Aldo reads DC's New 52 (So you don't have to)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/lOzV9SlyXVQ/hqdefault.jpg

uuuuugh, that design is depressing.

remember the good times when comics looked like comics
http://onceuponageek.com/images/blue_devil_ww85.jpg
http://onceuponageek.com/2009/06/05/exclusive-interview-with-creators-of-blue-devil-amethyst-dan-mishkin-gary-cohn/

http://onceuponageek.com/tag/blue-devil-week/

I wonder if my LCS is still setting aside Batman Inc for me.
A coworker asked me about Gotham Central the other day. I cannot imagine that book existing in the current landscape. How fucking bad is it when a Batman tie-in book written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker is looked back on as too radical?

INC is still worth yer time, sir.

Just unearthed a near complete run of BLUE DEVIL in my quarter bin rummage, will be getting to it sometime. I remember when that was about the only DC book I read whilst in the throes of Marvel zombiness in the early 80s.

Action #11: OK, so now I'm even less sure where GMoz is going with this. We start off with Clark killed off as working as a fireman. We end with Lois dead and Wonder Tot being taken away by X-Ray from the U-Men? Or is the same book that was previously for comics geeks interested in obscure comics trivia now supposed to not see stuff that's clearly... erm... influenced by other obscure comics trivia? "Nutants"? Really? There's a core plot working at the heart of this but there's too much else going on for it to be engaging. I guess GMoz really said all he had to say about Superman in ASS and this is just the equivalent of a deleted scenes feature on a DVD. You can see what it's trying to do, but it's inessential. Poor old Solly Fisch adds yet another soul-destroying contractual page-filler. I'd like to think I would have more self-respect.

Animal Man #11: Having ended last the last issue (and starting this one) with the reshaping aliens made most famous during the GMoz era, they turn him into the Animal Man of the Jamie Delano era. This kind of works, but I suspect it will be as tenable as his Vertigo run ended up being. I know I've griped about it since the start, but the art team of Alberto Ponticelli and Wayne Faucher are possibly the worst yet. They work fine for the horror sections but are really bad the rest of the time, and for a book largely set there it really affects the treadability of it. It's leading (again) into a Swamp Thing crossover and this time I hope it doesn't make it out. There's nothing here that can't be said in the margins of other books - the entire plot of this could have been dealt with in less than 5 pages - and from a selfish aspect I could do with reading less.

Batwing #11: Oh yes, the one with Long. Which is Chinese for dragon. AND IS A DRAGON. And is then completely forgotten about as Batwing and Nightwing run away to fight another, different baddie on another continent (but not before going to a third different one and sending Batman an I WUB YOU email so he can kiss the Penguin. Is there oil in Africa? WHO CARES. Utterly pointless.

Detective #11: Tony Daniel's time on the book is coming to an end, and truth to tell it's beginning to show. This feels like a tossed-off Norm Breyfogle effort, with a bad guy supposed to be much more threatening than he is and dialogue and exposition in place of plot development. I'm completely ambivalent about the title to be honest - I would love for it to be great but the heart has gone from the writing and it's just pedestrian. The backup is once more the highlight, but is still a procedural crime book - albeit with a significant noir aspect. I'd much prefer to see that being the main book, which is pretty damning.

Dial H #3: It had to happen eventually. Dial H goes from BEST THING EVER to merely being bloody great. We get much more development in the story of the dials, in how they work, in who the bad guys we thought were the bad guys are and who the AHA YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING bad guys actually might be. Still a rampaging success, this title continues to be everything I hoped it would be.

Earth 2 #3: Well, I didn't see that coming. Yes, we'd assumed Alan Scott was going to be Green Lantern, but he's the Earth-2 version of Swamp Thing? And Solomon Grundy is champion of the Grey, which is the Earth-2 version of The Rot? I think they might have bitten off more than they can chew starting off with that as a plot, but let's see where it goes... the Jay Garrick/Hawkgirl stuff is entertaining enough in a 'hero tests powers' way, but it's the Alan Scott stuff that will have me coming back next month.

GI Combat #3: Ah, JT Krul. You really are useless. "NO!" says the last panel, in the best bit of dialogue. Sums up my thoughts. Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti's Unknown Soldier backup is the Punisher by Howard Chaykin. I'll let you make your own minds up as to whether you think that's a good thing or not but I think you know where my sympathies lie.

Green Arrow #11: Ann Nocenti takes some stuff she read on a right wing blog slagging off the Occupy movement and makes them into bad guys for the billionaire Green Arrow to beat up. I wish I was kidding.

