Lester Sands Is a SHIP in the Ocean: July 16, 2008

For me:

FINAL CRISIS ROGUES' REVENGE #1--Johns hops on board the FC express
HOWARD THE DUCK OMNIBUS HC--I might. I might not. Waaugh!
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #119--Skrullpuppy!
MIGHTY AVENGERS #16--I will never understand Marvel's scheduling
OMEGA THE UNKNOWN #10--and lo there shall be an ending

Omegs, CapAms, and maybe I'll finally manage to shake Trinity.

Douglas, at first I thought that HtD thing was a trade edition of the recent miniseries and I was going to dog you without mercy for even thinking about buying it.

Omega and the last month or two of stuff

The Howard the Duck Omnibus kinda seems like a rip-off. It's pretty much the same thing as the Essential collection, except that it's in color and includes the non-Gerber issues of the first series. Why not just a Gerber-centric Omnibus? The Essential stuff, the She-Hulk issues, the one or two other Gerber-written Howard appearances, maaaaaaybe the Max mini, but definitely a collection of the newspaper strips. The absence of the strips is really enough to deflate my interest.

FC: Rogue's Revenge (Am I going to have any idea what's happening? Prolly not.)
Dreamwar (This is an act of perhaps unfounded faith in Giffen's writing. Which will be tested again when Reign in Hell rolls around. And then wholly justified with the arrival of Ambush Bug.)
Hellblazer (Re-reading Delano's run and loving it as much as ever. Should the book have stopped with issue 40? Very possibly so. But nostalgia's sucked me back on the bus.)
1985 (This has been uncomplicated and fun. Other comics: take note.)
Incredible Herc
Mighty Avengers (Inertia is probably going to pull me through this thing where enthusiasm has failed me.)
Omega (And with that, I guess I'll get around to reading the damn things already.)
X-Factor
X-Force (I finally made my way through the "Decimation through Messiah Complex" marathon, which started hella weak but ended pretty strongly. I'm actually kind of excited to catch up now and see how badly they managed to fuck up the post-MC playing field.)

Speaking of Ambush Bug.......SHOWCASE PRESENTS AMBUSH BUG IN JANUARY.

"Gerber's dead, let's rush out all the shit he didn't want reprinted or objected to in the first place as a tribute to the way we treated him in life!"

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.SHOWCASE PRESENTS AMBUSH BUG IN JANUARY.

This will not be good in B&W :(

FINAL CRISIS ROGUES REVENGE #1
TRINITY #7
CAPTAIN AMERICA #40
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #119
PUNISHER #59
X-FACTOR #33
X-FORCE #5

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I already have pretty much all of the Ambush Bug stuff, so I'm not worried. I'm just happy that it's being collected and will be widely available to others.

Also: "Gerber's dead, let's rush out all the shit he didn't want reprinted or objected to in the first place as a tribute to the way we treated him in life!" = sort of OTM. I mean, Gerber's gripe was always a tad naive, given that he did create a character for a big company under work-for-hire conditions. But he was pretty much responsible for any success that Marvel had with the character, so I really don't get the way that the Omnibus is structured at all. Especially since so many of the past Omnibi have been writer-centric.

And the Essential was specifically endorsed by Gerber as being what he wanted in print to represent the character and his work.

Gerber's gripe was always a tad naive, given that he did create a character for a big company under work-for-hire conditions.

One could interpret Marvel settling out of court in exchange for his silence as indicating that his argument that it wasn't work-for-hire (he crossed out the clause, IIRC) had at least some legal validity!

Yeah, I'm only missing one or two Action or DC Presents or whatever from the OG Bug canon (didn't get that Lobo miniseries from a few years back), but I'd rather the "others" got to read it in a better form than B&W that it wasn't designed for.

CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #1- I've recently read the first Savage Sword of Conan reprint collection from Dark Horse and have been curious about the newer series they did. I thought the #0 issue of this new series was pretty sharp. I'm going to give it a shot and maybe check out some of the stuff that Kurt Busiek did in the first series.
JOKERS ASYLUM POISON IVY #1- I still haven't read the Joker issue, but the issue about the Penguin was pretty good.
TRINITY #7- The plot moved forward a bit in the last issue. I'm leaning towards dropping this one and maybe just reading it sometime down the line in trade if it turns out.
GODLAND #24- I'll eventually get this one, but I am only read up to #14 of the series so far. This comic is a trip especially some of the character names. I still think if they ever do a spin off or sequel to this book they should either get a guy whose style is either a whole lot like Steranko or Jim Starlin to take the psychedelic cosmic comic to the next stage.

