All-Star Secret Crisis Divided We S.H.I.P.! May 28th 2008!

Blimey.

Final Crisis
Batman (R.I.P.)
All Star Superman
Action Comics
...and Daredevil -- it's the first Brubaker/Rucka issue, right?

That's gonna be my biggest one-week haul since 52 was going

Wow. Is this the greatest week ever?

Action Comics #865 - Bitchin!
All Star Superman #11 - Double Bitchin!
Batman #677 - Triple Bitchin!
Final Crisis #1 - Quadruple Bitchin!
Fables #73 - Whatever Bitchin Number Comes After Quadruple!

Sword #8

Daredevil Vol 2 #107
Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1
Immortal Iron Fist #15
New Avengers #41
Ms Marvel Vol 2 #27
Thor Vol 3 #9
Ultimate Spider-Man #122
Uncanny X-Men #498
Wolverine First Class #3
X-Force Legacy Of Vengeance One Shot
X-Force #4
X-Men First Class Vol 2 #12
X-Men Legacy #212

Most Excited About: (Jeez, where to start?) ASS, Batman, Final Crisis, Fables, Giant-Size, Iron Fist, Thor, Wolverine First Class, Uncanny and Legacy.

Guys, just so you know, Action isn't going to be bitchin' this month. It's a one-off issue about Toyman. It'll resume bitchin' the following month when the Brainiac story begins.

NOOoooOOOOoooooo

Does we have to wait until Thursday for all this goodness???

Oooh, there's also a Kirby OMAC hardcover!
Weeks like this are kinda awful because they make other weeks feel like shit.

and word to That's gonna be my biggest one-week haul since 52 was going in terms of excitement too!

Action Comics #865
All Star Superman #11
Batman #677
Final Crisis #1
Batman Gotham After Midnite #1 - Steve Niles and Kelley Jones doing a 12 issue miniseries featuring Batman versus supernatural foes. I'm not completely sold on Steve Niles, but to be honest I haven't read much he has done. I do like quite a bit of Kelley Jones' artwork with Batman, so it could be pretty good.

DC is going to make some cash this week with three Grant Morrison titles shipping on the same date.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN YAY
FINAL CRISIS hopefully yay but probably ouch :(
JUDENHASS although I expect it to be stilted and non-moving, especially with the computer lettering
JOHNNY BOO VOL 1 BEST LITTLE GHOST IN THE WORLD as long as I see a copy - if it sucks I can give it to a kid. or mullygrubber.
COMICS JOURNAL snapback on David Michaelis - really keen to have a look at this, but haven't seen a copy since they went to the new easier-to-find format

I'm not completely sold on Steve Niles, but to be honest I haven't read much he has done.

ThHe more Niles you read, the shitter it gets.

ACTION COMICS #865--I don't care, I'm now officially into the Johnsverse
ALL STAR SUPERMAN #11--Morrison wonderment pt. 1
BATMAN #677--Morrison wonderment pt. 2
FINAL CRISIS #1--Morrison wonderment pt. 3
JACK KIRBY'S OMAC HC--I've never actually read most of these
NEARLY COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS TPB--oh man I loved this stuff when I read it 25 years ago, and expect I will still love it now
DAREDEVIL #107--Gotham Central reunion!
NEW AVENGERS #41--perhaps we'll see the cast this time?
IMMORTAL IRON FIST SEVEN CAPITAL CITIES OF HEAVEN HC--because I neglected to read it in single-issue format and have been told I need to rectify that
JUDENHASS GN--oh, Dave Sim. Oh, Dave Sim.

I am SO EXCITED for this week it's not even funny.

Wow. Great week.

Final Crisis
All Star Superman
The Sword
Iron Fist

The only thing that could make this better would be if Mouse Guard or Pax Romana showed up too.

The Giant Size Astonishing is the one that finally wraps up Whedon's arc, yeah? If so, that's four (4) comics in the one week. I may have to sit down for a bit.

Triple stage Grantness
Speak of the Devil (Where my Hernandez peoples at??!??)
The Ed and Greg and Matt show
The Matt and Danny show (I hate to be all anti fun, but this is starting to get a bit old for me. I may drop it.)

