Shipping This Week! - 04.08.25

Guh? I'm no less a spandephiliac than the rest of you, in fact, I'm a bit of an indiephobe.

I though the prev issue of X-Statix was the last one. One more issue I won't complain too much, though it's been a lot weaker whenever it's been pure pastiche, as opposed to more directed storytelling.

Lee you're an indiephobe!?!?! We need an intervention stat!

Keep away, morally relativistic, emotionally inconclusive studies of the prosaic!

I bought comic books!

The Cerebus issue of (the original, Eastman/Laird, remember when we didn't have to make this distinction?) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The six issues of G.I. Joe/Transformers, which honestly might be the best cross-universe crossover I've read[1]. And the four issues of Mike Carey's My Faith in Frankie, which was cute but would have worked better (i.e. cheaper and more compact) as a $5.95 prestige format one-shot or something. Hempel's art looks odd in it, but he was inking over someone else's pencils if I remember right (or the other way around).

[1] The reason it's so good is because it doesn't take the canonical Joes and have them go meet the canonical Transformers, as such; it combines the two universes from the start, so that G.I. Joe is formed directly as a reaction to upstart terrorist group Cobra's use of giant alien robots (Transformers they've uncovered and learned to control).

And I won Flash and Hulk dolls from the crane at Gameworks, and played Storm (everyone else was adamant about wanting to Not Have To Be Storm) in the X-Men-themed True Heroes game, basically a house-sized boardgame.

I didn't see the Gothsicles, though! I thought about them the first two nights but hadn't remembered to jot down the when and where (I'd originally intended to go to a baseball game, but it was rained out).

I bought issues #3 and #4 of Astonishing X-Men and now take back my reservations from the first issue (even though the end of #4 pissed me off). This is the best take on Kitty I've read since Ellis wrote her in Excalibur (and as I predicted the Kitty/Emma dynamic is easily my favorite part of the book; in fact, the way they bounce off of each other and the other characters seem to define the book for me).

Better than _Wonder Woman_, Hoogenbanden?

In which it is revealed that Iron Fist lurrrrrrrrves terrorists. He really luuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrvvves them. He wants to marry them and so does Chris "Well maybe this character did kill twelve kids but even if he never did time for it the important thing is HE'S VERY SORRY" Claremont, as we see through his brilliant writing on the controversial troubled bomber Oirish McSoideburns.

Has anyone checked out this Ultimate Elektra? I'm curious how Carey does Marvel, but Elektra's one of those characters who's never done much for me when Miller's not writing her. (Would it have been too typecasty to hope for Carey to do Ultimate Son of Satan? I guess it would have been. And they would never call a book that these days.)

Wait, there's a Silver Surfer title going right now? And it's on #12? How did I miss this? How did it not get cancelled? Did they lift the "no cosmic shit" edict, or is he roaming the blue highways, fightin' injustice where he finds it with nothing to keep him company but his board and a teenage runaway?

Granted, this approach (seeing SS through a human's eyes & making him out to be a benevolent child abducter IN HIS OWN BOOK) would work better in a mini-series / graphic novel format than as the thrust behind the introductory arc to a regular series, but I'd like to think it was working.

(I know, I know, despite my saying this the heyday of the title -- and maybe the character? -- was when he was stuck on Earth.)

The problem with doing this in the mainstream MU these days is that the universe is just really well mapped out. The Elders of the Universe have no surprise potential left in them. Neither does Ego, or the Shi'ar, or the Skrulls, or etc., and creating new interesting stuff just makes for a universe that's way too crowded.

With an Ultimate SS, though, you can make that stuff from scratch. Sure, you can have Thanos, but you can redo him from the ground up.

They haven't had Ultimate Galactus yet, have they? Oh man. Now I really want them to.

(In this hypothetical situation, I wouldn't call him the Silver Surfer on anything but the cover. He's Norrin Radd. He's bald. He carries a board. Don't step.)

Mike Carey's UE doesn't differ too much from Rucka's UE. The basis of the story in Rucka's mini (if I recall correctly) - Elektra & MM are going to the same college; she & her friends get harassed by rich kid hotshot; one of her friends is assaulted by said hotshot; she attempts to exact revenge; she (in stealth-ninja mode) runs into MM in blindfolded-ninja dress; stuff happens; her father's laudromat is blown up in retaliation to her getting in hotshot's grill; more stuff happens; tortured love ensues. (Christ, my synopses are condescending suckass, and possibly wrong on many details.) The mini was fine, above average stuff, pretty to look at, nothing spectacular. And Tep is, of course, like Lincoln on the penny.

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Carey's mini rides the original mini's coattails (parenthetical caveat from the last paragraph still in effect) - with the laudromat blown up, Elektra's father gets a loan from her cousins, who are involved with a different sort of laundering. Elektra says, "No, papa!", but he wants her to finish her collegiate studies, despite the badness involved. Meanwhile, Foggy & MM are offered interships at a lawfirm where the big case of the moment involves a skeevy accountant, who, in exchange for saving his own bacon, is about to turn state's evidence on the Fat Cat that Elektra's cousins work for (WINK WINK WINK). And, conveniently enough, Ms. Elektra, stealth ninja in training, shows up at her cousin's doorstep in order to assume her father's debt. (WINKY WINKY WINKY WINKY)

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Carey's got more of an advantage, as he's just pigpiling on top of all the heavy lifting Rucka did shoehorning all the origin info into the first 4-issue mini. And, if you read my spoiler, it seems clear where everything's headed. But it's well-written, and with Salvador Larocca on art chores again (how about that for continuity!), the proceedings are purty to look at.

I do like the idea of her father as a laundromat-owner better than Greek royalty or whatever.

I kind of don't want to know much about her. Maybe she got secret ninja training in an underground lab in Tibet. Maybe she was sent here from the future, where all that survives of the turn of this century is a duffel bag full of kung fu movies, and the future people think that kung fu is a major part of our etiquette and caste system, so they train her to be a diplomat of deadly danger. Maybe Mr Sinister has been breeding her family for generations, and his plans to marry her into the Nelson line and produce the ultimate super-merc have gone hilariously awry. I don't need a bulleted list of facts, I want murkiness.

Exactly, if you're getting rid of that and all its lame/cool/lame/coolness, you have to give me something to take its place, or jump the origin altogether and just get to the ninjaing.

I really should reread Man Without Fear and make sure I like it as much more than UDD&E as I remember, though.

At least Rucka made her sympathetic to an extent, and gave her a hint of complexity Miller never even bothered with.

But I'm still staying away from the new series. All Elektra solo stuff since Assassin has been mediocre...

(As a sidenote: the college kids came back this week; say goodbye to my ability to park anywhere near the store, say hello to the reason why I tend to only manage to get my comics once a month.)

Astonishing -- Niiice. Not just the ending. There are a couple few really swell moments here, my favorite of which might be the two students talking.

Lucifer -- Good, but nothing jumped out this month.

Supreme Power -- it's really starting to grab me after a slow wind-up.

Dr Spectrum -- Not bad, but you know how a lot of #1s are just issues you pick up so you know what's going on in #2, and somehow nothing much happens in them? Yeah.

Also picked up the new ElfQuest tpb, and FINALLY (not at the comic store but at Borders) FINALLY the Essential Dr Strange. I just started a novel yesterday, but since my laptop hasn't gotten here yet (I haven't ordered one yet), this puppy's going to be my timekiller when I'm stuck on campus this week.