"No WANDERING OFF." COMICS (and MOVIES)! Sometimes All Other Priorities Are Rescinded!

Hello! You can blame this one on a conversation I had at a party. I say party but at my age that's four men in a suburban living room with some nibbles and tinnies with the conversation always one slurred word away from movies. At that point it's all about ALIEN from my end of the couch. And so is this huge block of stale drivel. It's a bit wayward but if you stick with it I do mention comics eventually. Dedicated to the enduring magic of the wrestler, teacher and actor Mr. Brian Glover (1934-1997).

Anyway, this... In The Interest of Clarity & Fairness John Tells You What He’s Up To This Time Out

Bodged together with duct tape as they may be my sensors indicate a sudden flurry of micro changes in air density in the Dark Horse licencing department lately. Either this is to soften the sting of Weyland-Yutani Disney-Marvel nabbing back the licence to the children’s entertainment STAR WARS or because there’s a new ALIEN videogame out. Not actually being employed by Dark Horse I don’t really know. But it turns out that there’s a fat batch of interconnected limited series capped off by a finale issue. If I’ve got it right you’ve got four issues each of PROMETHEUS: RON & NANCY, ALIENS: PORK AND BEANS, ALIENS VERSUS PREDATOR: GREEN EGGS AND HAM, PREDATOR: FLARES & BEADS (or maybe they are all subtitled FIRE AND STONE, but where’s the fun in that, eh?) To top it all off there’s some bow tying by Kelly Sue DeConnick in a finale issue. No, I don’t know who’s drawing the finale but, yes, I know who’s writing it because that’s how comics (a primarily visual medium) works these days. So, you know, it’s been a while since I tried your patience so I thought I’d do something special for you. I ran the numbers and apparently in dollars the cost of all these comics comes to, let’s see, carry the one, and…a fuck-ton of money. It’s certainly a bit rich for my palate. So I’ll tell you what: I’ll look at the first issue of each. Financially it’s still a bit racy but that’s how much I love you. Hopefully the prospect of all this will grab you a bit more pleasantly than a big hand-crab trying to face rape you. Having actually read some of my writing I can’t guarantee that though.

It All Starts Promisingly enough But Then John is Immediately Side-tracked Into Talking About Movies he Hasn’t Watched For So Long He’s Really Just Talking About Memories And We All Know How Reliable That Jackass’s Memory Is

The idea was if nothing else I’d have a good time because, well, I’m enormously selfish and also because I really like ALIEN movies. Except after a moment’s thought I realised I didn’t. You can skip to the comics if you want at this point. It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure Review!

Do you want to listen to an old man moan about movies turn to page 2.

Turn to page 243 and hear him complain about comics.

If you roll a 6 go and spend time with someone you love.

Take A Picture To Capture That Magic Moment Where He Shows Enthusiasm Rather Than Belittling Disdain or ALIEN (1979)

I do like ALIEN; ALIEN is great. No complaints on that score. ALIEN is the movie that comes for you in the night. ALIEN is one of those movies which you watch for the first time and you feel something click firmly home and you know you will be watching this movie for as long as you are watching movies. I have been watching ALIEN for about thirty years with the odd break here and there to live this life thing and I still never get bored of ALIEN. ALIEN is. ALIEN. ALIEN. ALIEN. Jeff “Altered States” Lester wrote about ALIEN here because Jeff Lester is a man of great taste. (Although in his characteristically dazzling piece he forgets that the big difference between ALIEN and STAR WARS is STAR WARS is for children.) Some of you might remember Jeff Lester and his partner in wonder Graeme McMillion$ from before. Before they set out for the new life which awaited them in the off-world colonies. I wonder how their new Patreon funded life of steak and fine wines is working out for them. Watch out for that gout, guys! Anyway, ALIEN; the pinnacle of people trapped in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movies. ALIEN; crew expendable: story of my life; story of all our lives. The massive (I’m talking creative not financial; sheesh) success of ALIEN is all very odd because ALIEN should just be a piece of enjoyably trashy genre hokum, but it is in fact far better than that. Decades after it burst into cinemas it still leaves me feeling soiled and twitchy after every viewing. And that’s hardly because I don’t know what’s coming; it’s because ALIEN has real power. ALIEN has the power of nightmares; the power of the poorly suppressed thought; the power of the suspicion that the Universe never got the memo about you actually mattering. In ALIEN as soon as they answer the distress call everything doesn’t just start going wrong, everything starts becoming wrong. I’m not even getting into all the stuff about the leathery egg sacs, organic openings and mobile, fanged phalluses (Phallusi? Phalluseseses?). ALIEN is. And it remains so to this day.

A Superficial Look At The Last James Cameron Movie He Enjoyed Ends Up With Us All In An Arcade In Cornwall or ALIENS (1986)

After that it’s ALIENS which is still good stuff. It’s James Cameron and the big thing about James Cameron is that the more money and freedom he has then the less interesting he gets. Luckily, with ALIENS he’s just about at the outer limits of my interest so I still have a good time. And that’s not bad for a movie that old; it still thrills and I still jump but it doesn’t wound like its progenitor does. There’s something redundantly comforting about ALIENS’ desire to explain (there are eggs; there is a Queen; they are like insects; I have killed the magic!) ALIEN doesn’t want you to understand what’s going on; some mystery stubbornly remains because, well, that’s unsettling. ALIENS explains things too much and becomes an action movie rather than a horror movie. It’s a very good action movie but it’s only a pretty good ALIEN movie. Experience tells me things get contentious quick with ALIENS but let me be clear here: I don’t mind ALIENS. The woman whose life I soil daily with my very presence thinks it has dated horribly. I don’t know, I think ALIENS still rocks. James Horner's urgent bin lids clatterthon of a score helps more than people admit. Could do without the kid though; Isn’t she plucky, now bugger off. Mind you, whenever the family unit goes on holiday we check out the arcades and have a pop on that ALIENS arcade game; the one with the mounted guns. That game is always somewhere in every arcade. I saw a new game where you shoot animals like an American but I don’t think that’ll catch on in Cornwall. Animals, no. Xenomorphs, yes. Stands to reason. Since I am a wholly regrettable human being I can only guess that the secret of a long lasting relationship is hunting down the ALIENS arcade game and playing it together. So, yes, I don’t mind ALIENS but it isn’t ALIEN. And, yes, someone out there will prefer ALIENS to ALIEN because the world will always need people who are mistaken.

