Shipping This Week! - 04.10.06

Jubilee! Exiles! Alpha Flight! (Okay, I guess it stopped being an X-spinoff a long time ago.)

Y THE LAST MAN #27 (MR) $2.95
CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON #8 $2.99
THOR #85 $2.99
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #66 $2.25
WOLVERINE #20 VARIANT EDITION $2.25
DEMO #10 (Of 12) (MR) $2.95 (noted only to keep track; I haven't bought an issue since #1, due to lack of availability & forgetfulness)
QUEEN & COUNTRY #27 (MR) $2.99

More money for dumpster diving yippee! And, you know, I think those TPs Ninth Art pimped were from last week's stash. Well, the Courtney Crumrin one is - I went to a shop on Friday with half a mind to snag it, should I find it, & instead left with a slew of superheroics.

Justification on the Wolverine listing: I am NOT really keen on the idea of this book turning into Marvel Two-in-One, Bub, and the way the (in my mind) idealized Rucka / Robertson team-up petered out I should just cut & run while I can, but the Romita / Janson art looked really good, so if MM can get out of his own way, this should be fun.

X-post! SWEET CRAP! But, yeah, the official line on Alpha Flight is it's not X-material (which, for a series w/ tenuous ties to its predecessors and the X-verse, is the kiss of death).

I read that Courtney Crumrin arc in issues, and it's great and y'all should buy it.

Am thinking about: Tomb of Dracula. Is this a Blade spinoff? Would it be worth getting if I've never read any of Blade?

I'll get the Super Manga Blast if there's a What's Michael story in it. And I'm thinking about How Not to Draw Manga, simply for the humor factor...

xpost: I guess I'll start getting Courtney Crumrin again. I got the first trade and thought it was cute...

- THOR #85 (THE FINAL ISSUE!)
Yeah, sure. Interesting, I guess, though I'll have to read the entire 6-part epic in one sitting to really see how it is. I phear my love of the idea of Thor carrying around Loki's head is distracting me from calling FOUL! on spotty mythological machinations.

- TITANS / LEGION SPECIAL
Meh. Some space-bound super-slugging between the Titans, the Legion, and the Fearsome Five (Hundred!), which is all fine & good. Some cutesy moments, some cringworthy superheroic posturing (cf. Kid Flash saying goodbye to his aunt, and, as he zzzzzzzips away, her saying something like, "This is why you will become known as ... THE FLASH!"). Nice to see Ivan Reis' work again (as I am deadset on having anything to do w/ Action Comics).

The sneak peek of the upcoming LSH Waid / Kitson series was pretty good, though - in essence, here's a recap of where the future world stands re: the Legion & their popularity (via talk shows & kids making out in cars), here's a potential Legionnaire bucking his parent's bit and jumping out his window, and here's a spiffy splash page of the Legion flying through the city in formation. Sure, I'll buy that for a dollar or three.

- WOLVERINE #20
Not bad. JR JR looks the best he has in a long while (his Spidey stuff seemed to look very ... bony ... near the end of his run), and the story's interesting enough (watch out for ... THE GORGON!), though MM seems to fall short on offering supergeeks a plausible Elektra. Also, Wolvie's interior dialogue is all sorts of unnecessary hoohah. Please to cut bait on that trout.

- CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON #9
MODOK! Employed as a BOO! monstrous scare tactic instead of an ever-present big-headed supermort! Nice! (Nice art by guest artist Andrea DiVito, too, stepping in - permanently? - for Joe Bennett.) I think I like Priest's dialogue the best out of anyone working in funny books.

- Y THE LAST MAN #27
Ain't gonna say much, as talking would be SUPER-SPOILING, but suffice it to say !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #66
Also will not spill beans except to say this impromptu Wolverine / Spidey team-up looks like a lot of fun. A pleasant change of pace to read a BMB book and not get sideswipped by the grim & gritty.

I didn't get Super Manga Blast but was allowed to take a copy out of someone's box and read the couple What's Michael? stories in it. Funniest: One neighborhood cat in charge (think: The Godfather) is retiring and needs to appoint an heir. He thinks of a few, dismissing them all. He ends with "I could appoint Koba... but he got fixed, went soft-" as it shows a picture of Koba smiling, jumping in the air after a butterfly.

