Comic Books Issue #2

[Jaxom 1974]

I can't believe you guys are debating the throwing ability of Gambit with playing cards...SOOOOOO 1996...

[hauberk]

I must admit that it's probably less what he does and more how I'm expected to see him. Everyone (in the DC universe) is always going on about how wonderful he is - and the narrative doesn't even allow for the possibility that they're mistaken, because it's pretty much a given that Superman will never ever do anything selfish or cruel or even just plain stupid. This gets on my nerves, because I prefer the freedom to choose to like or dislike a character.

I must disagree (granted I have to use the Wayback Machine to do it). If I remember correctly, in an old issue of Justice League of America, Dr. Destiny put Supes in a position where he was frozen in a massive block of ice. His response was to flex and pop the ice - sending a barrage of frozen flesh rending shards of death blasting into Lois and Jimmy. While that's the only instance I can recall, I'm sure that there are others.

[Baeraad]

I'm sure there are, but to read lots of issues with a character that I dislike just to see that there are a few occasions when he doesn't annoy me would be sort of masochistic of me, wouldn't it? I don't doubt that there are exceptions, I'm just saying that usually (that is, in all the admittedly few issues with him I've read), Superman is depicted as being more perfect than a character can be in order for me to like him.

[Ser Paladin]

Lots of books this week, but not a lot of good books.

52 continues to be interesting. Except for the Donna Troy piffle, which sucks, but it's only 4 pages. Black Adam continues to impress me. Steel is surprisingly good. Booster is headed somewhere interesting.

Checkmate enjoyed another solid outing. The interplay among the queens and kings is well done. I still don't get Alan Scott in his role, but his characterization is consistent.

Squadron Supreme was solid. I'm a bit confused by thte African superheroes, but a good story overall.

She-Hulk is a book I regularly enjoy, but the Civil War implications are ridiculous. Jennifer Walters is against the registration act, and She-Hulk is for it? Nice to see the rest of the New Warriors though. Shame Speedball had to die. I didn't care about the rest of them (Namorita, Thrasher, and Microbe), but Speedy and Justice were favorites, back in the early 90s.

Anihilation: Ronan is a good story, but the art, particularly the coloring, is really getting on my nerves.

New Avengers was on the weak side. Not a fan of the way things fell out with Spider-man and the Vision on the Helicarrier. "Oh, we forgot that SHIELD has a psi group." Even though we've known that they had one for a decade.

JSA Classified, Weak. I'm dropping this and JSA.

[Ser Paladin]

I believe he's still alive. Potentially anyway. No body has been produced, and I could find ways to work around that too. The guy is a kinectic absorber with access to another dimension. If there's not even a question about him coming back, I remind you that at least three marvel characters have been brought back to life in the past year or so.

Given his powers, I'm surprised he can die at all. But they had him up on the big board as "dead." And, unlike Night Thrasher or even Justice, he doesn't have the character make up to be the guy carrying the guilt for all those dead children. Character wise, he's better off dead after this happening.

Now, side note... Namorita abviously should be dead, she was very close to the blast. But everyone else was a block away, and super-powered, but still dead? And what about the bad guys that Nitro was hanging out with? Are they all dead too? They had to be right beside the Warriors when it happened.

[Nephrite]

52 #3 - Pretty good issue. Black Adam goes all Mortal Kombat on poor Terra-Man's ass. I always liked that guy. Maybe, because the way Cary Bates wrote him in his original appearances. And I thought he could be developed into a cool Superman villain. I guess Geoff Johns doesn't share my sentiment.

And Lex has to be the best villain ever. Not only did he repair the damage Joker did to Alexander's face he also made him at least 10 years older and fatter. Plastic surgery's got nothing on this guy.

Hawkgirl #52 - An okay issue that doesn't really push the story very far. Kendra still has nightmares (now with big Egyptian cats!), and Bruce Wayne makes an appearance.

