James Robinson signing @ Outpost 2/26, 5-7 PM

The first signing for Comic Outpost is a super-doozy: Industry legend James Robinson (who, fun fact, had his first GN release with LONDON'S DARK the same year I opened my first store) will be appearing to support FANTASTIC FOUR #1 (on day of release), as well as ALL-NEW INVADERS and his Image comic THE SAVIORS.  I couldn't be more excited. Comic Outpost is located at 2381 Ocean Ave in San Francisco.  There is buckets of free parking north of the store, and we literally have a stop of the K line streetcar right in front of the shop; we're all of 8 stops on the underground from downtown, it is a short and easy hop.

(And thank you Jeff Lester for reminding me I didn't post that here. Facebook is just too easy to fall back upon  -- especially with two stores and sometimes-14 hour workdays and 7 days a week since 12/16 -- I need to get a flow that works better, damnit!)

The new issue of THE SAVIORS came out today!

-B

A buncha zeroes

Yeah, so the DC "Zero month", hows that working out?

(I know this is lazy bloggery, finding an easy theme and going from there, but in my defense it took me longer to write the Tilting than I thought it was going to take, and I gave Kimbrough the weekend, so I've been working a crazy lot recently. I'm sleepy!)

One thing I'm not going to do is be all dumb and try to review each and every one of these comics -- my head still aches from doing that with the #1s. So, just overviewy time, I think. Let's start with some new books?

PHANTOM STRANGER #0: There are some characters -- like, say, Wolverine -- who stay much more interesting when there're bits of them shrouded in mystery. Knowing that ol' Logan used to be a foppish little child who wore a night dress... well it kind of diminishes him, I think. Much the same with the Phantom Stranger, whose very appeal IS IN HIS NAME. "I...am a stranger."

So, turning him (actually) into Judas Iscariot (with his trademark '70s love-disk necklace becoming the literal 30 pieces of silver) is... well, ill-considered, at best, right?

What you need to remember is that when there was an issue of "Secret Origins" about The Phantom Stranger in the 80s, DC was clever enough to give him four different possible origins. That's smart, and really kind of amusing really. But, no, today we need to be all literal. Ugh.

It's a bad idea though to really underline that both the God of the Old Testament and the "Council of Wizards" on display here who are handing out apparently handing out god-like powers and conditions and, like, the Greco-Roman pantheons all exist in the same world. You CAN make it work, but mostly by God being indirect, but in this first issue we're already well off the rails, as Dan Didio conflates The Phantom Strangers origin with that of The Spectre. Oh boy.

So, follow along: PS *is* Judas, condemned to "walk this land until the debt for your sins is paid". And, when PS levels up, one of the thirty pieces of silver drops from his chain. (!)

So, let's think about the storytelling problems with this set-up.

First and foremost, "Redeeming Judas" is a fairly distasteful Plot -- 30 level-ups and PS is forgiven for killing the Son of God, really? We're going to make Adolph Hitler the next Green Lantern, next? Yikes!

The second problem is that PS' first level-up comes from encouraging Jimmy Corrigan along a path that makes him The Spectre. In other words, he earns his first level-up from essentially *betraying* Corrigan, not helping him. This version of God is a supremely large asshole, doncha think? Didio tries to kind of be coy about the involvement of God by being all "I'm not sure whose Voice it really is", but this is all put to a lie at the end when the Voice clearly has the power to not only create, but to control The Spectre.

Theologically, cosmologically, this thing is just a horrid mess -- it feels like the kind of idea come up with at 3 in the morning, the night before your solicitation copy is due, when someone panics and points out that someone counted wrong, and you only have 51 books in the third wave. It's just possible that maybe, the setup could be messaged to make work, but it would take a much more skilled writer than Didio to rise above the errors of the plot.

Brent Anderson's art is nice, of course, but otherwise this comic is a fairly insane mess. Flatly AWFUL.

TEAM 7 #0: Here's a book whose premise I really don't understand: is it meant to be permanently set in the past? It's a "flashback" series? That won't work, not with these characters, at least... ugh, and my first week sales really show that (3 copies only? ruh roh). Wow, I'll be selling zero copies by issue #6 for certain.

