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. 83: As Good As A Feast

Hoo boy.  Did not think I was going to make this particular deadline.  I won't bore you with the blah-blah-blahs, but let's just say: papa needs a new microphone and he needs one bad.  I apologize in advance for all the not-especially-discreet cracking and popping going on at various points in the background of this.  We are maybe two weeks away from a solution to both it and the mild echo chamber effect that's afflicted us ever since Graeme managed to transcend this corporeal realm.

Buttttttttt, anywayyyyyyy... Gotta keep this short and snappy so lemme just say this:  Wait, What? Ep. 83 is two hours and twenty-seven minutes long, and Graeme and I do not spend all that time trying to remember if the boss at the end of Crazy Climber was a gorilla or not!

No.  Instead, we do our best to cover a lot of lost ground by jawing about Iron Muslim and Zombies vs. Fanboys from Boom Comics, Kirby: Genesis, the current state of comics and the comics internet including Chris Roberson quitting DC and David Brothers' amazing article over at Comics Alliance, Before Watchmen, Grant Morrison, Brian Bendis and Avengers Assemble #2, as well as the Oral History of the Avengers.

Also?  The eighth issues of Wonder Woman Justice League, OMAC, and Batman, Casanova #3, The Shadow #1, The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Alabaster Wolves, Saga #2, Archie Meets KISS, Prophet #24, more issues of Glamourpuss, and much, much more.

This show was pretty late making its way to iTunes, but if it's not there yet, it will be there soon.  But even so!  You can also listen to it here and now if you would prefer.  Behold:

Wait, What? Ep. 83: As Good As A Feast

As always, thanks for your patience.  I gotta go jump through hoops for the next ten hours or so, but we'll have more for you next week--and, of course, thank you for listening!

Big and Bad: Hibbs 4/4's

I know you'd never know it from my Industry-driven posting (seriously? It's what I DO), but I've actually been sick as a dog the last week, and have barely read any comics at all. But I said "I'm back on the horse", and, barring the two weeks where I couldn't log on TO post here, I am , I am! So, here's 3 (or maybe 4) books, below the cut.

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #1: Rich Johnston was right, I think, when he said this book is review proof. No one is going to buy or not buy this comic based upon anything I (or anyone else) says about it, and, because it's purely an exercise in smashing the action figures together, I doubt anyone is really looking at this for an exceptional example of sequential storytelling, or anything.

Which is terrific, because it kind of sucked.

Sort of even to the point that I'm not even really sure where exactly to begin.

Well, let's start with the talent. I like JR JR, I really do... but I like him on things that are gritty and "street" and dark -- KICK ASS he's suited for, shiny-Avengers-heroes? Not so much. Scott Hanna's inks help a little, but overall, the effect here is of the absolutely wrong artist for the book.

Then you have the "Story" credit going to FIVE different people. Really? Reallly? I mean, I have to assume that something really change-up different is going to happen at some point here, because "The Avengers and the X-Men fight" hardly needs FIVE plotters. Damn, it don't need one -- even my eight year old can plot this. In fact, I asked him to tell me why they might fight, and he said, and I shall quote: "they're superheroes, they just do"

Smart kid.

And, oh, oh, oh, the scripting. I don't know if it's that Bendis is just getting too frayed from working on too many comics, or that I've just "learned" his ear too well from reading too many of them, but his dialogue has descended into self-parody at this point. "What's going on? Never Mind. Don't care. Are we having an Avengers meeting or--?" "Guys -- we got a thing here."  Damn, they all have the same frickin' voice. Even the single normal human being in the entire comic, who has a line after flying through the sky with the rubble of the Chrysler building, then is webbed safely by Spider-Man (wait, what? How?!?! 3/4 of those people should be corpses!) says "Wow. That's It. I'm moving. I'm done."

Gawd.

(Plus, like, destroying the Chrysler building? This is your signifier of "yeah, the stakes are real!"? Ugh)

(See, even *I* am doing the bendis voice! Man!)

I also really like that "scorecard" thing at the top of the issue that has like 20+ Avengers, including a bunch not even cameoing in the issue (War Machine?), while the X-Men side is all of 6 people.

I don't, AT ALL, get Cyclops' motivations here. I could maybe possibly understand him if it was "We don't have enough power, we need more, we can't let the humans have this", but all of that bullshit he was spouting about rebirth and shit? Are you nuts? Scott should hate the Phoenix force more than almost any other human in the universe, given that it destroyed his first love, his child, his school, and now it is going after his grand daughter, who is "the future of the mutant race". Given what happened to Jean, how could he POSSIBLY be ok with Hope getting anywhere near the force?

