Dread
TMNT 1984-2009
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A below average week in terms of quantity with only four books, but with three of them being $4, it adds up quicker than it used to. Granted, two are one-shot's which have been $4 for a while now.
I asked the clerk at my LCS if I could reserve my copy of CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 in advance, expecting a mad-house and them to be sold out about an hour after opening, since Marvel has all but ensured this print of the issue will sell out without giving shops any time to increase orders. The conversation went like this:
"You're selling Captain America #600 on Monday, right?"
"Yeah."
"Can I reserve a copy now?"
"No, can't do that. Some newspaper thing is coming out on Monday and it is going to be a big thing."
"So, basically, anyone who wants a copy has to camp out in front of the store when you open, right?"
"Pretty much." Clerk smiles.
This, my friends, is why comics lose customers to the Internet every year.
As always, full spoilers ahead.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 6/10/09:
BOOSTER GOLD #21: The start of the $3.99 era for this ongoing series, which is still selling within the Top 80, which is good for some lessor, non Batman/Green Lantern/JLA titles. Dan Didio isn't known for a lot of good things, and while he's engaged in some cynically overpriced one-shots or mini's on occasion, DC's first inkling to making some titles $3.99 for no damn reason was to add 10 page back up strips, to offer extra story for the increased price. Marvel's first inkling was to assume their customers are wallets with legs, and not bother. It was only after months of, "hey, good idea!" type reactions to DC's announcement that Marvel has since announced similar plans. Of course, in the Mighty Marvel Way, Marvel claims they always INTENDED to do that, just DC beat them to the PR punch by about a quarter or so. And if you believe that, I have some no-money-down Florida swamp land I'd love to sell you.
BOOSTER GOLD has been a rock solid DC book for about two years now, usually aided by creator Dan Jurgens' involvement, whether on simple pencils or now, with story and art contributions. Adding a BLUE BEETLE back-up strip to replace the ongoing that was canceled a while ago was merely the icing on the cake for me. It's both of the DC books I was getting and happily, merged into one. $3.99 is probably a bargain as far as that is concerned. Back up strips are an old idea, but frankly it is an old idea that has some legs to it. It helps exposure to other characters, and was done a lot in the old days. Marvel would be wise to exploit this tactic now that they are shamelessly ripping it from DC to expose some lessor characters and build them in some of their own $3.99 ongoings that sell great anyway, like NEW AVENGERS.
This issue continues what BOOSTER GOLD does best; continuing from a past story line while being loosely attached to whatever is going on with the DCU, but doing so in a way that a reader of only this title doesn't feel completely lost. Rip Hunter finds himself attacked by a mysterious attacker from time, who I guessed was the Black Beetle from the first few pages, and I was right. How better to celebrate and work with the BLUE BEETLE back up than to bring back his greatest enemy of the future? This happens, however, just as Hunter gets around to noticing FINAL CRISIS, where Batman is seemingly killed by Darkseid. Booster Gold, doing some rare heroism in the current time line, saves some people trapped in an elevator from a fire, and argues with Skeets over the idea of allowing his heroism to go unrewarded for the sake of the "mission". Booster, of course, is mistaken for everyone from Green Lantern to Superman amidst the smoke. Rip summons Booster to their time HQ and gives him his next mission. Since Batman was the only one aware of Booster Gold's true time missions, with him dead, he has to sneak into the Batcave and claim photographic proof that Wayne stored in the past. This leads to a confrontation to Winter Soldier, wait, I mean Dick Grayson, who is now the new Batman. Seriously, DC has tried to shamelessly rip off on whatever Brubaker has done with Captain America twice now, once with Red Hood and now with this, and both times it usually is a flop of a story. I never saw Grayson as just Batman Jr. and preferred his own Nightwing persona. It is just a shame DC didn't see it the same way.
At any rate, Booster quickly explains things to Grayson about how he was reclaiming photos from his first major attempt to undo "solid time" for personal reasons, trying to save Barbara from the Joker and losing every time (the second, of course, was when Booster nearly destroyed reality by saving Ted Kord). Black Beetle immediately attacks them, and then seemingly does some time zap to remove the new Batman and kill Grayson as Robin. Thus ends part one of four.