“Thus arse RHEUM-ARE CuNDRoll!” or ALIEN3 (1992)

I’ll be uncharacteristically direct: ALIEN CUBED isn’t exactly a good movie. People let it off a lot because of its ‘troubled production’ and because David Fincher went on to do FIGHT CLUB. Me, I like it better than I probably should because it is filled with British accents. If ALIEN is HP Lovecraft’s BLUE COLLAR in space then ALIEN CUBED is HP Lovecraft’s PORRIDGE in space. It’s both comforting and amusing to think that in the far flung future no matter how far you go from Earth your lugs will still rattle to a Yorkshire bark. ALIEN CUBED is even more special to me because one of the accents is bellowed by Brian (KES) Glover, who not only looks like my Uncle Kenneth but, better yet, once pulled his car in on North Bridge to ask me and a mate directions to the digs he was due to stay in while treading the boards at the Civic Theatre. Yes, later in the ‘rub-a-dub-dub’ over some ‘laugh and titter’ we did both wish we’d told him to “stick to the road and stay off the moor”. I guess that’s not really my anecdote as such because I hung back in my usual fear of life but I nicked it anyway. Sorry, Justin. If you ever look up the unused scripts for ALIEN CUBED by William “Neuromancer” Gibson and David “PITCH BLACK” Twohy you’ll appreciate the filmed ALIEN CUBED even more as neither of the rejected scripts seem too concerned with the Alien. In fact they seem to begrudge the Alien’s contractually obliged interruptions of, respectively, the cold war analogy and the space prison hijinks which form the bulk of them. Both scripts continue the shift started by Cameron in ALIENS from movies about the Alien to movies about other things which happen to have the Alien in them. While ALIEN CUBED fails to be the former it at least struggles like a good ‘un not be the latter. Sure, like Twohy’s script, there’s a prison setting but, endearingly, Fincher & Co are clearly trying to make the Alien central again. The movie works hard not to have the Alien secondary to a larger analogy but to be integral to any analogies which might be occurring in the movie’s vicinity. I mean, it is a bit of a mess so I don’t quite know what it’s on about but I can tell it’s trying to be on about something; that always gets points in my book. I just looked and there’s a rejigged version on my Blu_Ray (I know; swanky!). It’s supposed to be well different with the Alien coming out of an ox rather than a dog and Brian Glover telling a protracted joke about remembering the Alamo (not really). I was surprised that, apparently, none of the dropped footage included Steven Berkoff as the movie largely consists of sweaty bald Englishmen shouting in thick accents so he seems an odd omission. Anyway, I should give that a decco. I’ll come back and edit this bit if I’ve had time to watch it. (I guess I didn’t get time.)

For The Entertainment of Children And The Easily Amused Faecal Matter is Referenced To Excess or ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997)

Similarly ALIEN RESURRECTION had a ‘troubled production’ but no one lets it off because it’s shit. It’s very pretty but it’s still shit. Here all ALIEN CUBED’s spirited resistance to the insistent trend of the Alien movies away from the Alien was steamrollered into the dirt. The result is a glossy action movie with a great cast (Brad Dourif!) and spectacular set design saddled with a script so shitty it smears everything about it. Worse, it might as well have had irradiated shih tzus in it as the Alien. My favourite reaction to this movie was that of the late and very great H R Giger in a documentary where, commenting on the Nu-Alien, he said something roughly on the lines of: “It was a piece of shit. Quite literally a piece of shit.” This terrible, terrible waste of everybody’s time, money and effort was written by Joss Whedon, but apparently it’s not his fault. He also did CABIN IN THE WOODS which I watched last week and that was also a piece of shit; this time because it was too busy being impressed with itself to actually be a movie. It was a lot like someone who thinks they’re above horror movies telling you about a horror movie they’d seen rather than, you know, watching an actual horror movie. It would have made a decent five minute skit, basically. Of course that’s because I’m old and certainly not because 90 odd minutes and several million dollars is a bit excessive for what is basically a smug joke about Scooby fucking Doo. Anyway, I’m sure that isn’t Joss Whedon’s fault either. So, yeah, where we? Oh, while ALIEN started it all off by beggaring expectations ALIEN RESURRECTION ends things by beggaring belief.

“I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed.” Or All The Other Stuff He’s Not Really Going To Bother Pretending He’s All That Interested In or PREDATOR/PREDATOR2/PREDATORS/ALIEN vs PREDATOR and PROMETHEUS

You shouldn’t really look so surprised when I tell you I really like PREDATOR, after all it is another people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movie. It also has a script that’s as tight as a nut and just rolls like the goddamn thunder. Everything about it is great except the guy starring in it, but everything about PREDATOR is so great I can put up with him. Ugh, that guy; not even ironically, you feel me? PREDATOR 2 is okay; if it came on I wouldn’t leave the room but I wouldn’t seek it out either. People who know about science (“science-tists”) have told me that PREDATORS is a bit dodgy on the old science front. I’ll take their word for it but I thought it was a great-stupid pulp premise which, sadly, stubbornly refused to ignite the expected flares of delight in my hind brain. Maybe it’s because Adrien Brody is as convincing an action hero as Rod Hull. Also, Laurence Fishburne looked like he was in more danger from gout than predators. Maybe he was Patreon funded too. Now, you all know me and how I live in fear of being called an elitist but, holy fuck, really, I mean, those ALIEN VS PREDATOR moves sure suck. I’ll admit I’ve only seen the first one as that was enough; it was like an uncharismatic jumble of cut scenes from a video game. Perhaps the second one is the SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS of people in a hostile environment being picked off one by one movies. After all, at our works’ Christmas do (pies in a pub; the glamour of it all!) last year a gentleman in his twenties revealed these AvP things were his favourite movies. EVER. Yes, even better than COLOR OF NIGHT. I know! Basically though it’s hard to feel I was at fault in my dislike since by this point it had not escaped my notice that the Alien franchise was reduced to the level of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Oh, and I haven’t watched PROMETHEUS. Can I go out and play now?

Meanwhile Back At The Point or THE COMICS!!!!

PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Juan Ferrya Written by Paul Tobin Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by David Palumbo Dark Horse Comics, 22 pages, $£3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014)

This begins oddly with a prologue featuring a probe which is mobile enough to travel billions of miles through space and smart enough to analyse an entire environment but is neither smart nor mobile enough to avoid somebody’s foot. This foot is either a shout out to the movie (which I haven’t seen) or a secret to be revealed at its own sweet pace; it’s hard to tell because the story then jumps forward around 129 years whereupon Tobin proceeds to treat us to, well, a rerun of ALIEN basically. Sure, Juan Ferrya busts his talented nuts trying to disguise this by draping everything in the high-end hotel bathroom aesthetic of PROMETHEUS as opposed to the bedsit squalor of ALIEN, but it’s basically ALIEN all over again. That’s not a bad idea but unfortunately everything’s kind of pumped up to the extent that it starts to undermine things. There are a lot more characters here than in ALIEN but they are a lot more unlikeable and a lot more stupid, particularly as most of them are scientists and particularly as the ALIEN crew were verging on the suicidally daft in the first place. These Prometheans just sort of wander around blithe at the sight of all these “phenomena” (bit of science jargon there, cheers) which at best should necessitate a reconsideration of some of the more fundamental assumptions humanity has made about the nature of existence, and at worst strongly hint that the whole place is more dangerous than a jumper made of those bloody lethal Japanese kitchen knives.