The problem is, kinda, that this is retarded: they won't tell us the backstories of, say, the JLA in the "five year gap", but they want people to buy a team that includes Grifter and Deathstroke... characters in the bottom 20% of DC sales? And that it is a mixed hybrid of WS and DCU at that? Ew. It's all guns and ammo pouches and belts and shoulder pads... and really nothing that almost anyone in the modern audience is really interested in at all.

The other problem is there are at least 9 team members introduced in this first issue (but only seven on the cover, so guessing a few of those are introduced-to-die), plus "control" from Lynch -- and introducing all of THAT doesn't leave any room for, y'know, actual plot.

I'm giving this a Thumbs Down, but from pure craft, it's not any worse than OK.

EARTH 2 #0: I was really wondering how the LAST wave of books was going to work, considering they had just started and all that, and here's one answer: it feels like James Robinson had no idea what to do with this interruption to his world building -- most of this issue is really just a minor redo of issue #1, now with more Terry Sloan. Pity, I was groovin' on this until now. OK.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #0: Some of these books are playing "fast and loose" with continuity, and this one might be a good example: Guy Gardner has a TOTALLY different origin here than in the original comics -- here, he's the fully trained sector partner of Hal Jordan, plus he's a failed cop from a family of cops. In the original, Guy was a gym teacher who missed being a GL by a few feet, geographically, then was rescued from a coma by a rogue Guardian during the first Crisis. So... I guess none of those Englehart/Staton issues actually happened, then? But... if none of that happened, then... how did Hal ultimately go nuts, and become Parallax, which lead to the Rebirth, which lead to the Blackest Night? Add that to the other characters that couldn't have participated in that story, then how was GL #1 a follow-up to Brightest Day? Oh god, oh god, my head hurts! THIS is why the "five year gap" simply doesn't work -- you tug on one thread and all of a sudden all of the rest of it falls apart.

If you want a laugh (or maybe I'm the only one who is laughing), go look up the Wiki page for Guy Gardner and watch how BOTH his pre- and post-DCnU are expressed on the page, jumping back and forth between them paragraph by paragraph. Silly.

This new origin is pretty EH -- it makes Guy Just Another Corpsman, rather than the complex contradiction he used to be. Oh Well.

GREEN LANTERN #0: It's actually kind of nice to read a #0 that's contemporary, AND an origin, AND will be followed up directly next month. The new GL is Muslim-American -- how timely. And, of course, his "origin" involves 9/11 and being mistaken for a terrorist. OF COURSE.

And, sure, 9/11. 2001. Which is made explicit in GL #0, since it's more than 10 years ago, by captions. But, of course, BATMAN #0 takes place "six years ago"... making Bruce and Kal and everything else explicitly post-"War on Terror" and, Jesus, doesn't THAT change the characters dramatically? And that, folks, is why you NEVER tie superhero comics to explicit dates or historical events -- my son was 3 years old when the JLA started? *headsplode*

Anyway, back to GL -- I'm pretty cool with this new setup, except for the cover, I think -- why does the muslim GL have to wear a gimp mask and carry a gun (!) when he's got a MAGIC WISHING RING on the end of his fist? Why wear a mask like that when your EXTREMELY DISTINCTIVE tattoo is all lit up in green light?

But, even with all of that, this COULD work... if only GL didn't launch into a four-month, four-book crossover next month. *sigh*

Even with all that, I kind of thought it was a low GOOD.

BATMAN #0: As I noted before, this goes the furthest back in the "near past", set SIX years ago. But, I think this might have been one of the most effective #0s I've read so far as it really did try to add to the legend of Batman, showing us something we've never seen before, with pre-costume batman-ing. And, I frankly loved the backup story (mostly from the art by Andy Clarke), even with the whole Jason's-an-accessory-to-murder bit (which is reasonably fine with his character) -- so, yeah, I'm going to say this one is VERY GOOD, even if the timeline makes zero sense.

OK, books almost arriving today, I'm out of time... as always, what did YOU think?

-B

All this and Earth, too? Hibbs starts on 5/2

Everybody loves comics!

