Shippping This Week! - 04.08.04

Someone else can talk up the other indie stuff (I hope).

Girlfriend's out of town last half of this week, and I don't drive, so probably won't get comics until next week, but maybe I'll convince her to make a trip Wednesday if I get caught up on work.

Anyone reading Firestorm?

Swamp Thing's in my grab, and Y (already?), and I'm curious about X-Men The End ...

(re: Nocenti, she's also responsible for Bullet and lots of other lame Daredevil villains ... but was Typhoid Mary hers, too? I haven't read any of that era of Daredevil since it first came out)

Tep, I skimmed a preview of X-Men: The End somewhere (@ MileHighComics.com?) (yep), & it looked rather drab - from what I can gather, lots of focus on the Sh'iar & the Destiny Diaries (w00). AND, for your perusing pleasure, the captions from the first page:

"There are a LOT of ways to tell a story. The BEST stars with a girl. And a PROPHECY. (In stories like this, there's ALWAYS a prophecy.) She didn't much CARE about that, really. Her name was ALIYAH BISHOP, after her paternal grandmother. What she CARED about, all she wanted out of life, was to find the FATHER she'd never seen. Such a SIMPLE dream...to have such FINAL consequences."

18 issues of this. Bring on the No-Doz.

Oh geez, X-Men: The End sounds like a real dog now. Is that Claremont? (I've now followed the link and YES. Well Jesus.)

BTW, Tep, have you read the last issue of USM (#62) yet?

Off-topic: comparing Ultimate Carnage (yeesh) to the actual thing swinging around in the _Venom Vs. Carnage_ mini (which, yes, I bought #1 of, because of Peter Milligan) does the "real" version no favors AT ALL, so kudos to Bendis in that regard as well. You YOU KNOW WHAT.

And yeah, holy crap, Ultimate Carnage is a hell of a lot better (I was going to say "cooler," but Original Carnage is so tied into that 90s comics obsession with a certain kind of "cool," hello TRENCHCOAT AVENGERS). I can't wait until Ultimate Kaine shows up!

Light week for me, SWAMP THING, HARD TIME, SCRATCH look like the only floppies. Maybe I'll get some more of Grant Morrison's JLA run in trades, anticipating his upcoming return.

Hey, that's right, BMB is doing Ultimate Kaine, isn't he? AND I THINK I KNOW HOW! (?) Or I'm full of it. (Oh, lordy, I hope it ain't Geldolf.)

Funny you mention Bendis' strengths w/ the teen dramedy - when I first heard about USM, my thoughts were along the lines of most critics (cf. "what the hell a MODERN Spider-Man?"), and the free comic that came out circa the first Spidey flick didn't do a damn thing for me (stupid Jemas), but the guy @ my shop talked it (& Bendis) up a lot, so I gave it a shot. The issue that sold me = #13, where MJ & Peter hook up. The entire sequence (especially the letter) gave me a warm, fuzzy, non-pervy feeling. Bendis' dialogue tendencies also dovetail nicely w/ writing awkward high school kids, too, and USM is a perfect example of it. Actually, it's probably the only current example of this in Bendis' current workload.

I used #13 to get my ex onto the title, too :)

It's interesting, actually, that Bendis hasn't become the Guy Who Writes Teens of comics, like Kevin Williamson for TV/movies before he burned out, or Joss Whedon in a different way. Granted, he's done some here and there outside of Spidey, but it's never even threatened to be his focus -- even his arc on Ultimate FF removed the characters far enough outside the normal teen experience, and used extraordinary enough teenagers, that I'm not sure it counts.

He should totally do Ultimate Fallen Angels.

X-Men: The End = ugh

Batman = I'll probably get the cheapo issue, but I can't see myself reading the big crossover dingus

Runaways = the penultimate issue comes out this week, and it's actually building toward a real ending!

Other than that, Y, Swamp Thing, Hard Time, Scratch, maybe some more Miller Daredevil or a start on Lone Wold & Cub if I'm feeling spendy.

Firestorm I haven't tried, as I need to draw lines somewhere, and I'm miffed the original writer supposedly lined up for this project (MIKE CAREY!) was denied.

Huck, how's JLElite? I need to read more gritty "realistic" superheroe stories like I need more "bad girl" stories.

And Tep! (& others), if you're looking for some teenagey super-hero type stories, the man you want to acquaint yourself w/ is Sean McKeever. He wrote the (cancelled) Sentinel series (about a boy & his robot) (recently collected in manga-sized TPs) and the (soon to be cancelled after only four issues!, according to rumours) (LAME AND STUPID MARVEL LAME AND STUPID!) Mary Jane series (about the Spidey cast as modern teens in high school).

Oh, is that so? I've been getting the main Battitle anyway, and if he's on it I'll definitely keep up. That last arc with Judd Winnick was actually one of the best for awhile up until that last issue, with its needless supervillain building and "The Ghost of Jason Todd, Whoooooo!"

Willingham's 'Thessaly' mini-series was really great btw, and I wasn't even familiar with the character from Sandman.

x-post to Aldo: I could understand if MJ was dogging after a year or so of sales, but for only FOUR ISSUES? McKeever is an unlucky guy - first Sentinel, then MJ, and also I guess Mystique (also a good read if you're looking for fun shape-shifting espionage) is at cancellation-level sales; supposedly, the last issue of Mystique sold WORSE than Thanos, a series (mercifully?) sent to the chopping block.

Aldo, did you get your info from somewhere that wasn't _Lying in the Gutters_?

Far too early though - does this mean Marvel are reconsidering their all-ages line? I can't imagine sales are going that well...

This sounds a lot like Alias the tv show.

It seems a more powerful Fury than it ever was in Captain Britain as well...

Regardless, I've been avoiding the Claremont's Uncanny X-Men the Third based on what he's been doing as of late. Is it worth checking out?

Y - It seems like it might be picking up some steam soon, but even aside from that I think this is the best issue in awhile. It's funny and doesn't seem forced. Whichever ILCer pointed out Vaughan's tendency to insert "Did you know..." style facts in his stories is OTM though, gah.

Runaways - Sort of the opposite of Y in that there's only one issue left now, so stuff is happening! People die! It's great!

Swamp Thing - I thought everything from the last issue was wrapped up a little too tidily and back-to-status-quo, so this issue was a pleasant surprise. I dig this even though I never really read the old series, and the art is great.

Batman, the 12 cent adventure - meh, I never really kept up or cared about all the Robins and support cast that it seems this cross-over will be about.

I thought I bought the most recent Eightball, but the guy at the register neither charged me for it or put it in my bag. Perhaps he was trying to make a statement about indie comics?

(Is Mystique traded yet?)

(_Mystique_ was supposed to be traded manga-stylee w/ the other "Tsunami" titles it debuted with, but I don't think it has been just yet.) (NOTE: All the Tsunami titles I can think of, except for _Mystique_, have been shitcanned.) (For completists, the list includes Namor, Venom, Inhumans [Sean McKeever donged AGAIN!], Human Torch, Runaways [boo hiss f*ckers], and for giggles I'll include the Andi Watson manga title that never even had an issue released, for whatever reason.)

Also, anyone else read that last Adventures of Sperman [sic]? The whole Daffy Duck vs. the Pencil meta thing, and it's hi-larious.