To be fair, out of any DC franchise, Booster Gold has probably ended up having missions intertwined with Batman more than any other DC character; this story will make it about 7-8 issues out of 24 or so. A cynic could claim it is because Batman is DC's hottest character, but objectively, Booster Gold was on the JLA with Batman so it does make some sense. The story is working rather well and Black Beetle is shaping up to be a decent villain.
While not credited on the cover, Matthew Sturges, BLUE BEETLE's last writer who picked up the slack from the launch team quite well for the final issues, returns to the character alongside Mike Norton, a former Marvel artist who switched to DC after being wasted on MARVEL ADVENTURES type stuff, and I loved seeing his art with Blue Beetle; he's a perfect fit. There are some who criticized the back-up strip idea by claiming that while noble, 10 pages a month isn't enough to keep a reader's interest because the story would move too slowly. Marvel's latest anthology titles, MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS and ASTONISHING TALES being cited as examples. It all depends on the writing, though; I thought Sturges did a fine job with 10 pages and even managed to throw in a brief recap of who Blue Beetle is, not assuming that all BOOSTER GOLD readers were his. See, that is how to do it, and it doesn't have to shatter the universe.
The strip acts as if nothing as changed at El Paso since the end of the ongoing, continuing where Sturges left off. Jaime Reyes is still a hero, albeit having had to "reboot" his scarab after his last adventure. His best buds Brenda and Paco are now dating and things are thus getting a little weird around them. And in between school and hanging out, Jaime has to save his city from exotic threats, such as a giant robot named "THINKO!" (yes, with the exclamation point). As always, the charm of the series is that while it isn't a straight up comedy, the superhero action isn't taken as incredibly serious as many other superhero titles, and thus has a charm unto itself. When Beetle takes over three hours to beat THINKO!, his pals crack wise about it. The kids manage to do some Scooby style detective work afterward, though. They track down the son of the 40's mad scientist who made THINKO!, who is in prison for having built his own berserk robots, the Unimate. He has a daughter who is a teacher, who he insists isn't involved. While trying to figure out the cause of the robot attacks and why the scarab is becoming more bloodthirsty than before, the Unimate attack. Cue cliffhanger.
Honestly, I thought the back up was brilliantly handled. In 10 pages, Sturges and Norton told a story that normally would be stretched out to 22, at least. While it may take a while for enough pages to rack up for a proper trade collection of BLUE BEETLE's latest adventures, it benefits the monthly reader, which in comics is usually a shock. Usually the industry bends over backwards to give trade waiters the best deal, then acts shocked and insulted when they take it.
In the last page, Dan DiDio tries to do some damage control to the idea that he once wanted to kill Grayson, and insists he'll be Batman forever. If you believe that, you're likely the same person waiting for DAREDEVIL: TARGET #2, or Bryan Singer's 12 issue run on ULTIMATE X-MEN.
A rare case where an extra buck has made a comic better. Two solid books in one. Who'd have thought?
FANTASTIC FOUR #567: An issue of the type that used to infuriate readers of THE ULTIMATES when it was running horribly behind schedule, but with FF running more or less on target (give or take a month or two, which for Hitch and Millar is speedy) it is less so. That doesn't mean it is perfect, though. By and large it is a showpiece issue, an issue where Millar caters to Hitch's art to do a 5 page sequence in a whole issue and thus drag a story out a little more. In some past interviews a few years ago Hitch and Millar would defend this practice by bemoaning audience expectations for compression and using manga as an example. Which, of course, is B.S. in a kilt because manga gives you more than 22 pages of story a month, and it usually sounds like, to paraphrase a Millar line, "middle aged men afraid of format expectations".