These great minds of science find weird goop displaying the qualities of everything ever in chaotic flux and then casually slip a bit in their pocket for later; requests like “Can I take these alien ants which have displayed unprecedented ferocity back on the ship?” are met with “Oh, go on then.” These geniuses would play Twister in a room full of bear traps. The comic ends when they discover just such a room and decide to open the door without, I don’t know, “scanning” it or whatever science can do by 2219. I’m pretty sure by 2219 science will be able to tell us what’s on the other side of a door. Something to look forward to there. Anyway, some dude who is dying of an unspecified illness, maybe space-gout, is going to do something really stupid, a lot of people are going to die screaming and, er, Juan Ferrya sure draws pretty. He’s got this colouring thing going on where it looks like he’s done it all with really hard coloured pencils (yes, I know but with a computer; thanks) and I found that interesting. His attractive and sedate visuals are quite appropriate to what is basically a set up cum travelogue issue. It may have taken a whole lot of stupid to get things moving but PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE is professional enough stuff: OKAY!

ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Patric Reynolds Written by Chris Roberson Coloured by Dave Stewart Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by David Paulmbo Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This series takes place before the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1

If you’re anything like me (and for your sake I hope not) you’ll often wake up in the night wondering what happened to that bunch of colonists we didn’t see in ALIENS. Well, rest easy, pilgrims, because this comic is all about what happened to those colonists we didn’t see in ALIENS. Basically they got attacked by Aliens flew to the moon where that PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE comic took place and got attacked again. If this bunch had any luck it would be shitty. This series starts off with a bang and rarely lets up; consequently it’s all largely running and screaming like a someone’s thrown a load of Aliens into a January Sale. So it’s to Chris Roberson’s credit that he still manages to introduce his cast and demonstrate the characteristics which will define them for the duration of the mini-series. However, it’s to his demerit that this is all largely just running and screaming because that relies on the art being strong enough to stop it all feeling a bit breezy; a bit lightweight. Before I get stuck in I would like to say that the artist, as with all modern artists working from other people’s scripts, has my sympathies. I imagine the script probably read a lot like this: (Obviously I have no idea what the script looked like. Maybe Chris Roberson described everything to the last detail and even provided breakdowns and sketches. I’m just assuming here which is always a really excellent idea; I’m having second thoughts about this bit now. Hope no one notices.)

ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE

PAGE 1 (3 Panels)

We are on that planet from ALIENS or something.

PANEL 1: The colonists are running and screaming.

COLONISTS: EEEEEE!

ALIENS: HISSSSSS!

PANEL 2: An Alien gets a colonist. (Have fun with it!)

COLONIST: AGHHH!

ALIEN: HISSSSSS!

PANEL 3: There are now less colonists but they are still running and screaming.

COLONISTS: EEEEEE!

ALIENS: HISSSSSS!

That type of thing is good for an artist because they can do what they want but it’s bad because the multiplicity of options is just as likely to paralyse. It takes quite a bit of work and talent to make something like the above visually impress on the printed page. Here the art is by Patric Reynolds, the guy who did CITY OF ROSES in DARK HORSE PRESENTS. I didn’t like his art there but it works a bit better here. A bit. His line is still unsettlingly flakey suggesting everything in the world he’s depicting is inordinately friable (I’ve probably said that before; it’s still true). I don’t have some beef with the guy, he can clearly draw but he’s not really the best choice to illustrate a lot of running and screaming. Mostly because conveying motion would be handy but his panels resemble movie stills. And while everyone looks human and has a definite look it’s another case of the Amazing Photo Faced People. There’s a very real difference between someone pulling a “oh noes!” face and someone actually scared shitless; ask your dentist. He’s gamely attempted to adapt his photo referenced style to Aliens but it looks a lot like he’s got some photos of apes lunging about and scratched out an Alien shape over the top. However, since the script calls for the Aliens to be out in the open a lot Reynolds does have a tough remit. A lot of the threat, the unsettling otherness, of the Aliens just dissipates when you can see them (which is why you don’t see it properly until the end of ALIEN; basics, people!) In a further bid at appeasement I will say his space scenes are pretty nice, but they are few and far between; mostly it’s just running and screaming which he’s not really suited to. Again though, his art isn’t terrible; most of the issues I’ve sadistically outlined as problematic are ones shared by a lot of comics artist. Doesn’t mean I have to let ‘em past! As harsh as all that sounds none of the book was woeful so ALIENS: FIRE AND STONE #1 gets OKAY!

ALIEN VS PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Ariel Olivetti Written by Christopher Sebela Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by E.M Gist Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This story takes place between the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #4 and PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

This one picks up after most all the cretins in PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE are dead. Most of them probably forgot to breathe, or maybe set fire to themselves because they were cold or tried to eat some live tigers. To avoid spoilers as to exactly how stupidly they died the book keep things vague, but it looks like the sickly dude did in fact do something fantastically ill-advised. Understandably then the unlikeable security guy has locked him up while they and all the other survivors fly off in the unattractively designed ship. It quickly becomes apparent that whatever the stupid thing the sickly dude did was it involved a Synthetic, Kevin Eldon. The effect on Kevin Eldon is a bit of a mixed bag; he now appears to be caked in a thick coating of icing but, balancing this, he can control it to make deadly fondant limbs. And while he’s now mentally inclined towards the more batshit end of the scale he can also control Aliens like they were hunt dogs. God giveth and God taketh away, is my take away there.

Most of the issue is Icing Covered Kevin Eldon casually strolling through the ship while talking and setting his Aliens loose on all the survivors. As if that weren’t a big enough pile of trouble some Predators take a break from killing wildlife on a garishly hued nearby world and decide to join in. Ariel Olivetti illustrates it in his usual style; the one which lurches unpredictably from genius to godawful. Sometimes even doing so between elements within the same panel. I think I was a bit tired at this point because both the art and story seemed a bit confusing really, but I did like how they solved the problem of getting Predators into the mix; they just show up! I know that might seem a bit simplistic but I don’t know how much sophistication you should realistically expect at this point. It’s ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR after all not ALIEN VERSUS MACBETH. (Give it time though.) OKAY!

PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 Art by Christopher Mooneyham Written by Joshua Williamson Coloured by Dan Brown Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Cover art by Lucas Graciano Dark Horse Comics, 25 pages, $3.99 print/digital or $1.99 digital after a period of time (2014) This series takes place after the events of PROMETHEUS: FIRE AND STONE #1-4 and ALIEN VS PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

This gets off to a strong start with a cover showing a Predator sneaking up on young Frank Miller who is apparently clutching what appears to be a severed Alien penis. Nothing inside lives up to that promise but I’d still argue this is the best of these comics. And I’d argue that despite the fact that this one has the slenderest wisp of a premise of any of the books I bought. Here, the unpleasant security dude has escaped from the confused mess of AVP:F&S#1 into this comic where he and his two chums are hunted by a Predator. That’s it. Three dudes on a spaceship get hunted for 25 pages. Then there’s a bit of a twist because there’s another three issues to go. As basic as the setup is (it’s Predator and people being hunted is what Predator fans pay for) I’d still argue that it’s the best comic here. And not just because I’m an argumentative **** but because it’s the best at being a comic. And I’m betting that’s all down to Christopher Mooneyham. I imagine the script he received wasn’t much in excess of:

PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1

PAGE 13 (3 Panels)

We are on-board THE SPACESHIP PERSES. It’s dark because of course it is, but we can still make out space ship stuff like corridors, ladders and stuff and things. It’s dark but not that dark.

PANEL 1: Unpleasant Security Man, Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy and Bald Lee Van Cleef Walk along the corridor.

UNPLEASANT SECURITY MAN: It’s hunting us.

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: Dude, your Mom is hunting us. BURRRN!

PANEL 2:

Unpleasant Security Man, Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy and Bald Lee Van Cleef Walk along the corridor.

BALD LEE VAN CLEEF: How jolly.

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: We’re on an express elevator to Kitchenware! Going Down!

PANEL 3:

They stop walking suddenly because Cocky Cannon Fodder Boy explodes in a shower of guts. (Have fun with it!)

COCKY CANNON FODDER BOY: Ack!

BALD LEE VAN CLEEF: Tsk!

UNPLEASANT SECURITY MAN: Ooh! We’re in a tight spot now!

PREDATOR: BOO!

But, unlike the unfairly maligned (by me) Patric Reynolds, Mooneyham makes every page pulse with pulp energy and an almost loutish swagger entirely appropriate to the subject at hand. Dude sure likes his Klaus Janson but there’s plenty that’s purely himself here. I enjoyed looking at Mooneyham’s Predator so much that that alone was worth the admission price. His Predator is just perfect, like a scarred spider carved from the pith of an orange. There's real impact on the page turn reveal when that dude shows up. BOO! This is genre comic book art from a time when comics didn’t bow and scrape before television. A time when comics didn’t tug their forelock in the presence of movies but instead revelled in their very nature. It’s genre comic art from a time when comics were proud to be comics. There is a feast of storytelling devices within this comic that put the polite “cinematic” devices of the rest of this bunch to shame. The comics above all largely work in long shot, medium shot and close up; they work largely in landscape panels with a daring inset to pop the monotony. And if its coincidence that all those terms are interchangeable with movie making then, well, it isn’t is it? And I get why it’s legitimate, to an extent, that the comics above treat the pages as screens (because after al I read them on a screen) I should stress that Mooneyham’s pages treated as pages worked just as well. If not better. By embracing the native skills of his medium Mooneyham provides a comic far more akin to movies than any of the placid and pretty offerings preceding it. Basically compared to any of the other Dark Horse comics above PREDATOR: FIRE AND STONE #1 is like a box of fireworks going off in your face. It is very much not that the comics above are bad as such ,and they certainly aren’t wrong with how they go about things, it’s just genre comics are such weird things now, they come from such a weird place that I am just so grateful to find a comic that’s happy being a comic. Hell, one which exults in being a comic. It’s hardly Human Diastrophism but it’s bloody well done so: GOOD!

Phew. Believe you me no one is more glad that's done than me. Cheers and all that.

You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? COMICS!!!!

Wait, What? Ep. 129: Idol Speculation

A nifty piece of fan art from the crazily talented Adam P. Knave. Thank you, Adam!

We are back!  To do that thing to your ears that you insist you like!  (Really, you like it? Really?)

After the jump -- show notes!  That thing I do to your eyes that...maybe is helpful?  Even the way I do it, maybe?  Join us!

(Ugh, I'm so old: looking at photoshopped me with those shoes, I'm all, "Man, I look like Bob Fosse!"  Sad, sad, sad.)

0:00-18:54: Greetings! Apologies! Alternate theme songs! Prepping from SDCC!  Graeme tells us what kind of stuff he's looking forward to -- and, equally as important, dreading -- at this year's Con.  Also covered: the upcoming geek lifestyle program brought to you from a somewhat unlikely source; Blair Butler and more. 18:54-29:34: Is Marvelman coming back at this Con?  Will anyone care? Will Jeff be able to get halfway decent prices for his copies, or has he entered the greedy speculator phase of his comic reading career far, far too late?  Also, Jeff unburdens himself about his shady contribution to Internet discourse.  And that leads, in its odd way, to discussion of the latest Marvel event and the new Inhumans series. 29:34-41:34:  And that leads to us talking about Gaiman's changing credits on Guardians of the Galaxy, DC being less bitchy in public than Marvel, but still doing stuff like cutting Ales Kot loose from Suicide Squad. Is DC trying to bring back its Silver Age in the worst way possible?  Or do they just not know how to grow creators? 41:34-50:14:  Compare and contrast:  Graeme has read the two collections of Nick Spencer's Ultimate X-Men and has some things to report back on that experience.  He also read the Superior Foes of Spider-Man, also written by Nick Spencer.  Since Jeff hasn't read Morning Glories and Graeme has, Jeff grills Graeme about the A-B-Cs of N-I-C(k). 50:14-57:49:  Whoever had 49:10 in the holiday pool for when Jeff would want to start talking about 2000AD, pick up your winnings at Window No. 2!  We talk about Laura Sneddon's excellent article about Zenith, Hillary Robinson and Chronos Carnival, and giving Jeff a chance to vent about his obsession with the Leonard Zelig of the comics industry, Michael Fleisher.  And just as we talk about one of the best pieces to happen to comics in the last two weeks, things go a bit pear-shaped, leading us into… 57:49-58:10:   Intermission One! 58:10-1:04:54: Where we were?  Oh, right.  One of the best things to happen to comics in the last two weeks?  That would be Jim Steranko joining Twitter.  Are you following @IamSteranko?  You really, really should. 1:04:54-1:11:01:  Neither Graeme nor Jeff attended the Image Expo. Did that keep Jeff and Graeme from talking about it? Oh my, no. 1:11:01-1:17:53: What do Game of Thrones, Dead Snow, and The Fantastic Four have in common?  And what does all of that have to do with The Boys?  Jeff has a hurried, stammery story that will connect the dots for you! 1:17:53-1:30:14:  And to continue from that last talking point, Jeff (a.k.a., Mr. Up-To-Date) finally finished reading all of The Boys by Garth Ennis, Darick Robertson, John McCrea, and Russ Braun (who Jeff, because he is daft, refers to as Dan Braun at least once, much to his shame now). Spoilers ahoy! 1:30:14-1:52:01:  Batman, Inc. #12!  What'd we think? JLA: Tower of Babel! Which one of us has only now just read it? The second Prophet collection!  Which other one finally read that and what'd they think?  Bandette and Batman '66! Did one of us read them and love them, or did both of us read them and love them? The Private Eye!  Who's going to sound like a douchebag talking about the new they discovered to read the latest issue by Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin?  Pick up your pencils and begin.  You will have slightly less than twenty-two minutes to complete this part of the exam. 1:52:01-end:  Closing comments! Promises to return that hopefully will not sound hollow to thy ears! And, of course, Exclamation points! Exclamation points for everyone!!

