the solicits! All 6 issues of this run and the choices that get made are revealed one by one in clear regular Helvetica font.

 

Spoiler: It’s an Indian dude, a Mom and her son in Paris, a Catholic Priest in Brazil, an Anti-Progressive (what does that even mean) older dude from Australia and a Mexican dude. Yawn. Their outfits look like they were designed by the costume design castoffs of Alpha Flight and the Wonder Twins from back in the day. But it’s Millar World! Sorry. MILLAR WORLD! A world where we cultivate great stories and turn them into streaming content – oh shut up. You know why it’s in the Solicits for all the world to see? Why is Marky Mark just giving away the entire secret of the series five months ahead of time? Because the comic is just a vehicle for the TV Show or a vehicle to ultimately just sell a trade. It doesn’t exist as its own entity. And if it's Marky Mark it's going to be created for a pitch deck or it’s not Millar World.

 

You see, these comics aren’t comic books for you to enjoy. They’re marketing tools. They’re an extended storyboard for TV Executives to take a look at. The sales will gauge and fuel the pitch meeting. Look at all this diversity! Look at all the markets we hit with this cast! Yes, the Anti-Progressive undergoes a sex change by the second season, don’t worry! Look, you’ve got an Editorial Production Manager listed right on the first page of the masthead of credits. That’s not a comic book job. There were no Editorial Production Manager jobs in the classifieds when Kirby was looking for a gig back in the 60s. Aww, and look Mark’s wife is the CEO. Notice her font is 1/10^th the size of Mark’s. Is this him being passive aggressive with his wife? I bet you he's the master of passive aggressiveness, just look at his fonts! Is this a new disease? Fontism? Helvetica on Steroids Syndrome?

 

Of course I can't really get mad at Mark, this is an industry wide issue. Lots of comics have their entire story broken down in solicits and already have the date for the Trade Paperback set before you even get issue one. Does the comic book universe not want us to buy monthlies? Ugh, anyway...

 

The Most Ambitious Comic Book of All Time! Oy vey. How is this the most ambitious comic of all time Mark? Seriously. A six issue arc with a basic trope about finding power in every day people? Is it the 6 different artists? Dude, artists are hopping around projects these days like herpes at the Playboy Mansion in the 80s. Is it your ambition Mark? To make this into a 7 season Emmy award winning streamer? You wanna know what would be the most ambitious comic book of all time? Saying, I'm gonna write a compelling story that lasts 500 issues! That, would take the cake. Hell, in this day and age saying you'd wanna write 20 issues is considered nutso.

 

Finally, of course Mark can’t resist exploding his name to assault your eyeballs with. He’s back to his old antics with his font fetish on the back cover page of the comic. My goodness the name of the comic he's promoting on the back cover is called BIG GAME.

 

Here's a sneak peak at some titles coming down the pike from Millar Lite World:

Gigantic Things. Big Stufferoo. E-Nor-Mous. Wowiekablowie! Boom Boom Buy Buy.

 

Look, Quitely’s art is a sight to behold. I could read this back and forth several times over if I didn’t have to actually ingest any of the text. Again, it's not that this is bad per se but it's not worthy of any of the superlatives, not one bit. Maybe it’s telling that an artist is changed up for every issue of the series, perhaps they can only take Mr. Fonty for one issue before he’s begging to pick them up and drive them to a Malibu Clambake where Matthew McConaughey is hosting his nude Bongo workshop.

 

Good on ya Mark. You’ve made a life and a career for yourself. I can’t hate on you for that. But I would look to the rise and fall of Dane Cook as a cautionary tale for someone who surfed to glory with bombast and marketing know how. Eventually it catches up to you. Eventually your work will be sitting in the round at Madison Square Garden and the world will see you not necessarily as the Titan that you claim to be but rather a simple old Times New Roman 10pt font that doesn’t even know how to italicize itself.

 

Rating: 7.0

Verdict: Drop

March '23 Reading Round Up

 

 

It's a beautiful pristine sunny day in La La Land and I'm off to grab my Comic Pulls from my LCS with the little princess. Before I do, here's a quick rundown of my March Sequential Art fix including a bunch of issues that didn't get the full blog posteroo treatment. 