Speak of the Devil
ASS
Fables
She-Hulk
maybe giant size X-Men

for me this is a hueg week also!

Douglas, that Iron Fist is awesome. You're gonna love it.

Oh, man, I forgot about Speak of the Devil! That too.

The Matt and Danny show (I hate to be all anti fun, but this is starting to get a bit old for me. I may drop it.)

Good timing - Bru/Frac depart for X-MEN after #16.

F**KIN' FLOPPIES:
ALL STAR SUPERMAN
BATMAN
FINAL CRISIS
SPEAK OF THE DEVIL
IMMORTAL IRON FIST
ASTONISHING X-MEN

I just read the first volume of Immortal Iron Fist and it was rad. It also happens to include one of the coolest pages I've seen in any comic for a long while.

Final Crisis, New Avengers, and Ms. Marvel (because I'm using the summer events as an excuse to get back into buying comics again)
Batman (because I finally got caught up on all of the pointless and shitty Ra's Al Ghul issues, and I figure it can only get better from there)
Uncanny and X-Men: Legacy (because I'm caught up on the post-Messiah CompleX stuff and it seems like a good time to hop back on the X-Train)
Speak of the Devil (because Beto : my money :: fisherman : fish)
possibly Marvel 1985 (because, post-sabbatical, I am drawn towards potential good reads that aren't mired in continuity)

I'm far enough behind on ASS and Astonishing that I'll wait for the collections.

Even though it's prolly too expensive, I totally want the OMAC book! And I hope Marvel and DC keep collecting Kirby's minor 70s series. I recently read his one-shot 2001 film adaptation and it might just be my favorite comic ever now.

nothing but huntress year one and that first countdown tpb for me!

jk jk

because I'm caught up on the post-Messiah CompleX stuff and it seems like a good time to hop back on the X-Train)

REALLY? Because if anything, it's just more of the same "let's intentionally run this thing into the ground while the company focuses its energy on promoting the Avengers."

Mike Carey and Peter David do the best they can given a lousy hand, but geez, Ed Brubaker is fucking horrendous, and I love his work his Captain America, Daredevil, and Iron Fist. Also, if you're a fan of Morrison and Whedon, you're kinda fucked because editorial mandate has undone everything those writers did to make Cyclops and Emma Frost interesting characters.

I did say "seems", based more on the fact that they aren't in the middle of year-long storylines or a massive crossover than because I really think that they're going to be super top-notch. The most recent X-stuff I've read is the first year or so of Carey's run. And I will probably get through the first post-"Messiah CompleX" storyline in each book and stop buying them. Because I never learn my lesson.

Bear in mind that there are some reading prerequisites for X-Men Legacy: every mutant comic ever written.

I've fulfilled about 90% of that prerequisite, sadly enough.

All-Star Superman #11
Batman #677
Blue Beetle #27
Final Crisis #1
Northlanders #6
Jack Kirby's OMAC One Man Army Corps HC
Daredevil #107
Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1
Immortal Iron Fist #15
X-Men First Class #12
Freddie & Me: A Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody

so: when/why/how did Action Comics become bitchin' again?

Geoff Johns is just kinda awesome lately -- it may come as a big surprise to some people, lord knows I never saw it coming -- but Action in particular became one of the best superhero comics going with the Superman & The Legion of Super-Heroes arc illustrated by Gary Frank.

By the way, Garrett, I read though a galley of that Freddie & Me book at work recently, and sheesh, you may want to thumb through it before you plop down some cash.

I think you guys are all totally overrating the LoSH in Action story. Yes, the art was boffo, but it wasn't THAT great a story.

Gee, I'd say the writing was better than the art.

U R ALL ON CRYSTAL METH

That new Batman has an incredible OH CRAP!!! moment in it. Morrison said that Batman-as-we-know-him isn't coming back from this one, and yeah, that would make sense...

so Final Crisis is written by Grant Morrison? Wow. Now I have bought issue one.

Yes, Batman = !?!??!

Batman has been so reality-fuck-y throughout Morrison's run that I don't know what to believe. Although the bomb dropped in this issue could very nicely set up the peaceful rest of Batman, fer shure.