Justice League #11: on the splash title page we find out "the man is preachin' truth". Then that people work for "the Man". It then lurches from the 80s to the 90s as our heroes kill the bad guys. How gritty. It ends next month, I think? With a Johnsiverse changing revelation. The mind boggles.

Red Lanterns #11: The Star Sapphires try and save the female Red Lanterns, presumably because they think Bleez will look hotter in their costume. Guy Gardner tries to rebuild their battery to save the rest. Everybody else goes RARRRRRRRRRRRRR. It gets rebooted next month, it seems. Wouldn't it be easier to just cancel it?

Stormwatch #11: I think I need to read this again. There's an awful lot going on, and it all seems to be connected to the Engineer (for whom we get an origin story of sorts) and links to the Planetary device(s) from last month. Possibly the most accomplished issue in some time, but I get the feeling Pete Milligan's other books have sickened me to him. I may update this later.

Swamp Thing #11: Great stuff, but if I'm being picky then at heart it's just a punching fite between Swampy and Arcane no matter how beautiful it is. Then Animal Man turns up, to lead into the next issue of AM. Which would be fine, if the last issue of AM didn't end on a cliffhanger (no pun intended) which isn't resolved here. And presumably won't be resolved in the next AM. Honestly, I thought the point of having the same writer on these was so this wouldn't happen?

World's Finest #3: The present day stuff in this still isn't much cop, but the Kev Maguire illustrated flashbacks are a lot of fun. And hey, we get Power Girl's costume recast as a cocktail dress. Inoffensive stuff, which is probably just about worth reading.

gotta say, had I read Perdido Street Station before starting Dial H, I wouldn't have been so surprised by how great and slightly unhinged Dial H is

There should probably be a catch-all China Mieville thread somewhere but I had read them all in advance and really hoped he would carry the madness and invention forward, so was grateful that my faith was vindicated.

Off topic, but Kraken is maybe the only one of his books I haven't been 100% into.

I kind of want to read Embassytown but i hated Kraken so much it's put me off. I'll probably pick up Dial H when it's collected though

I liked Kraken but Embassytown sucked a bag of dicks. Hesitantly looking forward to Railsea when I get to it.

i know this is terribly fanboyish but i wish he would do another Bas-Lag book

me too. Time to start a China thread, methinks.

There is this
This is the thread where we kiss China Mieville's arse.

I thought Embassytown was Bas-Lag-lite, in a good way - mainly because I kind of expected it to be like The City And The City (which I still really liked).

I think my problem with Kraken is that I'd read UnLunDun first.

INC is still worth yer time, sir.

yeah, they've managed to barely miss a beat in the layoff. and Burnham's leapt into Top 5 G-Mo Collaborators Ever in, what, barely a year? maybe top 3.

! Considering that the ranks also include Steve Yeowell, Philip Bond, Richard Case, Chris Weston, Steve Parkhouse, Phil Jimenez, Sean Phillips, Cameron Stewart, JG Jones, J. H. Williams III and Frank Quitely, that's quite the claim.

Reading that list, I stand by it ALL THE MORE FIRMLY!

(Do you really think Sean Phillips' couple of issues of Invisibles are a high point in his cartooning?)

(Including Parkhouse makes me think he might be top-three-worthy too btw - it's amazing how HUGELY less funny the Dave issues by Anthony Williams were, sapping the life even out of the dialogue.)

(PPS I usually think A Glass Of Water is McKean's best comics ever - on the strength of that, I'd call him top 5. That's slightly more down to how very, very many of Morrison's collaborators have been basically insensitive to or failed to "get" his scripts - that merely by supporting the mood and intent of the piece, he vaults ahead almost everyone else.)

chris weston is terrible, richard case v mediocre - only worse artists morrison has had are those clowns who drew his jla issues

How soon we forget Chas Truog!

I suppose I might have read it as "Top 5 best artists who collaborated with G-Mo" rather than "Artists on the Top 5 best collaborations with G-Mo" or indeed "Top 5 best artists whose best work was collaborations with G-Mo", which appears to be the objection to Sean Phillips?

i had indeed forgotten chas truog, thanks so much for reminding me!

Truog was not actively destructive or working counter to Morrison's intent, which puts him above at least 60% of Morrison's DC artists. For something referring back to 1960s DC, he works OK to fine in a semi-evoking of that sub-Boring / Schaffenberger storytelling and rendering.

Case / Workman / Morrison is a fantastic gestalt on Doom Patrol, creating a tone that's greater than some of its parts. Case has never drawn a single readable comic outside of DP AFAIK.

get the feeling Morrison went into The Filth deliberately aiming for Weston's over-rendering to create that slightly disconnected, stiff and not-quite-realistic tone. would be interesting to know if he ASKED for that in scripts or just crossed his fingers and failed to ever think about it again, which seems to be his usual M.O.

