S***: July 25, 2007

SO EXCITED YOU GUYS:

CASANOVA #8
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #7
INCREDIBLE HULK #108

Casanova is still being made?

CASANOVA #7 Because I didn't realize that I forgot to pick this up.
CASANOVA #8
HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS #4 (OF 6)
QUEEN & COUNTRY #32 Nice of you to write your best thing again, too bad I'm waiting on the TPB.

WTF:
HEWOES #1 Is this about Hiro and Ando when they were toddlers?

HEWOES is an awful-looking HEROES PARODY.

Nothing for me this week.

TESTAMENT #19 (Does this even count as a comic book?)
INCREDIBLE HULK #108 (Does this even count as fun anymore?)
SILVER SURFER REQUIEM #3 (Does this even count if the Surfer will undoubtedly be back in a year?)
X-MEN #201 (Ugh. What I do for Endangered Species...)

X-MEN FIRST CLASS VOL 2 #2 <--- Now this. This is the sexiest thing I'm buying this week. At least I've got something to look forward to.

Otherwise? Worst week ever.

That's what you get for putting up w/ TESTAMENT!

The actual list

assbats :/
Love & Rockets #20 ($7.99?!)

WORLDS FINEST BOOKENDS $295.00

lol

My actual list:

BATMAN #666: An homage to Iron Maiden.
BUFFY #5: Featuring a girl who could kick your ass.
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #7: Featuring a girl who could kick your ass.
LOVE & ROCKETS #20: ($7.99?!) = 56 pages
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL #1: I suspect this is Beto's graphic novelization of one of Fritzi's movies - let the insularity continue unhindered...

I suspect this is Beto's graphic novelization of one of Fritzi's movies

Oh, fer real? That's good lookin out.

It certainly IS Beto (THIS I KNOW), and the title's appearance in Fritzi's fictional filmography (alliteration!) coupled with the fact that Beto's adaptation of MARIA M. is due later in the year, etc....you can add that up.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Supergirl/Legion, Mighty Avengers, and X-Men. I'm actually kinda excited for X-Men! I don't think I've actually been looking forward to an issue of X-Men since Morrison's run ended.

Oh wait, and Morrison Batman, I missed that.

Oh, right, in that case I'll be getting Batman 666 and the Immortal Iron Fist trade pbk (although my interest in that has waned a little since The Order was so blah).

BATMAN #666 - A SECRET COUNTDOWN TIE-IN!
BLUE BEETLE #17 - getting kinda bored with this again.
GREEN ARROW YEAR ONE #2 (OF 6) - PLEASE Mssrs. DIGGLE/JOCK, MAY I HAVE MORE DROPKICKS PLEASE?
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #14 - Sinestro BLARGHS.
SHOWCASE PRESENTS MARTIAN MANHUNTER VOL 1 TP - guest-starring Bill Bixby!
SUPERMAN #665 - More filler, I presume?

Oh, right, in that case I'll be getting [...] the Immortal Iron Fist trade pbk

No trade! That's the hardcover coming out this week.

Bugger!

Big week for me, as everyone tries to get stuff out just in time for San Diego...

52 VOL. 2 TP--the annotations, man! they're fascinating!
ALAN MOORE WILD WORLDS TP--I think I somehow missed some of this stuff the first time around
BATMAN #666--will this one bear any relation to the solicitation?
IMMORTAL IRON FIST VOL. 1 LAST IRON FIST STORY PREM HC--because veryone keeps telling me how good it is
INCREDIBLE HULK #108--Greg Pak has suddenly jumped very high in my mainstream-writer pantheon
MIGHTY AVENGERS #4--the Bendisverse continues
LOVE & ROCKETS VOL. 2 #20--priced high because it's double-size, I think, inc. the "director's cut" of "La Maggie La Loca"
LOVE & CAPES #5--not to be confused w/ above
QUEEN & COUNTRY #32--this either

Mordechai, in what sense have the last two issues of Incredible Hulk not been super-fun?

Chuck, if I find Immoral Irony-Fest at some heavily discounted booth at SDCC, you want I should pick up an extra copy?