 

Spy Superb #2 was okay. It just feels corny. Like, I get that Kindt is going for this ‘Narcissistic Loser outwits International Super Spies’ thing but it’s a one note gimmick, not a story. It definitely does not have the gravitas, stakes and whirlwind excitement that his original Mind MGMT series had which was absolutely fantastic. Since this is one of the new fads, a 3 issue expensive prestige/extra page count series, I’m almost obligated to get issue 3 to complete the story which is genius from a marketing standpoint but depressing from a consumer standpoint. Hook ‘em issue one, drop trash issue 2, tie things up in a bow issue 3 to make them feel like it wasn’t a waste of money, 25 buckaroos in our pockets: genius. C’mon Kindt. Your past two mini seriouslies have been wack, come wit tha bidness next outing, you’re on my stink eye list.

 

The second installment of Black Cloak was decent enough. Kelly Thompson is crafting a solid enough murder mystery which is heightened by the fact that she’s put it in a completely bonkers wackadoodle fantasy world that nobody’s ever conceived of before. Yeah, I’ll tag along to see who killed a royal Elf and a Mermaid and what happens with your Interracial Lesbian Cop Love story. Ya think that’s what got Image hooked in the pitch or what?

 

 

Kelly: It’s a world of Elves and Mermaids and a diverse anthropomorphic police station.

 

Image: Mmm hmm.

 

Kelly: There’s magic and…and wings that sprout from the back from our main Detective. There’s a wonderfully intricate architectural world of stairs and beaches and –

 

Image: Yeah, uh huh.

 

Kelly: -

 

Kelly: There’s an interracial Lesbian Cop Love Affair.

 

Image: Sold!

 

 

Avengers War Across Time is like a classic car that you take out on the weekends. It’s simple.  It runs great with no frills, and gets you where you need to go in style. It’s made of real materials that won’t fall apart if it’s hit unlike today’s vehicles which are made of fiberglass, plastic and cheap computer parts. Marvel, I think you need to go backward more before you go forward. Your comics today are cheap pieces of junk that fall apart in our minds. Your original formula is infallible and will stand the test of time. Write from there, enough with whatever it is you’re doing these days; it’s blecchy. Maybe Paul Levitz needs to run your comic book division instead of being tied up in a retro basement.

 

Saga is like that slice of pizza you get at that hole in the wall joint in the middle of nowhere. It's perfectly done, never disappoints and is there for you when you need the comfort. Thanks Saga.

 

Here's what I got into last month:

 

Miracleman: Silver Age #4

 

Monstress #43 

What's the Furthest Place from Here #11

 

Daredevil #8 

Batman: Beyond the White Knight #8

 

All Night & Every Day 

Red Zone #1

 

Phantom Road #1 

That's it! I'm off into the wide blue yonder. I heard the points for hitting mentally deranged vagabonds that wander around crosswalks with your car have been upped to 50 points each. I'm totally going for a record this Sunday, wish me luck!

MIRACLEMAN: THE SILVER AGE #4 - Review

 

 

No other way of putting this, It’s been a really rough start to the world of comic books in 2023. I mean, what the hell is going on out there??? Is it just me? Does it seem like they’ve pulled a switcheroo on us? It’s as if we were going to a farmer’s market to get these delicious mangos every weekend but all of a sudden the mangos taste horrible but the dude at the market with the chapped ruddy skin and a wad of bills in his hand is like ‘Waddya mean, it’s the same mango!’ It is not the same mango and it is not the same comic book universe. Did something happen with all these stories of multiple timelines and multiverses where they accidentally switched places with one of their multiverses where all the comic books are mediocre?