Now, as a disclaimer to mostly negative reviews, the Millar/Hitch run on FF isn't horrid. It isn't an abomination. It's not the worst thing ever. It simply is just about average for a Four run; which would be fine, but it takes itself too seriously and believes it is utterly important, and because of the creative team, gets more attention than it deserves. McDuffie's run, while it relied on the Storm/Panther membership for a stunt, was far less pretentious in execution. This issue almost screams of that sort of pretentiousness; that Millar and Hitch believe the audience so enjoy their collective imagination that they will gladly accept an issue that is entirely an illusion sequence, made up of a lot of splash pages or double page spreads. What does he think this is, HULK?
Last issue, Dr. Doom was getting a visit/beat down from his "master", the absurdly named Marquis of Death and his newest Apprentice. Apparently the retcon/revelation is that this is who Doom has learned many of his tricks from (besides Le Fey via time travel from MIGHTY AVENGERS, of course), but the Marquis sees Doom as a failure and wants to obliterate him before doing damage control on his reputation. They supposedly fight, and in a shamelessly extravagant but utterly pointless series of pages, becomes convinced that he battled them for six weeks, managed to defeat them after Reed sacrificed himself, and has now taken over the world and made it a gosh darn perfect place to live. Ben is his friend, and he's knocked Sue up. Doom's so gosh darn happy. It's all a lie, of course. Marquis of Death (who may as well be called, "Overbite of S&M" with a design like that) has fooled Doom with some omnipotent illusion. Doom's set aflame, stripped of his mask, berated for being a loser, and is sent back in time to be eaten by dinosaurs while Latveria is blown up.
Overbite of S&M and Sidekick then decide they'll take out of the Fantastic Four, once and for all. Of course they won't, but again, this run takes itself awfully seriously.
Despite what many claim, part of me refuses to believe even Millar is this simple, or so genuinely hates Doom. He salvaged Ultimate Doom from the hooven monstrosity that Ellis created, after all. Granted, Ultimate's bar of expectations has always been lower than 616, which is probably why it was easier for Bendis and Millar to build reputations there. In reality both are rather pedestrian writers who are skilled at using various trappings to fluff up their work; Bendis has his "dialogue" and Millar usually uses explosions and macho-man postures. Both have delusions of grandeur to their writing; although in the case of Millar, with Hollywood now licking his scrotum, one can maybe understand why. Millar's snarky attitude seems to bleed into everything he writes, a problem Bendis also has, and it becomes a real turn off.
The delicious irony of all this is that in the case of FF, both retailers and Marvel have no longer seen this as essential stuff. After a brief spike, sales fell to "average" FF numbers before a year was up. And Marvel is so eager to just end this run and focus on the upcoming Hickman that Hitch has been yanked from the final issue, with fill in art by Immonen. Yes, Marvel so wants the run to end on time, they are, gasp, using fill in art on a Millar/Hitch project. With that in mind, I highly doubt that Dr. Doom will be allowed to perish in so undignified a manner. Marvel didn't let Grant Morrison kill Magneto, now did they? That said, I could do without some of the holier-than-thou flair of a writer creating a retcon menace out of nowhere, having it "own" the Four's greatest villain, and then lambaste him on how lame he is. All with a name that not even the Umbrella Academy would take seriously - Marquis of Death? What next, Matinee of Malice?
In short, not the worst issue, but a needlessly decompressed and condescending one. It's not the worst FF ever but it sure isn't as great as it thinks it is. To paraphrase another Millar line from the apparently Hollywood worthy KICK-ASS, "It thinks it's HEROES Season One, but instead it's Season-Freaking-Two."
(Millar also hasn't learned that nothing dates a work as quickly as pop culture references. There are none in the issue, thankfully.)
Dr. Doom deserves a lot better, though. He was the inspiration for Darth Vader, after all. Once upon a time he was the premire Marvel villain. Now he makes Hordak look good (and Hordak had to settle for taking on He-Man's kid sister, after all).
Next: WAR OF KINGS: SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR #1 & UNCANNY X-MEN FIRST CLASS GIANT-SIZE #1.
I asked the clerk at my LCS if I could reserve my copy of CAPTAIN AMERICA #600 in advance, expecting a mad-house and them to be sold out about an hour after opening, since Marvel has all but ensured this print of the issue will sell out without giving shops any time to increase orders. The conversation went like this:
"You're selling Captain America #600 on Monday, right?"