Thanks! But the postage would probably make up the difference, and there's a bunch of comic-cons in Toronto next month... Cheers, though!

Re: MIGHTY AVENGERS #4 -- Is this some meta attempt to create the most Bendis comic ever? (i.e. people hanging round and talking forever and ever and ever). It's not bad, but...

Betofritz for sure

maybe L&R 2.xx if the New York Times story is really expanded much

Pulphope if it looks really great and good value, and isn't just design masturbation

Behold the Devil 0
Hellboy Darkness Calls 4
Batmorrison 666
Immortal Iron Fist 7
Little Nemo in Slumberland VOL 1 LTD ED HC (I WISH!)
Speak of the Devil 1

Yeah, and probably Love and Rockets 2.20

Batman, Blue Beetle, Annihilation Conquest Star Lord, Immortal Iron Fist, Incredible Hulk, X-Men First Class.

Hey, am I wrong in assuming that I'm the only person here who still actively follows the X-Men books that aren't written by Joss Whedon?

I read Carey's X-Men for about eight months, and picked up all of the Shiar Empire stuff, plus Brubaker's first issue or two afterward. Neither book impressed me all that much, though, and when I had to make room for newer titles they were the first to get the axe. I still read X-Factor and First Class, but they're not really core X-titles, I guess. Them X-books can be fairly daunting to folks who haven't kept up with them for the past 16 years or so.

I'm still reading Carey's & Bru's X-stuff - I'm liking the former more than the latter, tho Bru is still solid (if unspectacular). I think it was Paul O'Brien (on The X-Axis, of course) that said Carey was writing really good Claremontian stories, which is spot-on, & the last issue (w/ the return of the Maurauders! GEEK OUT!) is the best of his run. However, my favorite X-book right now (&, by extension, the best X-book out there) is First Class, because Slim Summers is unfuckwithable.

Oh god I had forgotten about the X-Axis

If you only read one man's bitching about Marvel's out-of-whack shipping schedule etc

I read the X-Men in chunks, when "Rise And Fall" ended, I read it in one sitting, found it kind of underwhelming and flat in certain parts but I like Brubaker's Nightcrawler a lot and it seems like he's the only writer who gave Havok something worthwhile to do in the last 10 years. But it's not so good. I'm thinking about reading Carey's but still haven't found the time.

Anyway, the best xbook right now is probably X-Factor.

Yeah. I really only look forward to X-Factor and First Class X-titles. Well, and Astonishing, of course of course.

Also - it's not that Incredible Hulk isn't fun so much as it's too much going on with too little payoff. It seems like there's no element to the story other than HULK RAGE. Which is ok, I guess. But it's trying too hard for my tastes. It's the Avril Lavigne of comic books.

I've got to say, I hate First Class with a fiery passion.

Okay. Why?

Well, for one, it seems as though it's being written for really dim children, and I prefer things to be aimed at very bright children. It's the Grant Morrison thing.

The other thing is that I suppose I have a very strong idea of what X-Men comics should be like, and it just seems like some lame thing done up in X-Men drag. My notion of what the X-Men should be like is very much rooted in mid-80s Uncanny X-Men/New Mutants and Grant Morrison New X-Men.

Yeah, it's basically Marvel Adventures X-Men, I guess, which isn't a problem for me at all. I enjoy the fun and light-heartedness and appreciate that it's not another turgid take on Claremontian-style melodrama. I'm ignorant of most of the past 16 or so years of X-biz, but from what I've read since early '06, even the good writers (Milligan, Brubaker, Carey) get bogged down with soap operatics. Morrison seems to be the big exception, but outside of Astonishing you can't even tell his run ever happened by reading the current books.

I think Carey nods to Morrison's X-Men quite a bit. Both he and Whedon recognize that those are the two iconic runs, so they steal from them a lot.

I just feel like wacky fun isn't really a good fit for the X-Men books, unless it's like X-Force/X-Statix, which was extraordinarily dark. They're supposed to be really angsty, it's part of the basic concept -- adolescence, oppression. It's essentially a comic about being misunderstood for something about yourself you cannot change.