 

If I was to get all corporate and put on a monkey suit and masonic tie/noose around my neck so that I could assess the first quarter of comic book solicits I would come back and notate this one phrase on my quarterly review: There be slim pickins. What has been great so far? Truly great? Don’t say Saga. Saga has become like the show ‘Cheers’ in its heyday. Every episode is an enjoyable experience and a comfort zone for your life; you can count on it delivering the goods. It’s not changing the landscape of TV or shattering the mold it’s just doing what it does best. BKV and Fiona found their formula, it’s brilliant and it can go for a century if they so choose. But it’s not necessarily at that ‘Awe inspiring great wow level’ that is turning your world upside down. The only thing I can think of that has even come close to a Wow this year was ‘A Vicious Circle’ which actually came out at the very end of last year but has yet to deliver issue 2 of 3. That’s it. I say all this because one of the potential ‘Wow Books’ of the year was this one. Gaiman and Buckingham were supposed to deliver a story for the ages as they took up the mantle of Double M. Their first installment was nothing short of a WTF and the one after was a gigantic ginormous ‘Mnyeh, that was aight’.

 

So as I sat down in my perfect comic reading environment with a perfectly made cup of pour over organic coffee, a gluten free twinkie and my doggie nestled by my side I looked at the current issue of MiracleMan and said ‘Oh for goodness sake, would you fucking be amazing already!’ First things first: This Variant Cover rocks.

 

Don’t get me started on the absurdity of the variant cover market and how ridiculous the prices are. Real quick, if you make poop, and then say hey, I’m going to put this poop out there but you’ll only be able to find this poop in 1 of 125 or 1 of 250 comic books, well guess what? When you get lucky enough to find it or pay through the nose for it I have some bad news for you: it’s still poop. Just because it’s scarce doesn’t mean it’s valuable. It’s called artificial scarcity my friends and they are raking your wallets across the coals over it. That said: I absolutely looooove all these faux action figure comic book covers. Love Love Love. Here’s a thought: Why can’t these be real?

 

You want to milk us for our complete paycheck for a variant then why can’t these action figures be real? Why isn’t this MiracleMan action figure able to be purchased with this comic??? Look how cool it is, I want it! How hard can that be? My goodness every previewsworld I look at has dozens of new action figures why can’t the marketing departments get themselves together over some wings at Buffalo Wild Wings one Friday afternoon and figure out how to release actual action figures with these action figure variants? How amazing would that be?!? Dude. I would pay like, I dunno, $25 for a DoubleM Action Figure and this comic, does that sound about right? Maybe $30, possibly $40 but no more. There, you’ve sapped me of a chunk of change over something that probably costs $5 to make. Do it! Make our geeky dreams come true. Look, there’s awful soul sucking evil marketing schemes and then there are ones where there is joy, giddiness and a free flowing exchange of currency for widget. Make It so people. Dammit I want the DoubleM in this cover! Anyway.

 

As for this issue Gaiman was smart enough to revisit the alien world of the Qys and the Warpsmiths which immediately reminded us of the epic grandeur of what this book has been. Is it me or does the Qys chick look like Portman’s Padme Amidala from Star Wars? Check it out:

 

 

 

Pretty sure Double M and the Qys came out before this installment of Star Wars so either Gaiman gets a real Wookie in his house as a payoff or maybe Gaiman has been guaranteed to pen a new Star Wars Tale where Han Solo becomes Hannah Solo, C3PO gets tits and the exhaust fumes of every spaceship will spit out a rainbow. At any rate, I really love the Alien aspect of this book. Maybe the Qys chick saying that 'Things are weird' was Gaiman's way of acknowledging how wonky the series start was, one can only hope. Feels like he was doubling back in this issue especially with Hagrid/MisterMaster questioning Dicky D and his Dicky D name which is what I'm sure all of us would do if we ever met the kid...

 

Me: Seriously Dicky?  Dude, you think that's your real name? 

 

Dicky: But it's all I know, it's who I am

 

Me: Hulk Hogan's name is Terry. Dirk Diggler's names is Eddie Adams, got it? You either have a wrestler's name or a porn name but it's not real homie.

Dicky: [Blank Stare]

Me: I think that MiracleWoman chick who looks like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct is your problem bro, she's fuckin' wit Double M. You needs to confront her ass.

Dicky: [Blank Stare]

Me: Dude, she told Double M to kiss you, it wasn't his idea. She's after the MM Throne. This is like some Shakespeare shit but with tights and a guy who ruined a show called 'The Sandman'.

Dicky: [Blank Stare]

 

Me: So imagine if you watched a TV show of your life but you looked like Beyonce and MiracleMan was being played by Greta Thunberg, you'd be pretty annoyed right?