ACTION COMICS #9: This is a lot more like what I was hoping for from Grant Morrison on a regular ongoing Superman comic -- focusing on President Superman from Earth-23. last seen in FINAL CRISIS -- but I was a bit surprised to not find the "real" Superman anywhere in the story. Still, Silver Age-y without feeling dated, and lots of fun things happen. Gene Ha's art was as awesome as always. I thought this was VERY GOOD. AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 (OF 12) AVX: Brubaker's got the writing spot this week, so maybe that's why I felt this issue had a bunch more plot? I can't even imagine how this is going to read in trade, with it's crazy tonal shifts every issue? I thought this one was strongly OK.

DIAL H #1: China Mieville's comic debut, and it's pretty decent. There are a few mechanical problems with the set up (most namely: how do you dial four digits 0n a *rotary dial* phone by accident when trying to call for help in the middle of witnessing a horrible beating?), and I have to admit that I'm not sure that I at all like the notion that the H-dial is in a static location, but putting that aside, I very much liked this issue. (On the other hand, I always liked the Robbie Reed version as well) (Sockamagee!)

I liked the schlubbiness of the protagonist, I very much liked the dialed up heroes (Captain Lachrymose needs an ongoing series, stat!), and I just liked the general weird vibe on display here -- this comic could be perfectly at home at pre-Vertigo Vertigo, and whatcha know, it's Karen Berger editing her first superhero comic in 20-something years.

The art by Mateus Santolouco sort of veers back and forth between some Ted McKeever-looking wonderfulness to "Ugh, you need more fundamentals", but it certainly works with the book just fine. Overall: VERY GOOD

EARTH 2 #1: Having read this, I really really can't even begin to understand all of the faffing about in the pre-print interviews of "well, we really can't describe this to you", because, unless there's a dramatic change from what's on display in this first issue (which would then, arguably be a not-so-good FIRST issue), this seems easy to shorthand: it's the formation of a NEW e2-based Justice Society (though maybe they'll never be called that, who knows), where the set-up is in contemporary times, rather than ww2.

I'm a pretty big ("real") JSA fan, and I didn't really like any of the new costumes we've seen so far, so I was suspicious of this at first, but yeah, I very much liked the setup and world building, and slow roll-out of characters.

James Robinson's script was solid -- I felt a real emotional tingle in that scene between Bruce & Helena -- and Nicola Scott's art is as strong as always. I don't know if I will like the new JSA, really (there's really only 7-8 pages of those characters, the rest of the oversized space is dedicated to setting up the world), but as a "Yes, I would like to see more, please" first issue, I thought this was VERY GOOD.

EPIC KILL #1:  If you want to see teenage hotties do acrobatics like River Tam in Firefly, with lots of slaughter, then this is surely the comic for you. Largely reading like a pitch for a movie, it at least has fairly pretty art by Raffaele Ienco that kind of reminds me of John Ridgeway, I think -- detailed, but with straight lines not noodly curvy ones, yet just ever so slightly stiff because of that. Anyway, since the base idea feels so "Seen that a dozen times", the joy of this kind of work is all in the *execution* of the idea, and there's just enough "hey, cool" scenes to have me say that this is GOOD.

GI COMBAT #1: Half the book is about soldiers fighting dinosaurs, so there's that, and as a plus the art is by Ariel Olivetti, and it really fits here; the other half is yet another new take on "Unknown Soldier", who is getting close to becoming DC's equivalent in the if-we-keep-relaunching-him-someone-will-like-it-eventually-right? sweepstakes to Moon Knight. I think they need to try again, as I was really entirely uninterested in this version, sorry. I think this may be a concept that just can't work in the 21st century, maybe because of the "unknown" part, and that doesn't work in our database-driven world (esp with regards to soldiers, I'd have to say). Anyway, like the first half, disliked the second, which means I can't say better then EH.

MIND THE GAP #1 :Another book that reads a little more like a pitch then a comic, but I thought this pitch was fairly terrific. The set-up is for a whodunnit kind of mystery, with the victim's spirit interacting on the, dunno, astral plane, maybe is what to call it, with what looks like a little touch of Deadman-meets-Quantum Leap, maybe?  Jim McCann's script is very strong, and the characters vivid, while the art by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback is realistic, without being creepy and off-putting, like some in that style become. As a bonus, this first issue is oversized @ 48 pages, and just a mere $2.99, making it a helluva deal. No doubt this was a VERY GOOD comic!