Also, can I just say that the cover for the X-Force first-three-issue collection is pretty effing hilarious?

http://images.wizarduniverse.com/WizardUniverse/Previews/PREV423/xforcecover.jpg

I KILL YOUR SUN!

FORGIVE 7!

That's all I have to say for this week.

i wonder if batman would have seemed less random if i had read the other bullshit tie-ins (detective, etc.)?

None of the tie-ins to R.I.P. have been published yet. And also, acc. to various sources (inc. Morrison), they won't have a relationship to the core story. It'll be more like; "What does Nightwing do now that Batman is gone?" "What does Robin do?"

The confusion and randomness is intentional on Morrison's part. He wants the reader the experience Batman's own confusion. I think he talks about that in a recent IGN interview, maybe? (Can't remember where I read this.)

haha, ok.

i read giant-size astonishing, ASS, and batman RIP in a row and they all had a similar vibe of "crazy shit happening!" mixed with some confusing/unclear storytelling (with ASS being the most clear and batman the least).

Yeah, I thought there was some clumsy storytelling in the last issue, but here the confusion seems a lot more deliberate. The art is not necessarily helping, though.

bruce wayne getting played by the ladeez again.

The art is not necessarily helping, though.

Yeah, I'm so sick of Morrison getting saddled with these sixth-rate artists. Like, okay: drawing ability apparently isn't all that important to you, but could you at least learn how to tell a somewhat coherent story with your badly-drawn pictures? How do people like Tony Daniel still have a career? Are they gonna get Mark Pacella to do the drawrings for Morrison's next high-profile run?

The whole art thing is kinda weird. Isn't Morrison considered a fairly high profile writer? Why wouldn't they give him good artists to work with? (Or do they believe these artists are good?)

Ha ha, I was just gonna come and whine about how come Batman RIP has such a mediocre artist, and everytime I turn the page I imagine how much more awesome it would be if it was drawn by JHWilliamsIII.

Nonetheless, I was rocked by the issue.

In retrospect, it's a good thing that I waited until after the Ra's Al Ghul crossover was finished to catch up on the Bat-stuff. Because, had I slogged through that steaming pile of shit on a monthly basis, I probably wouldn't have stuck around for "R.I.P." Even Grant seemed to be sleepwalking through his installments, and the art was some of the worst and most unreadable art I've seen in some time.

Don't even get me started on the fact that the storyline has been collected in hardcover, or the general overvaluing Marvel and DC are engaged in with respect to their recent output and the need to put out expensive, deluxe collections of everything. That's a whole 'nother rant.

I'm with Deric. There's a lot of stuff I'd be buying if they were not at a silly inflated hardcover price point.

I'm a little confused by some of you -- Grant Morrison, about 90% of the time, works with his pick of artists. He works with some of the most talented artists in the medium on a regular basis. Batman -- which has had two regular artists in his run, both of them very popular -- is the closest thing to the exception to this rule.

Do you guys have any concept of how slow JH Williams is? Or the majority of the artists you might rather have on Batman? That book has to come out monthly!

Actually, y'know who'd be cool? Joe Staton.

The thing is, Daniels's art is so standard superhero that I don't know if I'm supposed to recognize Dr. Hurt as a Wayne (Thomas, Thomas Jr, or even Bruce!) or if he's just plucked from central casting where every single male has the same facial structure.

I think the "Morrison works with too many shitty artists!" beef is a two-fold issue: one, it hasn't really been until fairly recently that he started consistently working with solid artists on a regular basis. Two, there's too big a chasm between the boutique artists he works with on special projects like ASS or Final Crisis and the folx he gets saddled with on his monthlies. Seeing what he can do with a solid artist side-by-side with the work that's crippled by people who shouldn't be getting paid for what they do makes the lows really stand out.

Dr. Superman is onto something. Hook Morrison up with more Statons, where "a Staton" = a solid storyteller who can get the job done and draw, like, two different faces. There are an increasing number of those types working on other titles, so it's disappointing to see Morrison hampered unnecessarily. I don't expect a steady stream of mind-blowing fireworks on a monthly book. I just want to be able to tell what the fuck is going on panel-to-panel.