Um, what else?  I just saw Pacific Rim today.   I wasn't the only one  weirded out by how much that Australian dude looked like Geoff Johns when he put his baseball cap on, was I? No?  Just me?

Anyway, it was far from a great movie (like I don't even think there's bus service between where Pacific Rim ended up and a great movie) but it worked for me.  I had an okay time with a few minutes of genuine nerd joy.  Weirdly, it reminded me of Battleship, another so-very-far-from-great movie, that also spent most of its running time trying to justify its own premise and really was entertaining when it wasn't being terrible...the difference being that Peter Berg is just a tourist in nerd town and Guillermo Del Toro owns, like, a third of the shops there.

I mean there weren't enough fights in the city for my tastes, and I don't know how you can put Charlie Day in a movie and make him yell all the time and have it still be dull (because I think Charlie Day yelling is like one of the funniest things in the world). But, you know. As a bargain matinee on the big screen? Enjoyable.

Oh, right!  The podcast!!  I knew I almost forgot something!  It'll be on iTunes soon, it's in our RSS feed, and it's right below.  We hope you listen and enjoy!

Wait, What? Ep. 129: Idol Speculation

Wait, What? Ep. 106: You Are Number Six.

At Graeme's Behest: the cover to Colder #1

Yeah, that's a pleasant way to get your Tuesday rolling, eh?

Anyhoo, very truncated version of things this time around, I'm afraid but after the jump...show notes!

So yeah, I've got a trip that I'll be on for a few days which means I'm trying to write this AND pack AND panic AND forget the one thing I'm not going to remember until I've been the road for two hours.  But am I letting any of that get in the way of bringing you this podcast?  I say thee: nay!  (Though, verily, I shall admit to assing it by half...)

Oh, and I got a big upgrade on the recording end of things but unfortunately it may be why there's a bit of crackle in the opening of the podcast.  Sorry about that--I hope to have that figured out by next episode...

0:00-41:19:  Greetings!  The small talk is eensy-sized this time around as we get right into the topic of the news that day--the pending cancellation of Hellblazer at Vertigo and the launch of Constantine over at the DCU. Graeme brings the facts; Jeff brings the wild conspiratorial speculation.  (Also, Jeff was a little behind the curve this week, so feel free to create a quick & easy drinking game where you take a drink every time Graeme informs him of something of which he was unaware. You will be feeling no pain in absolutely no time at all.)  Is Vertigo effed in the ay?  Maybe. Is that as bad for the marketplace as it would've been ten years ago?  Maybe not.  Somewhat tangentially related: whatever happened to the NuMarvel generation of creators? Why does Aardvark Books in San Francisco have the used graphic novel section that it does?  And other questions lead us into…

41:19-41:54: Intermission 1!

41:54-1:08:21:  For an early birthday present, Jeff picked up a digital subscription to 2000AD and Graeme has been keeping up with it lately, and so much discussion ensues over issues #1806-1808. Spoilers ahoy (especially for #1808). Want to hear us talk Judge Dredd by Al Ewing and Henry Flint; ABC Warriors by Pat Mills and Clint Langley; Brass Sun by Ian Edgington and I.N.J. Culbard; Low Life by Rob Williams and D'Israeli; and The Simping Detective by Simon Spurrier and Simon Coleby?  Then this is the thirty-seven minutes for you! ( Oh, and if you've never seen the original Prisoner--spoilers! at 1:00:36-1:01:36.)

1:08:21-1:11:19: Then, at the very tail end of things, Graeme discusses Action Comics #14 by Grant Morrison, Sholly Fisch, Rags Morales and Chris Sprouse.  Because he just couldn't bring himself to wait until after...

1:11:19-1:11:42:  Intermission 2!

1:11:42-end:  Since Graeme has been to the store (and Jeff hasn't), he leads with reviews, in alphabetical order, no less, of Colder by Paul Tobin and Juan Ferreyra; Earth 2 #6 by James Robinson and Nicola Scott; Iron Man #1 by Kieron Gillen and Greg Land (and also AvX: Consequences); Stumptown v2 #3 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth; Willow Wonderland #1 by Jeff Parker and Brian Ching; and, outside of alphabetical order (and our natural laws of time, space, and arguably taste), the X-Men: Iceman hardcover collecting the miniseries by J.M. DeMatteis and Alan Kupperberg from 1984.

Jeff, by contrast, is utterly flummoxed by the digital comic Batman: Li'l Gotham by Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs and happily shares the flum with everyone.  And while we're on the flum tip, Jeff also explains his preparations for reading Marvel comics in a legit non-piratey way as well as his first current Marvel comic in a long time: Captain America #19 by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting.  Also, the book that really knocked him off his chair: the third issue of Ethan Rilly's Pope Hats:  a stunningly strong piece of cartooning and storytelling that is completely worth your time and cash.

[Stealth bonus #1: we also talk about Sean Howe's amazing Marvel Comics: The Untold Story a bit more toward the end.]

[Stealth bonus #2:  Rather than edit out that bit about my Skype pic, here it is in it's teeny-tiny glory:]

[Stealth bonus #3:  You'll know it when you hear it…]

Again, apologies the show notes are so sparse this time around.  To make up for it, I put this up into the ether a little early so you may have already seen the podcast already on iTunes.  But if not,  you are certainly encouraged to have at it below:

Wait, What? Ep. 106: You Are Number Six.

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

Wait, What? Ep. 104: Zero Point Now

John Byrne really, uh, bringing it in Alpha Flight #6

Yeah, that's....mmm, boy!  Good ol' John Byrne, amirite?

Anyhoo... the adventure that are the shownotes for our podcast: right behind the jump!

