Potato SHIP 05-14-08

In the back of my head I'd had "SHIP the Superflux" lingerin' about. Anyone who gets the reference wins a cookie. Alas...

Anyway, judging from WHAT I THINK is due:

BATMAN #676 - R.I.P. SOME DUDE IN A RIDICULOUS OUTFIT
CASANOVA #14 - Welcome back, Cass.
BPRD: 1946 #5 - Um...something?
PUNISHER MAX #57 - Frank shoots someone. Probably.

MAR082279 PSI-FORCE CLASSIC TP VOL 01 $24.99

wau

BPRD - Nazi brained gorillas!
Batman RIP - Not a teamup with Rip Hunter, apparently.
I think that's it. Quite a relief after last week's flood.

just Omega

Refresh the page, Jordan. Omega was last week.

For me:

BATMAN #676--so much ripping!
FINAL CRISIS SKETCHBOOK--shouldn't they have held off on this until they needed some filler?

...I think that might actually be it for me. So much stuff I don't want! Although I'm sure I overlooked something.

Batman 676 -- No doubt Didio will give away the ending within time (if he hasn't already. And that's about it.

I'll avoid the nerdy sketchbook in case of spoilers. (Isn't it nice to read a big story that hasn't been telegraphed in advance? Although presumably that's because GM's only written two issues so far.)

Batman #676
Booster Gold #9
Amazing Spider-Man #559
Last Defenders #3

hmmm.... where's this Casanova #14 of which you speak, R. Baez?

oh, thanks. in that case, nothing (except for last week's Omega).

MAR082279 PSI-FORCE CLASSIC TP VOL 01 $24.99
wau
-- HI DERE, Monday, May 12, 2008 7:26 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Collects Psi-Force #1-9. What a great series that was. Kept the grit through to the end.

FEB080248 BATMAN THE JOKERS LAST LAUGH TP $17.99

THAT'S RIGHT

also lol a Booster Gold HC edition

X-Men Legacy, Batman RIP, Thunderbolts, and Green Lantern Corps. Kind of a slim week.

Hey, folks: That Wolverine special is written and at least partially illustrated by David Lapham, FYI.

SERENITY BETTER DAYS #3
BATMAN #676
DMZ #31
TRANSHUMAN #2 (YES, YES, YES)
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #1 WOOHOO
SECRET INVASION FANTASTIC FOUR #1 - Douglas, you're not reading/notating this?
THUNDERBOLTS #120
TWELVE #5
WOLVERINE #65
X-MEN LEGACY #211

Why is my list unmanageable even on slow weeks? At least I've dropped New Exiles. Good riddance.

DMZ #31
UN-MEN #10
these are the shit!

NEWUNIVERSAL SHOCKFRONT #1 (OF 6)
i thought i was just waiting for a new issue of NU to come out, now there's a completely new mini? wtf happened, did i miss something?

CTHULHU TALES #2 CVR A
first one was okay, but i'm curious to see where #2 goes...

i might wait til next week to go to the shop, there's not much here. when's the next Omega: The Unknown come out? that's my favorite this week.

Nothing, woo-hoo!

If somebody wanted to pay me like $300 a week to annotate Secret Invasion too, I totally would. But there's a limit to how much I can do out of love... I mean, I'm even thinking of doing something vis-a-vis Trinity, depending on how it is.

I guess DC's iconic'ness lends itself more to annotations and digressions than Marvel. It /does/ feel when you read Morrison like every bit of dialogue, and every panel could be analyzed.

If somebody wanted to pay me like $300 a week to annotate Secret Invasion too

there are...other means

BATMAN #676 - I am curious where this is all going.

BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #17 - This is the first issue of a new storyline with some Kevin Maguire artwork and features a storyline where Catwoman meets Batgirl for the first time. DC seems to be taking this more like the old Legends of the Dark Knight now, which is a good thing. I can't remember what it was, but they have some other storyline that sounded good coming up on this title.

GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #8 - This mini-series is pretty much about tying up some of the loose ends from the whole War Games before One Year Later Batman stories. In doing that it is OK, but it is not anything special. I think it could have been more interesting if they knocked it up another notch and brought in some more about the Crime Bible and the stuff with The Question from 52, even though Intergang is a subtext of this mini-series. That being said, I still haven't but will eventually read that Crime Bible mini-series starring The Question.

SUPERMAN #676- James Robinson's run on Superman starts with this issue.

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #24 - There is a whole lot of characters and really not enough pages to really explore them out in this book. What you get is not bad, but having such a big cast and so many ideas has the book jumping around quite a bit.