What's Staton been up to this past decade? I can't imagine what his art would look like with today's uber-processed coloring.

it hasn't really been until fairly recently that he started consistently working with solid artists on a regular basis

Admittedly, this is actually kind of a load of shit. The number of specific instances I can name off the top of my head (large swaths of New X-Men and The Invisibles, Porter on JLA) is relatively small compared to the number of times he's worked with artists who were, at the very least, functional. And the examples above look like High Art compared to the last few months of Batman, which I'm sure is distorting my perception of the past.

Morrison/Colan/Palmer... Morrison/Bob Brown/Frank Chiaramonte... I'm kinda droolin' here at crossgenerational what-ifs.

Morrison/Trimpe/John Severin, SLOBBER SLOBBER. (I always thought Trimpe's art was ugly as hell with every other inker but Severin, but he could lay out a page.)

Two, there's too big a chasm between the boutique artists he works with on special projects like ASS or Final Crisis and the folx he gets saddled with on his monthlies.

Well, what are all these monthlies you're talking about?

All of the Seven Soldiers books had top-notch art, except for the second issue of Miracle Man, which was a last minute rush-job thanks to Pasqual Ferry flaking out of the project. Not Grant's fault.

52 was a weekly book, and thus required artists who could make tight deadlines.

Batman has been illustrated by Andy Kubert -- a big star, no matter what you think of him, JH Williams II, and Tony Daniel, who is also a fairly popular artist. That said, the fill-in issue immediately before Batman RIP had seriously awful artwork by a total no-mark. But c'mon. It's a monthly book, and one of DC's flagship books -- it has to come out!

WildCATS, which was aborted, was drawn by Jim Lee, one of the most popular artists in the history of the medium.

The Authority, which was also aborted, was drawn by Gene Ha, who is terrific and well-regarded.

All Star Superman is drawn by Frank Quitely, nothing more needs to be said about that.

Final Crisis is drawn by JG Jones, who is also quite good.

So, in the time since Grant Morrison has become a mega star at DC, how is he getting screwed in terms of artists? The only other writers right now who can claim to pull even half as many top-drawer pencillers are Geoff Johns, Brian Michael Bendis, and Ed Brubaker.

That is to say right now -- obviously Alan Moore can work with anyone he wants.

Ha ha. See my last post, dude. I already refuted myself. My rant welled up mostly as a reaction to my sudden exposure to several months of sub-par Bat-stuff after a long comics sabbatical.

Joe Staton is drawing Scooby-Doo. Seriously.

I think he's writing it too. It's funny that that's where he's been for the last dozen or so years, because I remember the letter cols for the Englehart Green Lantern Corps series featuring recurring complaints that his style was too cartoon-y (too cartoon for Dr. Ub'x???).

But yeah, there seems to be a bit of a can't have it both ways between awesomeness of art and timeliness of release (which was 100% forgivable on 52) and I do appreciate the fact that we've had 2 issues of Batman (which should absolutely be a monthly comic) in May (I think), and y'know, if DC is going to keep up the All Star line (and I hope it expands it, really, I mean, COME ON! There should be a quarterly boutique book for at least the founding members of the JLA, that way there might be at least one All Star issue every month), then that's a fair trade off. Give me my monthly thrills with reliable if un-gobsmacking art, but also give me All Star Superman.

All Star Wonder Woman, by Adam Hughes, is being held back until it's done, because he REALLY wants to make sure it comes out monthly, and he's totally not capable of producing it on a monthly basis.

All Star Batgirl, by Geoff Johns and J.G. Jones, is back-burnered for obvious reasons, but is apparently not dead.

I would expect All Star Batgirl sometime around 2022.

I think the missing artist there, Matt, is Howard Porter.

(large swaths of New X-Men and The Invisibles)

The artists on The Invisibles are presumably picked by himself. And also awesome as far as I can recall: Sean Phillips, Jill Thompson, Steve Yeowell, Chris Weston, that guy who's basically George Perez II, Philip Bond, up until the final carcrash it's a very pretty book in my opinion.

Yes, I am talking about the current period, in which Grant Morrison is one of DC Comics' two superstar writers.