"Yeah."
"Can I reserve a copy now?"
"No, can't do that. Some newspaper thing is coming out on Monday and it is going to be a big thing."
"So, basically, anyone who wants a copy has to camp out in front of the store when you open, right?"
"Pretty much." Clerk smiles.
This, my friends, is why comics lose customers to the Internet every year.
As always, full spoilers ahead.
Dread's Bought/Thought for 6/10/09:
BOOSTER GOLD #21: The start of the $3.99 era for this ongoing series, which is still selling within the Top 80, which is good for some lessor, non Batman/Green Lantern/JLA titles. Dan Didio isn't known for a lot of good things, and while he's engaged in some cynically overpriced one-shots or mini's on occasion, DC's first inkling to making some titles $3.99 for no damn reason was to add 10 page back up strips, to offer extra story for the increased price. Marvel's first inkling was to assume their customers are wallets with legs, and not bother. It was only after months of, "hey, good idea!" type reactions to DC's announcement that Marvel has since announced similar plans. Of course, in the Mighty Marvel Way, Marvel claims they always INTENDED to do that, just DC beat them to the PR punch by about a quarter or so. And if you believe that, I have some no-money-down Florida swamp land I'd love to sell you.
BOOSTER GOLD has been a rock solid DC book for about two years now, usually aided by creator Dan Jurgens' involvement, whether on simple pencils or now, with story and art contributions. Adding a BLUE BEETLE back-up strip to replace the ongoing that was canceled a while ago was merely the icing on the cake for me. It's both of the DC books I was getting and happily, merged into one. $3.99 is probably a bargain as far as that is concerned. Back up strips are an old idea, but frankly it is an old idea that has some legs to it. It helps exposure to other characters, and was done a lot in the old days. Marvel would be wise to exploit this tactic now that they are shamelessly ripping it from DC to expose some lessor characters and build them in some of their own $3.99 ongoings that sell great anyway, like NEW AVENGERS.
This issue continues what BOOSTER GOLD does best; continuing from a past story line while being loosely attached to whatever is going on with the DCU, but doing so in a way that a reader of only this title doesn't feel completely lost. Rip Hunter finds himself attacked by a mysterious attacker from time, who I guessed was the Black Beetle from the first few pages, and I was right. How better to celebrate and work with the BLUE BEETLE back up than to bring back his greatest enemy of the future? This happens, however, just as Hunter gets around to noticing FINAL CRISIS, where Batman is seemingly killed by Darkseid. Booster Gold, doing some rare heroism in the current time line, saves some people trapped in an elevator from a fire, and argues with Skeets over the idea of allowing his heroism to go unrewarded for the sake of the "mission". Booster, of course, is mistaken for everyone from Green Lantern to Superman amidst the smoke. Rip summons Booster to their time HQ and gives him his next mission. Since Batman was the only one aware of Booster Gold's true time missions, with him dead, he has to sneak into the Batcave and claim photographic proof that Wayne stored in the past. This leads to a confrontation to Winter Soldier, wait, I mean Dick Grayson, who is now the new Batman. Seriously, DC has tried to shamelessly rip off on whatever Brubaker has done with Captain America twice now, once with Red Hood and now with this, and both times it usually is a flop of a story. I never saw Grayson as just Batman Jr. and preferred his own Nightwing persona. It is just a shame DC didn't see it the same way.
At any rate, Booster quickly explains things to Grayson about how he was reclaiming photos from his first major attempt to undo "solid time" for personal reasons, trying to save Barbara from the Joker and losing every time (the second, of course, was when Booster nearly destroyed reality by saving Ted Kord). Black Beetle immediately attacks them, and then seemingly does some time zap to remove the new Batman and kill Grayson as Robin. Thus ends part one of four.
To be fair, out of any DC franchise, Booster Gold has probably ended up having missions intertwined with Batman more than any other DC character; this story will make it about 7-8 issues out of 24 or so. A cynic could claim it is because Batman is DC's hottest character, but objectively, Booster Gold was on the JLA with Batman so it does make some sense. The story is working rather well and Black Beetle is shaping up to be a decent villain.