STAR TREK ONGOING #8: Given that the premise of the first six issues of this series was adapting/converting classic Trek episodes with the movie characters, you might have missed that they followed that with a two-parter (starting in issue #7), that followed up on the film, with the Romulans and the last drop of "Red Matter" -- I know I sure did until I grabbed this issue to read, and went, "Wait... that's not TOS!" (from the "next issue" pic, it looks like they're going back to that and "The Return of the Archons"). I don't know that I exactly care about the tattooed Romulan faction, or Red Matter, but it was nice to see something wholly new set in this universe (and, in theory, "official"). I thought it was highly OK, and if you miss the TOS characters, recast or not, this was a fun little follow-up.

SUPREME #64: Wow. this should be taught as a masterclass in how to utter destroy a previous set-up in 22 pages, and replace it with the exact opposite. I really loved the clever way that Moore set up his "all versions are true" love letter to Superman, and it's own set up gave all of the ability to complete rewrite the rules as new creators came onboard, but instead Erik Larsen rips it all to shreds and chucks it out the window for the ugliest possible of all iterations of Supreme. That takes mad skills, yo. The craziest part to me is actually the letter's page to the issue (which I suspect won't be in a digital version, sorry) where Larsen defends his actions by comparing this to following Todd on Spider-Man, or whoever followed Miller & Mazuchelli after "Born Again" in Daredevil. the difference, of course, being that there's a 15-or-so year gap here between issues, and while the argument is at least understandable when related to regular ongoing production of corporately owned icons (the trains, in fact, have to keep running), it's utterly bizarre in this case, especially after they went out of their way to try and show "respect" to Alan Moore by illustrating his final "lost" script.

Obviously, the difference between, say, WATCHMEN and this situation is that the creator of the property is the owner and can do whatever they want on work-for-hire material, but there's a dissonance here that my brain is ringing from.

Erik is a talented creator, and this work has a lot of energy, but I really liked the Moore version of Supreme (and pretty much hated the grim'n'gritty take that preceded it), so I thought this comic was pretty AWFUL

WORLDS FINEST #1: I have to say that if I were DC marketing, I wouldn't have scheduled the two Earth-2 related comics in the same week, but I just sell the things, what do I know? But, I also have to say that I really really liked this one, as well. Paul Levitz turns in the first script in months that I genuinely liked from start to finish, and the twin artist (George Perez in the modern sequences, Kevin Maguire on the flashbacks) really worked much better than I thought it would. Yeah, I really thought this was strong, VERY GOOD stuff.

The one problem? That logo. Jesus, that's a horrible horrible disaster -- it looks cluttered and terrible using the "across the room" test (if you can't pick a logo/design element/whatever from across the room, it fails), and it's not at all clear what the name of the comic IS, with "Huntress" being over "World's Finest". Yow.

X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #1: If you read the original in the 90s, you've pretty much read this first issue, as it really alters very little of the original setup, just with a little more depth, maybe. It reads well, it's pretty enough, but I didn't feel like "OMG! I need to read the next one right now!" Maybe I'll check back in a few issues to see if they're doing new stories and not just retelling things I already know. Or, maybe I won't. OK.

Right, that's me -- what did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 77: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

(Illustration from Chapter 166 of Bakuman. Remember it's a right-to-left world out there.)

Remember how The Uncanny X-Men would, like, get psychically mind-raped by The Hellfire Club, or shot full of Brood babies and be torn apart from the inside, or bound and gagged to the inside of Magneto's rumpus room, and then afterward there'd be an issue of them playing baseball and walking around the recently rebuilt (since it had also been recently destroyed) mansion of Professor X?

This episode is a little bit like that, I guess, with Graeme and I recovering from answering (almost) everyone's questions and having ourselves quite the crazy time of it on the Internet.  So Episode 77 is two hours of amiable chitchat from your friends on the Wait, What? team talking Graeme's library picks, Spider-Island, the high initial ordering numbers of Avengers Vs. X-Men, our ignorance of current MTV reality shows, He Who Cannot Be Named, the pros and cons of going to the comic shop, The Hunger Games, Earth 2, Dr. Who, Tintin, and that one movie with Christian Bale and the gun-fu, as well as the One Piece Meets Toriko (which I brain-deadedly call "Tobiko" throughout) one-shot available from Shonen Jump Alpha.   (Which I almost ganked a picture from instead.)