Dicky: I don't understand.

Me: Can you make me the action figure on this comic? Let's start there.

 

Gaiman and Buckingham then go all Retro Comic Book vibe for the second half of this book and introduce Johnny Bates as...Young Nastyman! What??? I wanna be Young Nastyman! I think I was actually, black and yellow tights notwithstanding. There's gotta be a spinoff after this is done, the Exploits of Young Nastyman! A streaming show! An immersive experience! A burger pop-up, young nasty burgers! Some fancy shmancy Japanese Anime figurine company needs to release thei $500 Young Nastyman 1:4 action figure! This world needs Young Nastyman! 

The final panel of Double M looking at a looking glass at the retro comic art and then gazing out into the stars is just perfect. I got a little verklempt just reading it. Aww, it's good, it's really good, sniffle. Phew. Okay, Neil, you done did it. You got this book back in the saddle and I'm all in for the rest of the ride. This is what brilliant writers do and there's never been any question as to Neil's pedigree.  Of course it could all go hooey kablooey by next issue so I'm gonna hold off for as long as I can before reading the next installment.

In the meantime, who do I talk to about getting that Action Figure made? 

Rating: 8.9

Verdict: Pull. Yay.

MONSTRESS #43 - Review

 

Are we at the point with Monstress where it’s become nothing but Art Gallery material? I can imagine seeing the art in this book at one of those Culver City Art Gallery Openings where it’s painted on large pieces of wood and plastered over the walls in no particular order. Everybody sipping on their two buck chuck wine and nibbling on week old carrots and broccoli florets would ooh and ah and pose near them but in no way would they think there was an actual story behind them - unless of course you were tripping balls. I would love to go to a 'Monstress Gallery Opening'. Wow. I mean. I'd probably set a record for 'How many Artsy Fartsy Asian Girls can reject you in an Hour' and I'd be proud of it.

 

Sana Takeda’s art has consistently been gorgeous, surreal and unique but the story is officially off the rails. Honestly, the story probably went off the rails twenty or so issues ago when the ‘War’ began but now it’s crumpled into a heap releasing toxic fumes into my head. I bet you Norfolk Southern Rail/Black Rock was reading this comic before deciding how to go about derailing all of its trains around the country. Look, Monstress has always been Batshit Crazy, in a good way, but now it’s a combo of a Fiery Latina on a Drinking & Hallucinogenic Binge while she's TikkyTokkaWocckaing and watching Mainstream News 24/7 kinda Batshit Crazy.

 

I think it’s time to figure out what’s going on with Marjorie Liu. Is everything all right in her world? Is she going through a break-up of some kind? Does she have it out for someone at Image? Is she and Sana developing a little rivalry? Like were they at a Con and more people were gushing over Sana than her? So did Marjorie think ‘Fine bitch, draw these Batshit crazy words, since you’re oooh, sooo talented and gifted’. First of all, let’s consider the fact that Marge is a certified wow comic babe:

 

I mean, cmon, this is like if Fiona Staples went Victoria’s Secret on us. This is the kind of girl who would want nothing to do with me or any of you comic book geeks out there. No frikkin’ way. This girl doesn’t date down she dates up. She’s probably had boyfriends named Bjorn, Mattheus or Kingsley. I’m not going to assume she’s always been straight either so if she’s dated chicks they’re the kind of chicks who are super intelligent yet spell their names wrong like Lysa, Karlee or Jynnipher. Well, turns out Marj has been with the incomparable bad-ass novelist Junot Diaz for over a decade. Junot fits into the whole ‘odd yet elevated’ name theory of who a girl like this would be dating, so ha I was right. So, are Junot and Marj quibbling? Everything okay in the land of amazing writers?

 

Look, clearly Margie is smart enough to understand how to plot a comic book series. Listen to her here clearly speaking about that very fact in this interview of her:

 

So it’s not like she doesn’t know what she’s doing but this story has veered off into the eye bleeding land of Jodorosky. You know, the 70s filmmaker who took a kettle full of drugs and acid, wandered onto a set or two and called himself a director. Yeesh, God forbid you tell a cinephile that his film ‘Holy Mountain’ is better at putting people to sleep than Valerian Root and Ambien, you’ll find yourself in a van with ex-CIA Agents and ten sheets full of acid with the Grateful Dead Bear waving at you.