While not credited on the cover, Matthew Sturges, BLUE BEETLE's last writer who picked up the slack from the launch team quite well for the final issues, returns to the character alongside Mike Norton, a former Marvel artist who switched to DC after being wasted on MARVEL ADVENTURES type stuff, and I loved seeing his art with Blue Beetle; he's a perfect fit. There are some who criticized the back-up strip idea by claiming that while noble, 10 pages a month isn't enough to keep a reader's interest because the story would move too slowly. Marvel's latest anthology titles, MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS and ASTONISHING TALES being cited as examples. It all depends on the writing, though; I thought Sturges did a fine job with 10 pages and even managed to throw in a brief recap of who Blue Beetle is, not assuming that all BOOSTER GOLD readers were his. See, that is how to do it, and it doesn't have to shatter the universe.
The strip acts as if nothing as changed at El Paso since the end of the ongoing, continuing where Sturges left off. Jaime Reyes is still a hero, albeit having had to "reboot" his scarab after his last adventure. His best buds Brenda and Paco are now dating and things are thus getting a little weird around them. And in between school and hanging out, Jaime has to save his city from exotic threats, such as a giant robot named "THINKO!" (yes, with the exclamation point). As always, the charm of the series is that while it isn't a straight up comedy, the superhero action isn't taken as incredibly serious as many other superhero titles, and thus has a charm unto itself. When Beetle takes over three hours to beat THINKO!, his pals crack wise about it. The kids manage to do some Scooby style detective work afterward, though. They track down the son of the 40's mad scientist who made THINKO!, who is in prison for having built his own berserk robots, the Unimate. He has a daughter who is a teacher, who he insists isn't involved. While trying to figure out the cause of the robot attacks and why the scarab is becoming more bloodthirsty than before, the Unimate attack. Cue cliffhanger.
Honestly, I thought the back up was brilliantly handled. In 10 pages, Sturges and Norton told a story that normally would be stretched out to 22, at least. While it may take a while for enough pages to rack up for a proper trade collection of BLUE BEETLE's latest adventures, it benefits the monthly reader, which in comics is usually a shock. Usually the industry bends over backwards to give trade waiters the best deal, then acts shocked and insulted when they take it.
In the last page, Dan DiDio tries to do some damage control to the idea that he once wanted to kill Grayson, and insists he'll be Batman forever. If you believe that, you're likely the same person waiting for DAREDEVIL: TARGET #2, or Bryan Singer's 12 issue run on ULTIMATE X-MEN.
A rare case where an extra buck has made a comic better. Two solid books in one. Who'd have thought?
FANTASTIC FOUR #567: An issue of the type that used to infuriate readers of THE ULTIMATES when it was running horribly behind schedule, but with FF running more or less on target (give or take a month or two, which for Hitch and Millar is speedy) it is less so. That doesn't mean it is perfect, though. By and large it is a showpiece issue, an issue where Millar caters to Hitch's art to do a 5 page sequence in a whole issue and thus drag a story out a little more. In some past interviews a few years ago Hitch and Millar would defend this practice by bemoaning audience expectations for compression and using manga as an example. Which, of course, is B.S. in a kilt because manga gives you more than 22 pages of story a month, and it usually sounds like, to paraphrase a Millar line, "middle aged men afraid of format expectations".
Now, as a disclaimer to mostly negative reviews, the Millar/Hitch run on FF isn't horrid. It isn't an abomination. It's not the worst thing ever. It simply is just about average for a Four run; which would be fine, but it takes itself too seriously and believes it is utterly important, and because of the creative team, gets more attention than it deserves. McDuffie's run, while it relied on the Storm/Panther membership for a stunt, was far less pretentious in execution. This issue almost screams of that sort of pretentiousness; that Millar and Hitch believe the audience so enjoy their collective imagination that they will gladly accept an issue that is entirely an illusion sequence, made up of a lot of splash pages or double page spreads. What does he think this is, HULK?