Aside from the underrated Igor Kordey -- who had to rush out his New X-Men issues under very tight deadlines and ought to be cut some slack -- Grant's artists on New X-Men were amazingly talented and/or big stars: Frank Quitely, Ethan Van Sciver, Phil Jiminez, Chris Bachalo, Marc Silvestri.

Sigh, three superstar writers if you must count Meltzer...

How are you defining superstar there, exactly? Please do not be defining it in a way that makes Geoff Johns the other one, or I'll have to cry.

Sales? Popularity? Control of the universe they work in?

I used to have a strong bias against Geoff Johns, but you know what? I've come to the conclusion that much of his work is quite good. He's not too different from Grant Morrison, really -- they both have a great skill for finding the most resonant and interesting aspects of the characters and institutions they play with, fixing them up and making them seem fresh, exciting, and new. Look at what he's done for Green Lantern -- he's totally maximized the full potential of that franchise.

There's a reason why Geoff and Grant are the guys steering the ship at DC -- they're on the same wavelength. The difference being, Morrison is a loftier, more intellectual guy who is always hinting at grand themes, and Johns is more interested in emphasizing big thrills and character identification. Johns is always trying to get the reader to go "FUCK YEAH!," and over the years, he's become quite good at that.

I think the distinction I'm making w/r/t the artists is their storytelling chops or lack thereof. Some of the superstars you noted above are good at making pretty pictures, but I personally would put the ability to tell a story above draftsmanship any day when it comes to comics. F'rinstance, I love Bachalo's art, but he's terribly inconsistent in the storytelling department.

Yeah, but that's sooooo not a concern in terms of sales and popularity!

Who are the artists right now who can sell a comic on their name alone that have high quality draftsmanship? And are also able to do monthly work? The best I can come up with is Bryan Hitch, but Fantastic Four isn't doing that great, so maybe not. It's hard to come up with any answer that doesn't involve the artist being paired with a brand-name writer.

I only understood about 20% of Final Crisis, 80% of Batman, and 100% of All Star Superman.

My breakdown is: 20% of Batman, 65% of Final Crisis, and 100% of All Star Superman.

I've softened on Johns a bit too, mostly cos I've been enjoying Booster Gold. Action's been alright, though the LSH six parter should no way have been six parts. JSA is terrible. GL I've not been reading. My remaining beefs with Johns I guess are:

- his emotional moments really grate on me: that bit in JSA where a character recovers her superpowers through realising she cant be perfect or whatever it was, and his "see! I give depth to villains!" issues - aargh.

- the sense you get reading his big event comics (this being why I've been wary of reading the GL stuff) of him sitting on the reader's shoulder going "ok here comes the cool bit...here comes the cool bit...IT'S THE COOL BIT!"

But I'm glad DC have him, cos I like DC, and it's important that they've got somebody who can hit the commercial pulse fairly unerringly.

I think the only reason I hit 80% with Batman is because I've been reading all of the Morrison interviews related to it. Otherwise I'd probably be clueless.

Yeah, my reaction to the last couple of issues of Batman has been "wait, what?"

Johns is fine when he avoids his tics:

"...And that's what it really means to be a hero. Oh, shit! That guy just got graphically eviscerated! Thank goodness this Golden Age character that even Roy Thomas forgot about is here to help us! We'll need him around when the Green Lanterns are shown to really be fueled by envy, since that is the completely arbitrary cultural association with that particular color!"

He's fun. He's just a little gooftarded.

(Please don't tell me that the Green Lanterns are already being fueled by teh envy. I am catching up on the story and don't want to be spoilerized.)

Johns is basically the Bizarro Grant Morrison, then.

To me, I think Geoff Johns stuff on Green Lantern and Action seems a ton like 80s John Byrne on Superman and Fantastic Four. I know Johns doesn't draw the books, but pretty much Byrne did his whole run on both of those titles bringing back big things from the original comics and adding a twist to them. The way Johns paces his stories seems very much from that kind of 80s big comic book kind of style. It is comics influenced by comics, where someone like Morrison (or really most of those classic UK writers) are bringing in a bunch more stuff from outside.

To even take it a step further, it seems to me that Johns pretty much hit the reset button on Green Lantern and is picking up almost right where Steve Englehart with Joe Staton and things from Len Wein/Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore left off with the characters in the 80s. Those books brought back Guy Gardner and really wrote the back story on a bunch of the GL Corps.