"Top 5 artists at actually ~collaborating~ with G-Mo"

I don't see how anyone could call Chris Weston "terrible"... Sure, The Filth looked kinda ugly, but obviously that was deliberate. And Weston's first issue in The Invisibles, the one that introduced Jim Crow, was just a perfect fit; I can't imagine any other Invisibles artist getting the character and the mood of the story so well. I thought he handled the 1920s issues nicely too: they had the sort of curved, ornamental look that jived with the era they were set in. As great as Jimenez is, I don't think his streamlined mainstream style (not to mention Jill Thompson's expressionism, or Yeowell's more minimal style) would've been as good for those issues.

the Filth looks great wtf is wrong with you people.

Now Doom Patrol, there's a shitty looking comic

Doom Patrol looks perfect for the stories being told. I think The Filth does too.

CONTROVERSY!

Honestly, I wish Brendan McCarthy had drawn every issue of DOOM PATROL, but the art that's there matches well with the story. I also think that Weston is perfectly suited to THE FILTH. Sure, Frank Quitely might've done a "better" job, and it would have been finished sometime last year that way.

But what I really want is the last SEAGUY story...

everything chris weston does is fugly, deliberate or otherwise - stiff, over-rendered, grotesque (and not in a good basil wolverton way). every panel is crowded with superfluous detail that overwhelms the narrative - there's nothing to hold on to, no foreground/background, or sense or movement - it's like illustration, maybe, but it's not good comics, and it's so fucking literal-minded - there's no poetry or elegance to it.

i wish brendan drew more comics full stop!

On that last part we can agree.

Case / Workman / Morrison is a fantastic gestalt on Doom Patrol, creating a tone that's greater than some of its parts.

This--Case on Doom Patrol is great, but I've never seen any other work by him. I think I've said before, though, that I may not be very objective on this: Morrison's DOOM PATROL is my favourite superhero comic ever, and the book that got me back into comics as an adult, and which provided a platonic comics ideal I've never quite been able to reach since

I'm curious to re-read the stories between the space story and issue 50 – I’m remember that as being Doom Patrol’s only wonky phase – so I wonder if they seem better/worse now.

Good news! The formerly-Vertigo parts of the New 52 need to go all Dark and Edge.

No, really. I'm not making this up.

Are they trimming the line up or just moving them to the ghetto?

They're calling the ghetto: The Dark and The Edge from what I can tell.*

* I am not making this up.

So Swamp Thing, Animal Man, I Vampire, and Justice League Dark get this tag? Is there going to be a Justice League Edge too?

Hex, too. Honestly I'm not too sure what else would get shoehorned into it.

I'm just finding it funny. "We don't know what made it work before so we're just going to TRY HARDER."

Know what would be edgy? A new SLASH MARAUD series.

The funny part of that is it would be one of their best books.

My god, the 90s are really coming back, aren't they?

Re: the "Dark and the Edge" thing...

You haven't been following this thread that closely, have you.

Aldo, I'd buy you a drink if you were on the right continent.

From what I've been able to glean, The Edge And The Dark (uuuughhh...) will be comprised of the following titles:

Swamp Thing
Animal Man
I, Vampire
Justice League Dark
Frankenstein
The Phantom Stranger
Sword Of Sorcery (Amethyst)
Suicide Squad
All-Star Western
Savage Hawkman
Deathstroke
Grifter
WildCATS
Team 7

So no real thematic cohesion or rational regrouping as much as, like, hey, let's just rebrand some random shit and see what happens. AKA DC's SOP over the past couple of years.

Why not just call it "Liefeld's Vertigostorm!!!"?

If you'd told me in the mid-'90s that Vertigo and early Image would someday be basically melded into a single comics line, I would've taken great strides to get you committed for the blatant insanity you were spewing.

I believe that it's also all the shit that will never, ever be in a big budget movie (Constantine excepted, for the lols).

I really don't understand what Team 7 is supposed to be at all, or why we need another team book.

I have no clue who Team 7 is.

I only know that the guy from I, Vampire is in it. Which is odd, because he left Justice League Dark because he didn't do teams.

Team 7 was yet another mid-'90s Image/Wildstorm thing. IDGI.

wait did I read that right there is a new Amethyst comic

> If you'd told me in the mid-'90s that Vertigo and early Image would someday be basically melded into a single comics line, I would've taken great strides to get you committed for the blatant insanity you were spewing.

That's the most OTM thing in the history of OTM things posted to this here board.