Last issue, Dr. Doom was getting a visit/beat down from his "master", the absurdly named Marquis of Death and his newest Apprentice. Apparently the retcon/revelation is that this is who Doom has learned many of his tricks from (besides Le Fey via time travel from MIGHTY AVENGERS, of course), but the Marquis sees Doom as a failure and wants to obliterate him before doing damage control on his reputation. They supposedly fight, and in a shamelessly extravagant but utterly pointless series of pages, becomes convinced that he battled them for six weeks, managed to defeat them after Reed sacrificed himself, and has now taken over the world and made it a gosh darn perfect place to live. Ben is his friend, and he's knocked Sue up. Doom's so gosh darn happy. It's all a lie, of course. Marquis of Death (who may as well be called, "Overbite of S&M" with a design like that) has fooled Doom with some omnipotent illusion. Doom's set aflame, stripped of his mask, berated for being a loser, and is sent back in time to be eaten by dinosaurs while Latveria is blown up.
Overbite of S&M and Sidekick then decide they'll take out of the Fantastic Four, once and for all. Of course they won't, but again, this run takes itself awfully seriously.
Despite what many claim, part of me refuses to believe even Millar is this simple, or so genuinely hates Doom. He salvaged Ultimate Doom from the hooven monstrosity that Ellis created, after all. Granted, Ultimate's bar of expectations has always been lower than 616, which is probably why it was easier for Bendis and Millar to build reputations there. In reality both are rather pedestrian writers who are skilled at using various trappings to fluff up their work; Bendis has his "dialogue" and Millar usually uses explosions and macho-man postures. Both have delusions of grandeur to their writing; although in the case of Millar, with Hollywood now licking his scrotum, one can maybe understand why. Millar's snarky attitude seems to bleed into everything he writes, a problem Bendis also has, and it becomes a real turn off.
The delicious irony of all this is that in the case of FF, both retailers and Marvel have no longer seen this as essential stuff. After a brief spike, sales fell to "average" FF numbers before a year was up. And Marvel is so eager to just end this run and focus on the upcoming Hickman that Hitch has been yanked from the final issue, with fill in art by Immonen. Yes, Marvel so wants the run to end on time, they are, gasp, using fill in art on a Millar/Hitch project. With that in mind, I highly doubt that Dr. Doom will be allowed to perish in so undignified a manner. Marvel didn't let Grant Morrison kill Magneto, now did they? That said, I could do without some of the holier-than-thou flair of a writer creating a retcon menace out of nowhere, having it "own" the Four's greatest villain, and then lambaste him on how lame he is. All with a name that not even the Umbrella Academy would take seriously - Marquis of Death? What next, Matinee of Malice?
In short, not the worst issue, but a needlessly decompressed and condescending one. It's not the worst FF ever but it sure isn't as great as it thinks it is. To paraphrase another Millar line from the apparently Hollywood worthy KICK-ASS, "It thinks it's HEROES Season One, but instead it's Season-Freaking-Two."
(Millar also hasn't learned that nothing dates a work as quickly as pop culture references. There are none in the issue, thankfully.)
Dr. Doom deserves a lot better, though. He was the inspiration for Darth Vader, after all. Once upon a time he was the premire Marvel villain. Now he makes Hordak look good (and Hordak had to settle for taking on He-Man's kid sister, after all).
Next: WAR OF KINGS: SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR #1 & UNCANNY X-MEN FIRST CLASS GIANT-SIZE #1.
-- over the years cannot be balanced out by whatever Darkest Before The Dawn, Find Your Way Out Of The Dregs, Timmy Gets His Groove Back Blah Blah Blah Blah BLAH whatever story you have planned for this upcoming run. Because you know what? This plot, this exact ****ing plot, has been Tim Drayne's ****ing life for the past ****ing **** **** **** years now. I don't think anyone at DC even understands this, how much damage they've done to him. How much of a cypher they've made this character. If it was just one or two tragedies over the years, yeah I can see the whole "You have to fall to get up again" story working. But it's all they've been doing with him, and he never actually gets all the way back before they kick him back down again!
Kano's art was good as well.