0:00-2:48: Introductions and a bit (just a tad) of shop talk, complainy bits, and a promise from Graeme (that last phrase sounding a bit like a British pop song, eh?  For some reason, I imagine Seal singing it but that's probably just me.)

2:48-6:31: The talk turns to the early days of Morrison's Doom Patrol and even the issues just preceding.  Can you guess Graeme's secret shame before he confesses?  Hint: It'll surprise you! [Second hint: the first hint is totally worthless and can just as easily be ignored.]

6:31-30:13:  And today's surprise read from Graeme's magical library system:  John Byrne's Alpha Flight!  Graeme has fond memories of it.  Jeff has the kind of memories that should be set to the pocket watch music from For A Few Dollars More (or the harmonica music from Once Upon A Time in the West, take your pick).  Lots of discussion of Byrne from that era ensues, including Superman and Fantastic Four.  Also, Jeff attempts to recreate an Alpha Flight issue from memory. He's a clown! Come and listen and point and laugh!

30:13-30:35:  Intermission Prima!

30:35-31:46:  "And we're back."

31:46-50:21:  News and weather! (Without the weather!)  Graeme lets Jeff in on the latest development on the Siegel & Schuster heirs' court battle for the Superman copyright.  Also covered (and not really in any way that's germane to comics) the folding of Newsweek as a print media publication and what's going on with old and new media.  If you need it to tie into comics, we do mention a series of related Doonesbury strips.

50:21-1:01:42:  Back to comics! Jeff gets cranky about the blindly upbeat reception to the first issue of IDW's My Little Pony as a possibly overheated market should worthy of consideration and caution (especially from the comics press).  Jeff also has his panties in a bunch about IDW's Mars Attacks event--mistakenly, as it turns out.  Fortunately, Graeme is there to straighten Jeff out.  Unfortunately, Jeff is sufficiently without shame he has decided to leave his mistake in rather than savvily saving face via the "select and delete" option.

1:01:42-1:02:02:  Intermission Seconda!

1:02:02-1:02:56:  "Welcome back."  Man, Graeme is really on top of it this episode, isn't he?  I'm well aware of how fortunate I am to work with him but still...wow.

1:02:56-1:21:31:  Comics!  Graeme is very much liking Season Nine of Buffy and quite likes it.  We spend a few minutes talking about Archer & Armstrong #3 and how we are actually...digging this Valiant relaunch? Like a lot, I guess?  Very strange times we live in.  Other comics under discussion:  Justice League #13 by Geoff Johns and Tony Daniels (and on a related note--is Jeff Lemire having one helluva year in comics or what?)  I could tell you how this leads into our discussion of Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky but what would be the fun of that?  And Graeme once again is on point here, talking about the influences of Grant Morrison's Kill Your Boyfriend and this leads into a great little tangent: Graeme's personal Criterion list--movies he thinks everyone should see.

1:21:31-1:30:00:  And so Graeme talks about the experience of seeing all the very different versions of Beauty & The Beast out there: the Cocteau version, the Disney version, the TV show from 1988 and from now.  (Do we take the moment to talk about the classic Ann Nocenti scripted miniseries Beauty and The Beast featuring Dazzler?  And The Beast?  We do not.)  Also, Graeme has read Bandette: Tales of the Urchins and we have not.  However, we can check out the two page preview which is complete in and of itself here.

1:30:00-1:40:01:  Marvel Now! Point One--Graeme has read it and tells Jeff about the high points, low points and in-between points.

1:40:01-1:53:51:  Jeff's turn!  Because we are sort of running late, Jeff speeds through his impressions of Batman #13; the Shonen Jump Alpha Starter Pack, over 300 pages of digital manga you can pick up for free; the third issue of Godzilla: The Half-Century War by James Stokoe; re-reading Zaucer of Zilk by Al Ewing and Brendan McCarthy via the first issue reprint from IDW; Bakuman Vol. 15; and King Cat Comics and Stories issue #73.

1:53:51-end:  Closing comments, and plans for next ep! (Hint)

Whew!  That will keep you busy for a while, yes?  Perhaps you have already run over the podcast in your fine German car on the autobahn that is iTunes.  If not, we invite you to spend time idling here at der kleineshausdassWaffelngebaut (or, roughly translated: the little house that waffles built):

Wait, What? Ep. 103: Zero Point Now

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

Wait, What? Ep. 100: Year Zero

(One of my favorite hundredth issue covers, by Joe Staton and Dick Giordano for DC Comics)

I don't know why, but for a moment there... I was very afraid this episode wouldn't end up existing?  I think because, you know, you say something is a thing, as opposed to just being business as usual, and the next thing you know there's a certain nimbus of expectation around it, even if only to yourself?  Sometimes it  seems like that kind of nimbus makes the best kind of target for capricious fate...

Anyway, enough of that "and then he tore his eyes out in the fifth act!" musing, join us behind the jump for show notes and celebratory waffles, yes?

0:00-8:24: Graeme brings a message to piss Jeff off...from the future!  What can it be? Hint: Before Watchmen is involved.  Laughs are had and the distance between qualified and unqualified is considered.

8:24-20:54: And on a related note--time for some red-hot sexy DC New 52 Issue #0 talk.  Batman, Inc. #0, Batwoman #0, Wonder Woman #0, Supergirl #0, Justice League #0, Earth 2 #0, and OMAC and DC Universe Presents #0.  Warning: Graeme has read 38 of these by now.  I mean that's...wow.

20:54-46:59: ASM is being cancelled!? Jughead is going on hiatus?! (A reference to) cats and dogs living together under the same roof?! What the hell is happening?

Also, Graeme has the chance to have some quality time with the listeners. Also also, in the coming attractions end of thing, we discuss how Bendis' X-Men is shaping up, in light of Avengers Vs. X-Men #11. Additionally, we run down Professor X's CV. If you want to guys remembering off the top of their heads the names of Hank McCoy and Bobby Drake's old girlfriends, this is where you want to be.

46:59-54:59: Mattotti and Zentner's The Crackle of the Frost.  We actually talk about it, finally!

54:59-1:13:33: And from there, Jeff and Graeme go on to discuss Jennifer Blood, as conceived by Garth Ennis and executed by Al Ewing.

1:13:33-1:22:51: And from one crime book to another, we also talk about Stumptown issue 2.1 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth. With special guest appearances by John Updike and J.D. Salinger!

1:22:51-1:30:24: And from there we got to Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer?  I think it says something great about the current state of the comics marketplace that we can talk about three different type of pulp stories that are still a long ways away from superhero books.  Also, it's Graeme's turn to take a powder while Jeff gets to talk directly with the listeners.