Judging from the ad for the new Flash storyline, here's my guess (this isn't a spoiler since I haven't read anything except the ad and what Huck has said): Barry Allen is Wally West's father. a) It's the easiest way to fit "the Allen Legacy" of the next thousand-and-then-some years with the fact that Wally, not Barry, has been the most significant of the Flashes and the one who's "served" the longest (an accident, admittedly, of elastic comic book time); b) the arc is called "Sins of the Father," frpetessake.

Haven't read Y yet. Reading that next. Girlfriend ran upstairs with Tomb of Dracula. Picked up Planetary/Batman on a whim from the Batman rack -- I don't remember how long ago that came out.

Would Iris ... no, she couldn't be Wally's mother if Barry is his father. Weird.

It's funny, the Wally West family situation has always been Disneyesque anyway, all uncles and no parents: I know he's not actually an orphan and his parents have shown up, but they've been so irrelevant to his life and especially his comics that if this is the secret, it's really not the bombshell it could be. Franklin Richards actually being Ben Grimm's son -- or better, Johnny's -- that's a bombshell.

You're your own dad, that's why your dad (not you, the other one) tried to kill you (you you, not the other one).

Love,
Barry

Right, I was thinking Iris couldn't be Wallymom because Barry didn't know her in time, and that somehow a young (teenage!) Barry met Mrs Wallymom (I guess that would be Iris's sister-in-law, since she must be the sister of Wally's legal father) and, you know, Flashed her.

But if time travel is involved, well hell, I'm sure Barry rained down on Mrs Wallymom as a golden mist like Zeus, probably while he was dying in Crisis. So maybe Iris had Wally when she was in her teens, and gave him to her older brother to raise!

*Barry Allen is travelling backwards in time as a lightning bolt while dying in Crisis and saving the universe and thinking about his life and stuff*

Barry: "Man, I had me a life."

*Show Justice League*

Barry: "Boy, I'm gonna miss those fellas."

*Show Wally*

Barry: "Aw, I hope Wally wins the lottery or something, that'd sure be a nice thing for him."

*Barry's lightning bolt accidentally shorts out the lottery machine, causing a fault which will result in Wally winning the lottery in a few years*

*Show young teenage Iris*

Barry: "Hey, is that Iris?"

*Continue to show young teenage Iris*

Barry: "She was even hotter when she was young!"

Barry: "Oh yeah. Right. Save the world. Got ... to save ... the WORLD!"

*Show cavemen and cadillacs and stuff*

Barry: "She was REALLY HOT, though."

*Show teen Iris again*

Barry: "Got ... to hit that ... one ... more ... TIME!"

(I just read Y.)

* It does that lame "assembling the team" thing where you get a pithy introduction to each of the characters and a shot of their dossier, instead of having the characters "introduce themselves" by actually doing things and being themselves (this is just one of those comic book/movie tropes I've gotten really sick of because it isn't very hard to get around).

* The new characters seem pretty lame and contrived and include a mute Native American psychic-of-all-trades and a samurai-ninja something or other.

* There is a feisty blonde probable love interest named DIVINITY who is almost as annoying as Smallville's Lois Lane.

The new characters frustrate me because the original Tomb of Dracula had such a huge supporting cast, especially if you include the Werewolf by Night cast with it (and there's no reason not to) and, if you really want to max out your options, the Night Shift characters, whose inclusion would be the best way to make TOD more "superhero-like" (which is essentially the appeal of Blade, after all, he's a superhero in a Tomb of Dracula world). As far as I know, few if any of those characters have had anything significant happen to them in post-TOD Marvel U, so it's not like they're busy off being Champions or waiting for the next come-one come-all at Defenders Mansion or something.

On the other hand: I didn't read Rodi's Elektra, but Codename Knockout was more than competent, and once he gets his sea legs he could do something good with this. I suppose if it were someone I'd never heard of, or if it wasn't reusing a title from one of my favorite series, I wouldn't give it the benefit of the doubt.