I've also been curious about a trade for a book called The Sword by Image I looked at on the rack last week. It looked kind of strange and interesting.

I'm also kind of curious about Young Liars and I might just not wait for the trade and go ahead and check out the Northlanders series.

I still think if they ever do a spin off or sequel to this book they should either get a guy whose style is either a whole lot like Steranko or Jim Starlin to take the psychedelic cosmic comic to the next stage.

I can't stand Godland, but this is a great idea!

This is week is Final Crisis Rogues' Revenge, Captain America, Mighty Avengers, Omega The Unknown, X-Factor, X-Force, and Spike.

I've been skimming X-Force in the store; is it actually worth buying?

No. I am buying it mostly out of morbid curiosity re: Archangel at this point. I'm dropping it when this arc is up.

Things That Need To Stop (7/16/08 shipped comics edition):
1. Khoi Pham. The past year of Mighty Avengers might represent the most precipitous decline in art quality of any comics title ever.

2. Larry Stroman. Or possibly the guy who's inking Larry Stroman. I thought that I would dig the novelty of him and Peter David working together on X-Factor again, but no. What the fuck has Larry Stroman been doing for fifteen years, anyway? I remember liking his stuff back in the day, wacky as it was. But I was also buying Liefeld's X-Force at the time, soooo......

3. Hellblazer, probably. Unless there's a writer out there who is willing to write off almost everything post-Delano as a misstep. Once a great character, now a sad caricature. Blerg.

Also: I'm not really sold on Rogues Revenge as a legit FC crossover. As expected, it was a little too mired in DC continuity to do much for me, but it also seemed awfully tangential to the larger story.

When is Ian Rankin Hellblazer????

I'm pretty sure Rogues Revenge was initially conceived as a stand alone mini, and probably dressed up in FC drag just for the hell of it.

It was definitely gerrymandered into FC after the fact (and trimmed from six 22-page issues to three 30-page issues): see http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=153412 .

These big mini-series are total continuity freak outs, but I figure that is kind of the point. The Rogues story does seem to be a follow up on things that came out of Infinite Crisis, so it does fit in a bit with this whole thing. It may have been changed up to fit up better with Final Crisis, but least going from the first issue, I thought Rouges Revenge was an Ok read. I like when they tell the stories from the villains point of view and think writers should do it more often. I only know Scott Kolins artwork from the Lobster Johnson story in one of the BPRD trade paperbacks, but his style is real sharp. The coloring was also really cool.

It had been done before, but I thought the Martian Manhunter Requiem was also Ok. It was a total fanboy kind of send off, but the artwork was nice and it seemed to sum up the character. It was more like an old 80s comic book thing like the Death of Captain Marvel or something like X-Men #138 after Jean Grey/Phoenix died.

For me, I've liked all of the Final Crisis stuff, but I have been reading a whole lot of DC comics from the last couple of years. I'm not sure that it will be better than say 7 Soldiers, but it seems like it might be as good as 52.

I'm kind of curious to see how The Question and the Crime Bible are going to fit into Final Crisis. The Five Books of Blood mini-series had quite an enigmatic ending that I am curious how Grant Morrison might bring that thread from 52 into the new story. Being that Greg Rucka worked on 52 and The Question mini-series, I'm sure it might be one of the few things that DC put out in the interim that could fit in with Morrison's plan.

I also read that new issue of Conan tonight. It is pretty much a setup issue of the story arc which is going to run seven in total, but I was surprised to see Richard Corben's artwork being used in the flashback sequence. I liked it enough that I am going to search out some of the earlier Dark Horse Conan issues.

I'm kind of curious to see how The Question and the Crime Bible are going to fit into Final Crisis. The Five Books of Blood mini-series had quite an enigmatic ending that I am curious how Grant Morrison might bring that thread from 52 into the new story.

Allegedly the Question won't show up again in Final Crisis proper until the last issue, but Rucka's FC: Revelations series looks like it follows her and Crispus Allen/Spectre.

What's the name of that thread where we discussed the best comics of 2007?

The NEW Question was a clue in today's NYT Crossword Puzzle!

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Search: "Countdown"

Couldn't find it, Supes.

I found it. I think. Unless there were more than one.

P.S. I seriously hate trying to find anything on ILX. Pain in my ass.

Yep, that was it. Thanks :)

(Maybe we need ILC MegaEvent Checklist thread where we can post a list of all important threads for reference.)