1:30:24-2:16:04: Phone calls! From listeners!  We have them, and they are awesome.  Many thanks to Voodoo Ben, Alex, Robert G., Sean Witzke, J.L. Blair (whose call did not survive the round-the-world treatment, sadly and whom I initially misidentify, to boot) and Derek (or Garrett?).  Though most of the calls are just well-wishes, we do tackle a suggested topic--Jim Starlin at Marvel in the '70s, '80s and '90s--at some length, as per Alex's request.  Who says this isn't the Golden Age for Whatnauts?

2:16:04-2:26:31: Jeff, whose attention span is crushed, all but leaps in mid-answer from talking about Hank Pym to discussing Bloodshot.  Graeme, for his part, has been catching up on old issues of Milestone Shadow Cabinet issues. Add 'em all together and you get...Chaykin's Black Kiss 2 #2?  Not really, but we end up talking about that as well as well as the pretty brilliant (non-comix, though there's a chart or two) book by Jarett Kobek, If You Won't Read, Then Why Should I Write?

2:26:31-end: And then, because it wouldn't be a Wait, What? podcast without goofy technical difficulties, Graeme turns into the Lord of the Flies again, a clear sign to sign off. (Although we also manage to praise Bandette #2, Double Barrel, the xckd strip Click & Drag, and Dustin Harbin's Boxes before we're done).  At one point, I'm laughing while Graeme is talking, and it just sounds like there should be the sounds of a building burning down and maybe some backmasked electric guitars...which is maybe the most fitting way to celebrate our hundredth episode?  Lord only knows what we'll sound like by episode 150....

Anyway, you should be able to find it on iTunes (although there's now that whole bullshit separate app for Podcasts, can you believe it?) as well as your RSS feeder of choice.  Alternately, you can take a swing at the audio pinata below:

Wait, What? Ep. 100: Year Zero

And then next week...Ep. 101?  (Man, I gotta go fan myself on the divan at the thought of it!) In any event, whether this is your first time listening to Wait, What? or your one hundredth, we hope you enjoy and thank you for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 47.2: My Third Ebook

And here we go with our conclusion to Episode 47 of Wait, What?  In it, Graeme and I talk X-Men: First Class (the movie) and Green Lantern (the movie), Gingerbread Girl (the graphic novel), Graeme's picks for DC's September relaunch, and more.

Oh, and we also briefly discuss that awesome Mindless Ones podcast interview which you can hear here and read here.

This installment can be found on iTunes, and you can also listen to it here:

Wait, What? Ep. 47.2: My Third Ebook

We hope you enjoy it and we appreciate your patronage!

More Cowbell: Jeff on Things and Stuff.

At first, I was just going to write about Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover's Gingerbread Girl, but I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to say about it.  (Uh, things?  And, uh, stuff?) So, after the jump, Gingerbread Girl, X-Men: First Class (the movie), Star Wars Omnibus (Vol. 3), and more...things and stuff.

(oh, and don't forget to scroll down for the shipping list...and John's reviews...and Graeme's reviews?!  Holy shit. We need to learn how to pace ourselves.)

GINGERBREAD GIRL GN:  In an age where comics are taking their cue from movie and cinema, it's delightful to read Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover's Gingerbread Girl, a graphic novel about a mysterious twenty-something in Portland, OR and her odd affliction:  it's comics shot through with a big ol' dose of live theater, as every character breaks the fourth wall to address the reader about what they know about Annah Billips.  (I'm not much of a live theater guy at all, but more than once I was reminded of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (basis for Hello, Dolly?  I did not know that.  Thanks, Wikipedia!).)  Tobin's speeches are shot through with high-end whimsy -- "But of course that's all we really we want from someone," Annah's reluctantly smitten date says at one point, "Destroy a lover's mystery and they're less glimmering.  Throw breadcrumbs at pigeons and they'll flock to you in droves.  Throw a bread loaf at them and they'll scatter.  Crumbs of a mystique are just right. A loaf of explanation is too much." -- but they've still got nothing on Coover's delicious art, able to invest seemingly anyone and anything with charm and clarity.

Gingerbread Girl is a mystery of sorts, with the lead character believing she has a twin created from her own stripped away Penfield Homunculus, and everyone else trying to figure out if she's crazy or not.  As the above speech suggests, the graphic novel decides not to solve that mystery, but rather leave us tantalized on the edge of realization.  It's a fun choice, but one that left me feeling more than a little cheated.  I'm sure the idea is to make me look from the book's plot to its possible theme -- I'll take "narratives about narrative strategies" for $500, Alex! -- but I can't help but feel we could've gotten that and a more traditional nod toward conventional narrative climax.  One of the things this gorgeous looking book repeatedly reminds us about its main  character is that she's a tease.  It's a reminder the reader would do well to take to heart about Gingerbread Girl itself. Being teased is much more fun when there's little to lose, and $12.95 doesn't exactly grow on trees these days.  GOOD stuff,  I think?  Or maybe just at the very highest end of OK?  I still can't decide.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS:  The last thing I expected from this movie was to be reminded of Mario Bava, and yet as the film hit hour 35 of lovely visuals, paper-thin characters and a boredom that teetered on the edge of hypnotic, it was the reference point I came back to.  Of course, I expected a movie about a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Something-Or-Other-Because He's-Still-Magneto-To-Me (Michael Fassbender) recruiting mutants to fight Sebastian Shaw's Hellfire Club to have more than a dash of Brian Singeresque touches to it, so I figured there would be the usual queer subtext (tearful speeches by young teenagers about how they wish they could be like everyone else, young men with full lips and big eyes rubbing their bare arms).  But Matthew Vaughn turns X-Men: First Class into a sensual free-for-all, with ladies walking about in excessively cumbersome lingerie, diamond girls being tied to beds by the rails of the bed itself, excessively nude exploding female mannequins, and I'm not even getting into the whole Xavier/Magneto/Mystique triangle.

More than that, though, Vaughn's tremendous sense of visual flair and attention to detail makes the movie just visually sensuous: it sounds goofy, but there's a scene where Magneto plucks a submarine out of the water, and the way the droplets spun off the propellers had me transfixed. There were at least a dozen more moments like that and I savored each one of them.

Unfortunately, the movie has just too much fucking stuff in it -- it's sodden, is what it is -- showing us not just the opening of the first X-Men movie where a young Erik pries at the gates of Auschwitz, but also the scene that comes after that, as well as what Charles Xavier was doing at that point.  We not only get their meeting in mid-action scene, but the CIA's decision to help them recruit mutants, a long recruitment sequence, Hank McCoy as both versions of the Beast, a long sequence introducing the Hellfire Club...none of it is bad, exactly (except for January Jones, who in her inability to smile, talk, drink or even walk convincingly I now believe to be the genuine embodiment of  the Martian Spy Girl from Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!) but there's just no fucking room for anything to breathe.  It's three good movies jammed into one exasperatingly long and dull one, with every dramatic conflict boiled down so much they might as well been bullet points on a Powerpoint presentation.