Also: Where the fuck is Rachel, anyway? Why would the thing WANT Hope in the first place? We've always always seen the Phoenix force go after TELEKINETIC TELEPATHS -- what does it want with a girl whose powerset is *copying* other powers, and who, afaik, is utterly powerless without other mutants around?

Hell, maybe that's what we need five plotters to explain?

So, nope, didn't like it, not a bit... but it's going to make a big pile of money regardless. I thought it was pretty AWFUL.

INFINITE COMICS #1: Free with the digital download of AvX #1 was the first of Marvel's "Infinite Comics", by Mark Waid and Stuart Immonen. I read this as well.

I have to say that I thought it was... adequate. Waid's script is filled with some fun things about moving faster than the speed of light, but there's not a single thing about the PERSON behind the suit (other than his liking hot dogs or whatever it was, but that was so generic, it literally could have been interchangeable between Spider-Man, the Human Torch, Speedball, or fifty other characters).

The art was fairly pretty (duh), but when it came to major, important things like, dunno, SMASHING THROUGH THE CHRYSLER BUILDING, it's staged in such a way you can barely tell what's going on.

As a "What happened between panels 5 & 6 on page 4" (or whatever), it was perfectly adequate... maybe even fairly decent.

But as a technical achievement? Wow wow what a dog!

Maybe, I don't know, but maybe possibly this is because I read it on an iPad 1 -- but this, rather than the "Luther" proof-of-concept where elements fairly seamlessly "floated" into place, here each new element was on a seperate page of it's own that I could LITERALLY *see* being served to me.

What this meant was that.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again until eventually the.

(LENS FLARE!)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again until eventually the whole page was finally rendered.

Oh. My. God! COMPLETELY unreadable.

I thought "Well, maybe it's just the first iPad?" so I went to try and read it in-browser on my computer, which Marvel SAYS you can do. I followed the link PROVIDED ON THE "redeem" page. No. That takes you to a page full of press releases about previous free digital downloads. Then I spent at least 20 minutes reading through help pages on Marvel.com, and finally found a different link that the help pages insisted was direct to "all of your free-with-print digital downloads", but THAT page redirected me instead to a four page preview of AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #1 that the only way it would let me escape was if I signed in to Marvel Digital Unlimited... which is not even close to the same thing, so I closed my browser in disgust and said "fuck it".

I probably wouldn't be so disgustipated if it wasn't for the THREE (!!) pages that IC #1 had to serve me to proclaim that this was the "FUTURE OF COMICSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"

Seriously?

If that's the "future" of comics, comics can go fuck themselves. As much as I didn't like the "hey we're showing off by taking control of your reading experience for you!" that "Luther" did, it was a BILLION times worse in the one-page-at-a-time slideshow on the iPad. It made me want to choke to death on someone else's vomit.

The CONTENT of INFINITE COMICS #1? EH. The EXECUTION?: Pure, stinking ASS.

THE BOYS #65:  While there are 3 (4? 5?) more issues left of the series, this is really the big moment everything has been pointing to since that first issue, and there's a clear Ennis-ian Nelson-style "Haw haw!" in here as everything everyone thinks is going on is flipped on it's side before the gory gory gory gory climax of it all. I liked the twist, I thought it was "fair", but this issue really REALLY suffered, I thought by being drawn by two artists, neither of whom is Darick Robertson. Russ Brown and John McCrea are just fine, but neither is the co-creator of the series, and I kept recasting every page if DR had drawn it. The version in my head is better. Still? Solidly GOOD.

SUPREME #63:  It's been like ten years since the last chapter, has it? I guess that explains why I sold less than a third of what I thought I might of this unseen Alan Moore Script? What's weird is that, as a silver age pastiche, it really kind of read as if I had just read the previous issue last month. I miss the hell out of this book. I can't believe this really was to be Moore's LAST script, though, because there's clearly 1 or 2 more issues to go along this whole thought.

I quite liked Erik Larsen's art here, though -- made me think he was channeling Kev O'Neill, especially on those Suprema pages. The blurbs seem to indicate that the next issue is abandoning the silver age stuff and going back to 90s-style Rob Liefeld Supreme, and while they're earned one more issue from me for that, my instincts say I'd rather be forced to read INFINITE COMICS again.

Anyway, does this mean we can hope for a proper reprint book of Moore's runs that isn't scanned at the wrong resolution or whatever the hell the problem was with those Checker editions?

Right, that's it for me this week, see you in a day or two with the next batch of reviews!!

As always: what did YOU think?