Four out of five dentists who recommend choosy mothers choose iTunes, but Episode 77 is here, coiled and cautious, if you dare plunge your fists again and again into its evil, undying heart:

Wait, What? Ep. 77.1: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

As always, we hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 71: Funk, Soul, Brother

Yep, a bit of a delay but here we are, more or less as promised: Wait, What? Ep. 71, featuring our new theme song courtesy of the hyper-talented Graeme McMillan. This done-in-one episode is not quite two hours and forty-five minutes and covers, um, lots of stuff.

Stuff like OMAC and the other cancelled new52 titles; the current state of George Perez's career and what Marvel's marketing team could do with it; Mark Millar's Trouble and Spider-Man; comments by Charles Vess and Ariel Olivetti about Marvel; Mark Waid's Amazing Spider-Man/Daredevil crossover, Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men as well as Wolverine #300.

Plus, a lot of babbling from Jeff about PunisherMAX #21; a debate how many "good" issues a creator might have in them; Secret Avengers, Astonishing X-Men, Warren Ellis, and in-canon behavior; James Robinson and Shade; the preview issue of Shonen Jump Alpha; and Marvel Two-in-One vol. 4.

See? Worth the wait. (Probably.)

We would like to think it is on iTunes, but we are all but certain you can listen to it here, thanks to the handy link below:

Wait, What? Ep. 71: Funk, Soul, Brother

As always, we thank you for listening and hope you enjoy!

Wait, What? Ep. 46: Sympathy for the Mephisto Analogue

So much time! So little to do!

(Wait a minute. Reverse that.)

It's the latest episode of Wait, What? wherein Graeme McMillan and yours truly talk about those comic books what need talking about: Wolverine #9; Flashpoint tie-ins The Superman Project #1 and Reverse Flash #1; James Robinson's JLA; Earth X; Green Lantern Mosaic; Kirby Genesis #1; Steve Englehart's Captain America and much more. You might even discover the true identity of that cute little tyke up there.

It should be available on iTunes by now, and it is also the sort of thing that you could be listening to here and now, if that's the sort of thing that kung-pao's your chicken:

Wait, What? Ep. 45: Sympathy for the Mephisto Analogue

As always, we hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!

Graeme's 2010 Guilty Pleasure: Justice League of America

Apropos of nothing, I re-read James Robinson's run to date on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA over the weekend - in part because I hadn't read the latest issue by that point, and wanted to remind myself of what was happening before I did - and, as I did so, I realized two things. Firstly, it's actually a book that I've come to really love, despite itself. And secondly, I can completely understand why that "despite itself" might be such a problem for everyone else. Let's get this out of the way first of all: Robinson's JLA is very, very different from his Justice League: Cry For Justice. It's not as overwrought or, thankfully, as overwritten, and tonally it's much lighter and more constructive than the mini that preceded it. In fact, one of the things that I like about it is how much it's contributed to the DCU, whether it's a new German superteam (The Elite Guard, who are apparently using repurposed Rocket Red technology) or a new magical society on the dark side of the moon, ruled by the golden age Green Lantern. He's also brought in STAR Labs for the first time in a long time, it seems like, and uses forgotten or underused characters like Naiad, Josiah Power or Sebastian Faust in a way that feels less like Easter Egg cameos but something more organic, and I really enjoy that - That he makes JLA into a book that's somehow bigger than the team itself, and more of a book about the DC Universe.

It's something that spills into the story arcs, which skew towards the epic wherever possible: Something is destroying the multiverse! Something is causing all the people with environmental superpowers to go insane! There's an ambition to what Robinson's trying to do, and it really appeals to me. So much so, in fact, that it allows me to overlook the (admittedly, fairly obvious) problems with the book. For one thing, there's the scattered nature of the plotting - Less so now, thankfully, but the first six issues of Robinson's run was marked by some amazingly disjointed plots and two complete overhauls to the team's line-up, one happening midway through the third issue of the new line-up and essentially happening off-panel with little explanation. Presumably, a lot of that was editorially mandated (Even if some of it makes little sense: Cyborg was seemingly written out to go... nowhere?), and a plot that started his run took two issues off before continuing for three issues before disappearing for another six issues.

