Shipping This Week! -- 05.03.02

And this is the Firestorm with the return (or something) of Ronnie Raymond, isn't it? I may be thinking of the one in the most recent solicits.

Sugar Man ... hrm, Dan would know.

I'm pretty sure Dark Beast is unaccounted for, but the Scarlet Witch mighta taken care of him.

I read the first Age of Apocalypse stuff way back when, but can't remember a damn thing from it.

Also, Blink and Sabretooth are running around in Exiles.

DETECTIVE COMICS #804
INTIMATES #5
LEX LUTHOR MAN OF STEEL #1 (OF 5)

RISING STARS #24 (though the lag between this ending & the rest has totally foofed any enthusiasm I had for how this ends) (though reading recent issues of Supreme Power has me jonesin' for some non-Spidey JMS action)
WALKING DEAD #16 (MR) (though it'd behoove me to check out the first TPB before diving in, yes?)

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON #13
MARVEL TEAM-UP #6
SHANNA THE SHE DEVIL #2 (OF 7)
ULTIMATE IRON MAN #1 (OF 6)
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #73

DRAWN & QUARTERLY VOL 3 #1 (just as a reminder; I've no idea what's in it)

CTHULHU MOON BEAST PLUSH (for mark s)
PAC-MAN IS A STAR T/S LG
X-MEN KUBRICK SET A

A mercifully slow week, given I dropped waaaay too much on recent back issues (including Black Panther #1 at cover price) (yippee). Sign I Need To Get A Database Working: bought TWO books yesterday that I already had.

X-MEN KUBRICK SET A

I guess you could jump right in, I mean it's not like there's THAT much to know (zombies!), but you'd probably get more out of the characters if you caught up on the trades. My girlfriend just read all of my back-issues and loved it - I think the soap opera factor is minimized if you cruise through them all at once.

BATMAN: THE MAN WHO LAUGHS: A Prestige Format one-shot by Ed Brubaker & Doug Mahnke telling the 1st post-Red Hood Joker story. Lovely art, good story, but kinda meh - Tom's line about there being an abundance of above-average work being produced in the funnybooks nowadays definitely applies here, as the overall quality of the stuff I've been enjoying has me meh about something that would've probably greased my pan a few years ago. That's to say, if you think of this abundance of "above-average work" in terms of a bell curve, this would probably end up on the back end of the distribution chart.

Maybe part of the problem is the "this is the FIRST TIME" thing - first Joker meeting, Batman & Commissioner Gordon are still in their dating phase & all that. The scenes that address these details are A-OK, but they're a bit perfunctory - as a crotchety old Bat fan, I'm looking for a new wrinkle in my history revisits, and I'm not sure there's one here. Not that that's a bad thing - this is actually quite well done (esp. in the art dept.), and someone in a more receptive mood than me will probably go goofy for it. Huk, if you haven't read this, go go go go.

BLACK PANTHER #1: A PERFECT JUMPING-ON POINT! Not too shabby @ all - I was thrown for a loop w/ the ancient tribesmen chatting w/ each other in English slang, but that's only because I've been trained to look for pointy brackets when non-Amurikans talk. As Tep's noted, Ross seems a little more together this time around - more like Matthew Perry as West Wing guest star than his Friends shenanigans - but it's all good. And, of course, there's very little Panther IN the book right now, but (as Priest & RH see it) the Panther is the answer to the question, "WHAT IF ... Batman was the leader of his own super-advanced African nation?", so I imagine that Mr. Hudlin will be taking the rarely-seen rarely-heard often-hrm approach w/ BP. Between this & Wolverine, JR JR is en fuego. Also - A NEW-FANGLED KLAW! I eagerly await the return of the red suit (but will not weep if there is none).

First appearance = Fantastic Four #52, smack dab in the middle of the Lee / Kirby run. (I didn't know about the Leopard thing! COME ON STAN!) You are about to witness the strength of geek knowledge.