Robinson doesn't start until #677. Originally this issue was going to be a Keith Champagne fill-in about the dude running away into the foreground on the cover of ACTION #1; now it's been replaced with a Vito Delsante story that got bumped from SUPERMAN CONFIDENTIAL #9. Fill-in for a fill-in!

BPRD 1946 #5
GOON #24
BATMAN #676 RIP
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #17
GEN 13 #20
WONDER WOMAN #20
PUNISHER #57
SECRET INVASION FANTASTIC FOUR #1
THUNDERBOLTS #120
TWELVE #5

Cool, that's a nice quiet week.

is Batman RIP going to be dumb if i don't read any of the dumb crossover stuff?

I don't understand why Batman RIP is crossover. Did Morrison just pitch a story and they decided to make it a crossover, or did Morrison actually pitch a crossover?

Is it a crossover? Or is it just an event?

It's a happening. And it freaks me out.

Well. Is it just me, or was Batman slightly incomprehensible? I'm gonna reread it tomorrow but... just sorta disappointed right now.

Guys, GeNext wasn't terrible! I know, I'm shocked, too!

Batman RIP is not a crossover. The story is in Grant Morrison's Batman comic. The other comics are just glomming on to boost sales.

Batman RIP anyone? I'm going to hold judgment for a few issues, but seemed to be a fairly cracking start, I thought. It's the first actually creepy Joker I've seen in a, er, ever?

I was baffled but intrigued by this issue. Can anyone shed more light?

now i am intrigued (soon to be baffled)

I was intrigued and baffled--was the Joker stuff real? A flash-forward? A dream?

Who was it who said that the Black Glove has to be Alfred? Was that someone on ILC? Whoever it was, good guess, but it almost seems too obvious at this point.
This and last week's comics:

Batman RIP: Okay, let's do this.
Final Crisis Sketchbook: Okay, let's do this too.
American Splendor: Ty Templeton! Physicians who want to play a bigger role in their community! Phone conversations! SIGH.
Madman: I kinda love this comic.
Superman: Hrm. Have I dropped Superman Confidential yet? I really should. I should probably drop Superman, too. Action seems okay, though!
Detective: I can stomach Dini's Zatanna-love as long as the art stays this awesome. Nguyen was at the ComiCon, and I shoulda got a sketch.

I still have more comics to read, too! But this has been the best (two) week(s) in quite a while. I am happy to read comics again.

American Splendor--I've only read his first Vertigo book, The Quitter, and man was that duuuuuullllll. Will I like the earlier stuff, or is it more of the same. The Quitter was like being stuck on a bus next to the world's dullest autistic.

I've been trying to avoid guessing who the Black Glove is, but yeah, Alfred seems pretty plausible.

The artwork was middle of the road, but I thought the story was all right in the last issue of Superman.

I've got a feeling that the other issues are going to be more reaction by other members of the 'Batman family' to what happens in Batman RIP than be intertwined in the actual plot, as looking at the issue numbers they come later in the storyline. The Detective storyline seems more like a parallel story dealing with Hush and hopefully Paul Dini can make some diamond out of some of the coal that are tied to that character.

As for the actual character Hush, I think Loeb and Lee totally bonked it on the back end of that storyline (the start was pretty cool), but it was the Dark Knight compared to that wacky run in the Gotham Knights comic.
I think Bane, who many Batman fans seem to hate, has a hell of a lot more interesting back story and places someone could take the character. I'm hoping Dini and Grant Morrison can maybe make Hush into something more interesting, as right now I think he is a pretty shallow villain.

American Splendor--I've only read his first Vertigo book, The Quitter, and man was that duuuuuullllll.

I've actually only read the first Vertigo AmSplend and the current one (haven't even seen the movie), so I can't address anything else but those. Yeah, they're kinda boring. But I like the boringness of it. The Vertigo AmSplends are anthologies where each 2-6quotidien tale of has a different illustrator, so that breaks things up a bit. Plus, TY TEMPLETON.

If you liked the story in the current ish of Superman, you should read Brubaker's 3-ish Batman/Alan Scott team-up in Detective from about 5 yrs ago. It is the bee's knees, and also the cat's ass.

That Brubaker Batman/Alan Scott story is a good one.

The story in Brubaker's run that I thought was really killer was the Moxon/Deadshot/Zeiss storyline. Zeiss was a pretty cool character. Considering how popular Brubaker has become, I'm surprised DC has not compiled that one (although they did add that Batman/GL story to the hardcover of that one Joker story he did).