But the X-Men are over 40 years old, you'd think they'd have grown out of adolescence and at least moved onto mid-life crises.

X-MEN: MIDLIFE CRISIS by BRAND MELTER & RUGS MORALIST

X gonna give MORALIST SADFACE to ya!

Ugh, that Jenna Jameson thing on Newsarama is making me want to quit comic again...

Gotta say the Jameson thing makes me wonder. They're using her (rather, her ten years ago) to sell it, yet they're not using what she's famous for? I don't get it.

Greg Horn on covers is genius, though. It's the book he was born to work on. I mean, yeah, I dislike his work, too, but you know I'm right on this one.

Genius, obvious; tomato, tomato.

At this point, Jenna Jameson is famous for being Jenna Jameson, & I'm guessing Virgin needs all the help they can get right about now (tho I'm not sure going the route of 10th Muse is the way to freedom).

Hey, you know, you really can't pull "sadface" on X-Men because "sadface" has been more or less the default position of the franchise for 30 years.

Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon = happyface, though?

N.B. There's a subtle important distinction between "angst" (Buffy, X-Men, Breakfast Club) and "sadface" (Identity Crisis, recent Spider-Man, Superman crying, etc.).

tell that to Didio/Loeb/Meltzer/Johns/Queseda/RUCKA

I bought that Speak of the Devil business. and a few other things that raised some eyebrows (like Martian Manhunter Showcase).

In about 4 hours I expect to be picking up:

ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #6
BATMAN #666
HELLBLAZER #234
JSA CLASSIFIED #28
SHOWCASE PRESENTS MARTIAN MANHUNTER VOL 1
SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #32
WETWORKS #11
WONDER WOMAN #11
INCREDIBLE HULK #108
IRON MAN #20
SILVER SURFER REQUIEM #3
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #44

Not a particularly strong week.

I really enjoyed the new issue of the Legion! I like the new artist quite a bit.

That's something to look forward to then. Although there have been a couple of patchy spots in this series, it's been excellent in places.

Yeah, it definitely seems like Tony Bedard is on the same wavelength as Mark Waid, though that shouldn't be a shocker since he wrote some of the series while Waid was still the regular writer.

Blue Beetle managed to redeem itself--at least long enough to keep me onboard until the Sinestro garbage.
Batman was kind of awesome, and kind of whatever. I couldn't stop thinking about how Bruce Wayne is like a DeGrassi character--the first time he has sex, he gets a girl preggers (though I guess she had SCIENCE helping).
Speak of the Devil was pretty cool. Is it an L&R tie-in, or does it just coincidentally feature lesbians with thick thighs?
Superman had its moments. The art--when it didn't appall me--recalled Carmine Infantino's 80s stuff when he was inked by Klaus Jansen.
GLC was, as usual, superior to GL in every way, except the handfull of pages by some fill-in artist, which were kinda dreadful.
AND Showcase Martian Eyebrows has the biggest surprise of all, with a heretofore undiscovered first appearance of "The Manhunter from Mars" from 1953!

IMMORTAL IRON FIST - You can't stop the nifty! Gorgeous at that, too.
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL - KINDA L & R RELATED - Upon reexamining my THREE DAUGHTERS trade, I was shocked to learn that I was actually right about the Fritzi film adaptation thing - earlier I, as usual, was talking completely out of my ass.
LOVE & ROCKETS PROPER - A Jaime extravaganza. Gilbert's good too. There's probably a few pages I could write about this, but I'll let Douglas go that route, presuming he wants.
BATMAN - Kubert not great but surprisingly effective - that first silent splash page may be the first thing of his I've genuinely liked . Fun, if nonsensical for someone like me, who has no idea what any of this "Black Casebook" business is about.
BUFFY - Fine, fine piece of work of which I have nothing to say.

does it just coincidentally feature lesbians with thick thighs?

:)

I also got Sharkman #2. Didn't Steve Pugh used to be good, like when he did that awesome of Hellblazer where JC fights a junkyard dog?