 

What’s the big deal Issac? I thought you like wacky out there stuff. I do. But, I like to be able to follow it. Let’s just recap the past couple of issues shall we? Well, we had a year plus (or more I lost track) of this interminable insufferable war narrative that sucked the air out of this title like an AA Meeting being held in the middle of Mardi Gras. Then our lead gets captured and poked, prodded and sucked on by lizards or whatever while all these wackadoodle scenes in dreamland/fantasyland/candyland take place while she’s unconscious. The feisty anime fox and the flying backstabbing emo cat decide to astral travel (are you even following this) to wake up our lead in astral travel land. The ancient God in our lead becomes a floating orb in deep space where the fox, the cat, the floating conscious head of our lead and her inner child represented by a visual of her as a child stand on the orb of the God while it blinks its ancient God eye.

 

Oh, there’s more, a floating cat monolith (my goodness Marj & Juno must have an aerial circus of cats at their place) appears in deep space and opens up its floating cat belly to reveal a void where they all jump into. It turns out it’s a prison world of Ancient Gods, it feels more like a wacky Star Trek planet. Meanwhile, I’m not sure who’s consciousness is actually here. Our lead’s floating head which is now tethered to our ancient God gets chomped on by a canine looking God. The big cliffhanger is a God Convict who was apparently put in God Prison by the Monstress Ancient God (Was he a lawyer? is this Law & Order WTF?)  Now God Convict is all pissed and staring down Monstress God like he’s Grossberger staring down Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy. Did you follow all that??? Meanwhile, I have NO fucking idea where we are in relation to everrrrrything that has happened for 40 issues. Dude.

 

Again, I am all for Batshit Crazyville as long as I can follow a base narrative. It feels like Miss Liu has forgotten to take the basic breakdown of how to plot a comic that she in fact gave from the vid above. I mean, there’s no way I’m dropping this title. I’ve put about 170 smackers down so far to keep up with this fever dream. Is this the sacrifice you have to make if you want a comic book series to last more than 12 issues? You have to have your eyes peeled back like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange so you can slowly watch the story you’ve come to love slowly go up in flames?

 

Funnily enough Sana Takeda drew the exact reaction I had after finishing this book in this issue:

 

Well, I did a little digging on Ms. Liu and I found this interview she did with EW a little while ago. EW, hahaha, remember when we all subscribed to them as an actual magazine and let their issues pile up near our couch until we used them as a side table for our coffee? She had this to say:

 

How do I put this? Life is nothing but one long exorcism, basically. And by that, I mean, we come into this world as ourselves, and then everything gets heaped on us. There's intergenerational trauma, there's personal trauma, there's anxiety, there's fear, there's all of that. I don't mean literal demonic exorcisms, but I just mean that as we go through life, we're always trying to expel these things. We're always trying to heal, if we can. If we're even aware of it…

 

…Part of the healing, what's helped me anyway, is having compassion for oneself and having compassion for those ghosts, having compassion for those wounds and saying, "All right, you know what? This is what I've got to deal with, and there's no reason to hate myself for it. There's no reason to be angry at myself. This is just what it is." And so, when I'm working on Monstress, I'm thinking about ghosts and thinking about monsters, but I'm also thinking about... Well, what is the path to healing? How does one reintegrate? How does one heal? How does one become your full self? 

 

Sigh. Dammit. Well said SkipToMyLiu, well said. Now I feel bad. Awww, my little bonkers Monstress comic, I never want you to end! Okay fine, so I jumped through a Space Cat Belly and we’re now in Prison God World with the head of our cute Riot Grrrrl’s Head floating around while Foxy and the Flying Pussy are still in Astral Travel world. Sure. Gotcha. No problem. I’ll be here next month. Hmm, I don’t do acid but the fizzy blue Kombucha that I like gets me tripping balls if I drink it too fast. I guess I'll have that on hand for issue 44 so I can get in the mood.

Rating: 6.3

Verdict: Pull and watch El Topo