There's also the issue of the art. JLA has been a book that's historically never really worked artistically for me since maybe Adam Hughes' JLI run way back when (with the exception of Doug Mahnke's art in the last run), and viewed in that continuum, Mark Bagley's art is definitely better than Ed Benes' or Howard Porter: Characters are in proper human proportion, and page layouts are clear and understandable. But - and this may be inking, in part - there's a generic quality to the faces, and everyone looks about seventeen years old. Which, you know, works great on Ultimate Spider-Man, but not so much here. Things aren't likely to get better with Bagley's departure, as Brett Booth - one of the few comic artists whose work I'd honestly classify as ugly - is set to take over as regular penciller. I hope it'll surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

I know that I should classify JLA as a guilty pleasure: I'm well aware that it has large flaws, but there's something about its spirit and ambition, about its sense of fun, that makes me love it nonetheless. Much like the equally-flawed-yet-addictive X-Men Forever, it's something that I find myself looking forward to, and wanting more of as soon as I'm finished with each issue. Objectively, I know that it's probably only Okay, but for whatever reason, I wouldn't feel right calling it any less than Good.

Coming up next: My 2010 Guilty Non-Pleasure.

Around the Store in 31 Days: Day Five

If you're old enough, you might remember when DC comics had a slogan int he UPC box of their Direct Market-shipping comics that said something "DC Comics: They're not just for kids anymore!"

And, in general, the comic book industry has really followed that lead -- comics AREN'T for kids any longer (except for a very small number of titles)

To me this is kind of a shame. When I bring home the new week's books, and plop on the sofa to start reading them, I often have to chase Ben (now four-years old) away when I'm reading something even as supposedly as innocuous as SPIDER-MAN or SUPERMAN, because there's just so much violence and in them.

Unnecessary violence and blood, for that matter.

Some of my favorite fiction is "for kids" -- I can watch WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (Gene Wilder version) weekly, if I had to. I love reading Ben books like CHARLOTTE'S WEB or JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH or our current project of going through the Baum OZ books (man, there's some archaic language in those though -- I find myself "rewriting" them as I read them) -- and I'd say that the best kid's work really needs to have things that appeal to EVERYONE in them.

So today's pick is a GN aimed at kids, but also working very well for adults, too!

More after the jump...

There's a couple of easy and obvious choices for "Kid's" comics. It's hard to go wrong with a BONE or a Carl Bark's UNCLE SCROOGE comic, or even the first incarnations of the "DC Animated" comics (BATMAN ADVENTURES, SUPERMAN ADVENTURES), but I'm going to go with something a smidge more "obscure".

James Robinson & Paul Smith's LEAVE IT TO CHANCE.

The "high concept" of this series can be summed up as "NANCY DREW meets HARRY POTTER", (Well, though Robinson't intro to v1 calls it "NANCY DREW meets KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER", but then, HARRY POTTER started in '98, and the introduction is dated '97) and its just tons of fun.

There's action, suspense, adventure, magic, and even a cute pet dragon, and its both absolutely wonderful for kids AND adults, just like it should be.

LEAVE IT TO CHANCE is one of those books that just doesn't turn very often (in fact, it might be the slowest sellers in our kid's section), but I'll continue to carry it until the day I die because I just like it so much. It is usually my number one suggestion to parent's looking blankly at the kid's section, but they almost always opt for something THEY've previously heard of.

Format might be working against sales, as well -- CHANCE is available in three oversized "European" laminated hardcovers, which makes it look more expensive than it actually is (and compared to a number of "real world" kids books, it's down right cheap)

Either way, the stories are a delight, never talking down to its audience, always crisp and fun, while Paul Smith's artwork is just drop-dead gorgeous.

Comics: They aren't just for adults. Read some LEAVE TO CHANCE and find out!

-B