I think you guys are crazy for tagging that hard on Tony Daniels. I don't think he is the end all be all, but he is way more than serviceable and is way better than many monthly artists. I don't know, I'm a lot more easier going on the artists than many fans.

To be honest, I do think that 'Dr. Hurt' might end up being "Thomas Wayne Jr.", which in the old Earth 1 days was Bruce's brother who ended up in an institution. Morrison's run seems to be fetishing those late 60s early 70s stories and that one with 'Uncle Phillip' and his brother being institutionalized is one of those. It makes the most sense to me, as he would be the one with all of the dirt on the family.

Ha, while I don't disagree that Grant Morrison having influences outside the realm of superhero comics, I do want to point out that virtually everything he's done in recent years has more or less been entirely on the jock of one Jack Kirby...

This is the thread where I question your definitions! In this case, 'recent years' again. Final Crisis okay, some of Seven Soldiers alright (though obviously not Frankenstein) and bits of 52 (though obviously not as much as Countdown). But none of the others in your list from earlier seem that much in debt to Kirby. (not even mentioning Seaguy/We3/Vimanarama)

Seven Soldiers itself (ie, the modality) seems a direct riff on Kirby's original Fourth World series (except GMo got to end his).

People are looking at Morrison's assigned artists with a longer historical perspective, and it's a fucking horrid one. Howard Porter couldn't move from one panel to another, and all his people looked like posed action figures. Whoever drew The Flash could actually cartoon, but in the first issue had the wrong Flash break his leg. Val Semieks couldn't cartoon or have faces expressing human emotions, and all his people had ankles two metres apart. N. Steven Thingummy was obsessed with designing stylish panels where everything had shiny edges, and was rubbish at going from one panel to another. All the fill-in artists on JLA were worse than Porter, except for Gary Frank, who made pictures that didn't hurt the eyes but wasn't excellent, and some Image-clone dude, who was only just not worse than Porter. Janson might not have been an especially good choice on Gothic. Shining Knight dude could neither tell a story from panel to panel nor have the pictures match the script. Mister Miracle was a complete trainwreck.

I bought the new Batman cos some people here made noises of excitement and I thought it might help me to follow Final Crisis, and this guy is ludicrously incompetent. He can't draw people, he can't do perspective, he has obviously NEVER SEEN CLOTHES IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE (seriously, collars just stab people in the neck and fold like moebius strips), he can't construct an environment, and I can't really tell how his storytelling is because it hurts my brain to just look at the individual pictures.
Also, I think he may have done one of Alan Moore's Spawn comics and actually not have been this bad back then.

WildCATS, which was aborted, was drawn by Jim Lee, one of the most popular artists in the history of the medium.

Billy DeBeck, EC Segar, Herge, Goscinny, Jim Davis, Scott Adams - these are popular artists in the history of the medium. And regardless of his success, Jim Lee cannot draw people, really really cannot cartoon, can't do more than three facial expressions, and still covers everything, 15-20 years on, with a bunch of long flashy modelling lines to try and make up for the poor drawing underneath.

Action in particular became one of the best superhero comics going with the Superman & The Legion of Super-Heroes arc illustrated by Gary Frank.

I have just read all this, and can confirm that I consider it to be baloney. It's not like there aren't any interesting ideas in this six-part (six! part!) story, but they have all of the joy beaten out of them on every page. Looking back it seems odd that there's only two pages of that scene where the teacher explains the Superman=Human thing to the eager schoolchildren, it seemed like there was a half-dozen. It should have been a panel. Also there are recaps. If you're going to do recaps, a) don't and b) try to do it in any sense naturally, instead of just having the characters explain everything that everyone there already knows.

I kind of see what the description of him as Bizarro Morrison is getting at (argh, I'd forgotten his Bizarro three-parter (three! etc) for a few minutes), but unlike him, he seems very very intent that no-one ever has to reread a comic, that he is prepared to go over everything until he's certain that you understand what he's just done there.
The Gark Frank art just made me check at least once an issue whether this was actually Steve Dillon.