-B

Honestly, I have no idea for a title -- Hibbs on 7/3

BOYS #57: I really have nothing to say about this issue (other than "I've become generally bored with this title, and the only thing that keeps me reading is Hughie and Annie's relationship"), but how.... bizarrely  ironic, maybe, that this cover came out the same week as ULTIMATE FALLOUT #4? Still, an EH comic. FLASHPOINT #4: Again, not a ton to say -- this is competently executed, but it really isn't buttering my bread, if you know what I mean? --  but on the meta-level, there's something, again, ironic about the notion that the universe is about to have its reality rewritten by the only true Saint of the Silver Age, who effectively has a form of Alzheimers?  Also? I found something kind of genuinely creepy about the editorial at the back of this week's DC books explaining "why" people should buy DC comics in August. *shudder*. A perfectly OK single issue.

FLASHPOINT BATMAN KNIGHT OF VENGEANCE #3: This, on the other hand, was 32 flavors of fucked up and wrong, and darkity-dark-dark, and I kind of really really liked it. It's funny, you could really say this is at least as dark and wrong as, say LEGION OF DOOM, but that nebulous ol' "craft" makes a difference, doesn't it? I thought this was VERY GOOD.

INFINITE #1: I think a story so dependent on Time Travel requires an artist of a certain subtlety to capture the difference between a "young version" and an "old version" of a character. Rob Liefeld is not that artist. Did I mention that HAWK & DOVE is the only one of the DC 52 that I have no series-based subs on, whatsoever? I thought the set-up of the comic is clever enough, and there's a sold premise here, but for me, Liefeld's art is a game-breaker. EH.

MYSTIC #1: I have no particular affection for or nostalgia about the CrossGen books, so I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this debut issue -- the art suffers a bit from "everyone has an open mouth expression all the time", maybe -- but I thought the writing was crisp, and the premise somewhat interesting (though there's something about the stratified society, and just how these girls are really able to know as much as they do, that didn't add up to me), and I certainly would like to read more. Solidly GOOD.

PUNISHER #1: I don't know. There are so many wonderful things being done on the "Max" side of Punisher, that a book starring the character square in the Marvel U needs something incredibly outstanding to interest me. I love Greg Rucka's writing normally, and this seems like it might be more "p0lice procedural" than anything else, but after putting it down, I found that nothing stuck with me here at all. I'd rather have another issue of Jason Aaron's run, I guess. EH.

RACHEL RISING #1: You got to admire Terry Moore for launching ANOTHER new series less than two months after his last one (ECHO) ended -- not just that, but to be doing it in a completely different genre (Horror) this time through. Though, from the first page it looks like it is taking place in the SiP universe anyway. I thought this was a GOOD first issue, largely marred by the last page, where I kept thinking that two pages must have stuck together or something, because that last beat wasn't a "come back for more next time!" one.

ULTIMATE COMICS FALLOUT #4: This has been such an uneven, purposeless series, with nothing in this issue having much of anything to do with the first three issues at all. The Spidey segment was fine, but nothing that would lead me back to the ongoing, in and of itself. My largest problem is that this spidey doesn't seem sufficiently different (insecure, nervous wise-cracking) from Peter Parker, though let's be fair, there's not a ton one can do in 8 pages. Well, no, that's a lie, there IS a ton you can do in 8 pages, but that's not within Bendis' skill set, that I can see. Oh, speaking of Bendis! Man, I get the shuddering creeps everytime I see that photo of him in the Architects double-spread -- he looks like a drag queen whose wig has fallen off! Anyway, yeah, this reader will RAPIDLY need to see something that differentiates this Spidey from Peter Parker.

The Reed Richards story was somewhat amusing from the POV of having an anti-Future Foundation from the writer of FF, but it took me a few pages to realize that this was Reed, as he really looks very little like even Ultimate Reed.

I thought the last story was adequate, but I'm really starting to think that Nick Spencer might be completely over-rated. The art was nice, though.

Overall, an OK issue, I guess.

That's my thoughts, what did YOU think?

-B

All-WHAT?! -- Hibbs continues 5/16

ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #5: Paul Levitz apparently thinks that DC's publication of THE BOYS could do some theoretical harm to their core superhero business, or taint the icons, or something. This makes me wonder what Paul made of THIS.

Since it is the ACTUAL icons.

The strangest thing is that, had Frank Miller been drawing this, I'd probably have found it amusing and satirical and maybe even a little funny. But with Jim Lee? Lee is THE mainstream superhero comic book artist, so it adds a layer of weight and Importance to it all that just absolutely demands it be taken Seriously, and, thus, renders any satire as stone-faced earnestness.

But, really, REALLY, Levitz cancelled THE BOYS and continues to publish this? Really?

AWFUL.

What did you think?

-B