I think if I'd seen this movie while hopped up on prescription pain medication, I would've loved its horny languor. (If it turns out that Vaughn knocked up January Jones as the rumors have it, it won't be surprising at all.  In fact, what would be surprising would be if he didn't also impregnate the script girl, Zoe Kravitz, Rose Byrne's slip, and that kid who played The Beast.) But it was a slog and a chore to make it to the end of this movie and it really didn't have to be.  Somewhere between EH and AWFUL.

STAR WARS OMNIBUS, VOL. 3:  At Graeme's suggestion, I picked up a copy of this from the library way-too-long ago and have been poking through it at the rate of a few stories a week.  These are the Marvel comics from the early '80s reprinted, covering the period immediately following The Empire Strikes Back.  As I told Graeme on the podcast, the ESB is exactly where I jumped off the Star Wars comic wagon, in no small part because it became obvious that none of it really mattered:  nothing says "we've told the creators of our licensed product nothing" like a romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia and the infamous "Luke, I am your father" speech.

Did I say "nothing"?  That is a lie, I admit it -- what really says "we've told the creators of our licensed product nothing" is reading this volume in light of the events of Return of the Jedi.  The subtitle for this volume is "A Long Time Ago..." but it really should've been "George Lucas' Galactic Twincest Follies." There are no less than half-a-dozen disquieting scenes where Luke and Leia almost kiss or spend quiet moments pondering their unspoken, but strongly felt feelings for one another.  If only V.C. Andrews could've written that "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" sequel!

But Graeme is right in a lot of ways -- these stories, the majority of them by David Michelinie and Walt Simonson, with Simonson plotting and doing layouts with Tom Palmer doing heavy finishes, are a lot like watching the original trilogy over and over again.  Curiously, even though this takes place after Empire, the only real bits the talent take from that movie are Lando and the idea of a rebellion always on the run from a seemingly all-powerful Empire. Otherwise, it's a lot of impervious imperial bases that need exploding, blasters that need blasting, feelings that need trusting, and possible romantic triangles where two of the participants are siblings.  There's probably a good reason why Marvel's creative teams continued to treat Luke Skywalker as the untarnishable focal point -- my guess is Luke, young and orphaned and full of questions and potential, was much closer to the '70s Marvel hero archetype than awesome, dashing (kinda assholey) Han Solo -- even as Lucas threw a whole bunch of cold water on the idea of Luke as hero in Empire.

Ultimately, the story I enjoyed the best was the weirdest one -- the two-parter by Chris Claremont, Simonson and Carmine Infantino where an inventoried John Carter of Mars story is shoehorned into a Star Wars story.  I've always enjoyed Claremont's infrequent work on Star Wars (pre-teen Jeff would've told you that his favorite Marvel Star Wars issues were #17, co-plotted by Claremont, Star Wars Annual #1 with art by Mike Vosburg...and also Star Wars #38 with that awesome Michael Golden art, Claremont be damned) and here he gets a chance to let his ham actor instincts dig into a story in which Princess Leia crash-lands on a world suspiciously like Barsoom, and the swashbuckling hero suspiciously like John Carter gets something suspiciously like a space boner for her.  Strong, courageous, and the survivor of brutal torture, Princess Leia is Chris Claremont's idea of a hot chick and he makes the most of the first person narration by the Carter pastiche to talk about her brave resourcefulness and sad eyes.  In its way, the story is a better acknowledgment of Star Wars' roots than what Lucas went on to do in The Phantom Menace, though the airships here show a marked similarity to what is done there.  However, because these stories were written in simpler, far less ambitious times, there's not the thorough airing out of influences there could be, where we can really get the sense of just how much Star Wars owes to Burroughs' desert landscapes, exotic princesses, alien pals and low-gravity swashbuckling.  There's just a repurposing of art, a light feeling out of topics that will later become fetish (for Claremont, anyway) and then it's on to the next.

I thought this stuff was highly OK, and in some places quite GOOD, but I guess I prefer more Cosmic Twincest Follies far more intentional and far less accidental.  It was fun revisiting what so many of us thought Star Wars was, instead of what it actually turned out to be.

FLASHPOINT: LEGION OF DOOM #1:  "My name's Heatwave.  I've got a hunger... burning in my gut.  The only way to stop it... is to satisfy my appetite."

So begins the dumbest, most inept comic I've read in a while.  It's so bad I'm shocked Hibbs passed it over for his ever-increasing number of "I Have Read The Worst Comic I Have Ever Read" columns.  Here, Adam Glass and Rodney Buchemi treat us to a tale of  non-starter supervillain Heat Wave, who starts off the book incinerating one-half of Firestorm's secret identity because he wants to fight a guy whose head is on fire.  Then Cyborg shows up and awesome dialogue like "Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to play with matches, Heatwave?" "Sure did! So I burned her to death."  Then Heat Wave makes a train run out of control by...shooting it with flames?  Then Heat Wave ends up in prison where he proves himself to be a bad-ass by breaking the leg of a dude who must have shins made out of breadsticks.  Then Heat Wave gets manhandled by prison guard Amazo, which totally makes sense because Amazo is a robot with all the powers of the Justice League in an alternate universe where there never was a Justice League.  Then there's a Hostess cupcake ad, just like we had back in the '70s, except it's eight pages long and it's about Subway.  Then the awesome Legion of  Doom headquarters shows up but here in the Flashpoint universe it's a prison for super-tough criminals but for some reason Heat Wave is put in there, too.  Then Zsasz threatens Heat Wave. Then Clue Master turns up.  Then Heat Wave kicks a dude in the nuts.  Then, later in their cell, Clue Master clutches his stomach, coughs up blood, and then Plastic Man pulls himself out of Clue Master's mouth.  Yes, Clue Master was a mule used to smuggle in Plastic Man who on the last page is standing there grinning evilly, saying "Okay, you ready to blow this popsicle stand?" as one bloody arm still juts from Clue Master's mouth.  The next issue caption helpfully says, "NEXT ISSUE:  PLASTIC MAN!"

(Finally, I know why Jack Cole killed himself. Poor precognitive bastard.)

If you're the fan of the noise that's made when someone scrapes the very bottom of the barrel, this is the book for you. I actually hope this book has 100% sell-through for retailers, because I worry it will otherwise end up being donated to a hospital somewhere and make ill and injured children lose the will to live.  This book gets the seldom-used ASS rating which is actually overrating it by just a tad.  Please don't tell me you bought it and enjoyed it.