BP is T'Challa, king of the secluded African nation of Wakanda, lording over a technological Eden chock full of the wonderful Marvel metal known as Vibranium (absorbs sound, has other fantastical properties, is highly coveted). Klaw is his arch-nemesis - he was an explorer, wanted to rape and pillage Wakanda, & killed T'Challa's father in front of T'Challa (BATMAN!) - in BP's first appearance, Klaw comes back to Wakanda to take what's rightfully his or some stuff, but BP & the FF best him. BUT THEN, having has his right hand shattered by some sound blaster thingy, and having been bested by the heroes, Klaw enters some sort of KirbyTech Vibranium sound machine and turns into A BEING OF PURE SOUND (w/ a radar-dish shaped sound blaster doodad as a hand). And he gets whupped up again. And again.

But, yeah, BP was a superficial attempt to make the Marvel Universe multi-cultural - nothing about him was blatantly offensive, but, y'know, the predominant stereotypes of the Proud Black Man are there, and he was never given much to do aside from stand firm & tall (arms crossed) and show off his agility and his tribal garb, and once in a while offer up w/ a helpful doodad.

Don McGregor wrote some BP stories in Marvel Jungle Action (yeah!) in the 70s that went a long way towards fleshing out the character & his homeland & the racial & sociopolitical subtext of this character (though I've never read his work; I'm just quoting the one-sheet). Also in the 70s was a short-lived Black Panther series that was ALL Kirby, and did little more than offer BP as a goofy adventuring fellow chasing after some frog statuette w/ a squat monocled chap & exotic big-haired Kirby princess in tow - I'm not sure if the McGregor stories came before or after the Kirby madness.

There was a 4-issue mini series in the 80s - I forget the writer, but the artist was Dennis Cowyn, one of the founders of the much-loved DC Milestone imprint dedicated solely to publishing superhero books about non-white characters - as well as a loooooong-running serial in the bi-weekly Marvel Comics Presents series by McGregor & Gene Colan, and another mini a while later, written again by McGregor. And, of course, the random guest appearance here & there.

And then Priest came along in the mid-90s, reconciling all that preceeded him (including the incongruous Kirby frog stuff), and also kicking it up a notch. In essence, Priest realized that a King of a secluded African nation that A) possesses the sort of technological gadgetry that'd make super-geniuses like Reed Richards & Tony Stark stop and think and B) is one of the only spots in this world where a very valuable industrial resource is located should be more of a player in the super-world. He's not the Special Guest Star that acts like a gregarious dashiki-clad Yul Brenner in his homeland & shows up once a year in America to pounce on Baron Zemo's henchmen while the title characters get the glory. He's a political dignitary w/ the clout of a high-powered CEO (like Iron Man or Lex Luthor), the brains of a super-scientist (like Mr. Fantastic or, um, Lex Luthor), the strungth & agility & saavy of a super duper soldier (like Captain America or the Bat), & the chilly manipulative bedside manner of a seemingly diplomatic would-be-despot (like Dr. Doom or, um, Lex Luthor).

And now you sorta know the first half of the story.

Spider-Man/Human Torch #2: I don't know who any of these people are...Gwen Who-Now?...but I enjoyed this a lot. Spider-Man is a fuck-up, and therefore I respect him.

Black Panther #1: Hmmm. So far, so good. I bought this purely on ILC talk of the character, and it seems like a bit of Batman + the Phantom + Lex Luthor + Crazy Political Craziness. So, I'll probably wind up following the first arc at least.

Outsiders #21: Could see that reveal going all the way back to the start of this series, or the first trade, really, since that's where I started. Winick seems to be trying really hard to write character driven whatchamacalit, but has too many characters for it to be as gripping as it could be. And what the fuck is up with Arsenal? Doesn't Winick read Green Arrow?

Deadshot #4: This is strangely satisfying, even though John Stewart used the same trick on Superman a few months ago in GL: Rebirth #1 or #2 that Deadshot uses here on new "bullet-proof" character Closer (as in "he who closes" or "come closer so that I may kiss you full on the moustachioed mouth"?. Next ish brings this mini to a close, does writer Gage have the cajones to kill this character he seems to care so much about? I kinda hope so. That would be bad ass.

Justice League Elite #9: Doug Mahnke and Dustin Nguyen drawing Green Arrow and the Flash are the only reasons to read this. The story seems to have folded over on itself a few times, and as with Outsiders, there are too many half-baked subplots to care.

The Flash #219: So we're officially calling Hunter "Zoom" Zolomon "Reverse-Flash" now? Okay, about time. He's shaping up to be one of the more interesting villains the Flash has (though my heart will forever belong to Captain Cold), and I like the way Johns is truly making him a Reverse-Flash. He's not fast, he just, um, exists outside of time, so the rest of the world perceives him as a speedster.

Nightwing #104: What did I expect? This Year One nonsense is beyond tedious.

Detective #804: Hot damn. I re-read #801-803 before opening this, and this is shaping up to be one of the best Batman stories I've ever read. I even found myself getting a little emotional at the final scene of #802. This is officially the comic I most look forward to each month (fuck washing a Green Lantern).

FIRESTORM #11 - Not only is Ronnie Raymond back, he's in control! Somehow, the reawakend Ronnie is able to make the 'other' part of Firestorm, so he's essentially a one-man show again. Except Ronnie hangs about, even when Jason isn't actually Firestorm... anyway, this is mostly Ronnie telling Jason about how it was with Martin and stuff, and trying to see his Dad BEFORE THE GIANT VILLAIN AMBUSH FITE AT THE END orchestrated by Killer Frost! Don't miss the next issue, Firestorm true believers!

SWAMP THING #13 - Umm... the Arcan plot seems to have passed with only residual damage to the core characters (Abby's boyfriend of sorts seems a bit affected, but Abby & Tefe are closer together). This plot is a straight rehash of a SoST plot though, with a preacher who is hypnotising and killing his flock, even down to the snakes. Nancy Collins? Tom Mandrake? Can't remember, one of them. It's OK, but I've read it before.

SHANNA THE SHE DEVIL #2 - THERE ARE NOT ENUFF LUDICROUSLY CHESTED WIMMIN FITE-ING DINOSAURS AND NAZIS IN COMICS TODAY. That is all. Actually, it's not - Frank Cho is doing a bang-up job here, really exposing Shanna's absolute lack of humanity IN BETWEEN SEMI-NEKKID DINOSAUR FITES!!!!!! Hurry up with the trade please Marvel FOR AKTUEL NUDDITY!!!!

ULTIMATE IRON MAN #1 Blue paint which is armour? Weirdo mutated births? Corporate espionage amidst marital strife? It's maybe a dangerous way to play a mini, to put all the build up first and risk not catching readers, but I suspect UIM will do just fine. I'll buy the rest, for sure.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #73 Harry gets the memories back about the events at the end of Ultimate Secret Six, and is given everything his father owned by Nick Fury. He meets one of his father's goons, who shows him down into a cellar... unfortunately, this arc is called "The Hobgoblin" so there's no suspense for the next issue.

Only you, dear reader, can changing this from being The True History Of The Aldo Universe!

since Marvel have been pasting bikinis all over the Essential Tomb Of Draculas (Neil Tennant to thread), I think the ship of unadorned Cho norks has sailed.

I've seen some of the artwork though, and... oh my.

SEVEN SOLDIERS #0

Yay! I'm not crystal clear on everything that went down (were those 7 sub-superheroes throwaways? Did they die? What was up with the meta-intro?), but still, yay! Giant spiders!

Some Clarement X-Men comic my girlfriend was reading

DINO-RACHEL ATTACKS! SERIOUSLY! DINO-RACHEL!

The Walking Dead #16 (or something)

*spoilers*
**********

It's fantastic that Kirkman's cranked the action up by about 1000%, but the subplot with kids/women getting decapitated was lame and uncharacteristically telegraphed. You've got the big black dude in prison for murder and the really creepy white dude in for "tax fraud"...OF COURSE the creepy guy is actually the murderer and the other guy is going to get blamed for it. All the other sublots are rocking though.