Secret Six #1 - I liked this one. You gotta hand it to Dr. Psycho, even One YEAR LATER he is still hungry for vengeance against Catman just cause this one told him to piss off.

I don't know what to think of the butt-naked Mad Hatter. I've seen so many "mature" revamps of Bat-villains that nothing fazes me anymore.

Walker's art has a nice old-fashioned feel to it.

Supergirl & the Legion #18 - I just love Supergirl in this title. It's like she has a completely different personality compared to her own title.

The story is pretty good, with underground robots, and a lot of little bits that Waid sprinkles thru out the issue. Like Projectra and her parents. Or Brainy's comments on Legion code-names. Or all the necrophilia jokes.

Ahhhh, this is good comics.

The art was good. Except for a couple of Brainy shots where he had a weird smile on his face.

Battle for Blüdhaven #4 - You know what's my favorite part of this comic? The first page with little pics and names of all the protagonists. There's exactly 33 of them. Somehow Grey & Palmiotti managed to introduce 33 characters in the last 3 issues. And they introduce some new ones in this ish. It's gotta be some kind of record.

Well all things considered it's an okay series, and the cliffhanger is great. I'm mainly reading it for Jurgens art, but I have to say the Atomic Family is cool villains group. Are they new characters?

[Galactus]

Nextwave is absolutely amazing. "FEAR my robot head!"

[Nephrite]

Batman #653 - Okay. I guess. Robinson writes it well, but...

I had a feeling that DC is gonna bring back the guy on the cover. And I definitely didn't like that they would.

Loeb & Lee's "Hush" was hardly a master piece, but the fact that they gave Harvey Dent a chance to redemption was nice (even though his first act as Dent was to let Joker out of Arkham, but I'm gonna chalk that up to Loeb's lack of legal matters).

But, now, 3 years later DC came to Robinson and basically said: "You know that Loeb guy totally f*cked up our precious Two-Face, and then left for Marvel. Let's bring it back no matter what."

Now I like Two-Face, but just for once I would love to see Batman win. You know, fuck this "war on crime he cannot win" crap, and for once let him have a little victory. And what's better then having his good friend Dent beat his illness and live normal life.

But, nooooo! Let's revert everything to the old status quo. God forbid letting Robinson do a revamp of a crappy Bat.-villain. Like maybe Scarecrow. He sucks. The whole Wizard of Oz look needs to go. But, instead DC is in amood for rehashing.

Frankly I don't even have the energy to properly bitch about it.

Nextwave #5 - pretty good issue, even though I wouldn't mind Photon or Cap Marvel or whatshername die. She's pretty dull compared to other characters.

Machine Man and Celestials was great.

Immonen's art was great and I just love McCaig's colors. The guy's the best, but I never see him nominated for any awards. Just sucks.

Supreme Power #3 Okay issue.

I don't really like the way Zarda is portrayed. She's so obviously nuts, that it seems bizarre that in this "edgy realistic" comic American government would just take her on the team.

The appearance of African heroes was weird. How come Squadron's bosses knew jack shit about them?

And the little racial speech at the end was very... subtle.

Spectrum's behavior was just silly in an over-dramatic Clraemontian way.

[Galactus]

pretty good issue, even though I wouldn't mind Photon or Cap Marvel or whatshername die. She's pretty dull compared to other characters.

I think that's sort of the point. She's the "straight (wo)man" to the others more zany characters.

Though she had (via flashback) the best lines in the issue IMHO

"I never had to deal with this when in the Avengers."

*flashback*

"Bull-moose men from beyond the seventeenth preimeter! And they're naked!"

Captain America: "Cover your eyes, go back to the mansion and make my dinner."

"Monica Rambeau, leader of the Nextwave team LIES ALL THE TIME."

[Galactus]

I just donated a slew of TPB's to Serieteket. So if anyone in Stockholm visits and feels like borrowing "Skrull Kill Krew", "Infinity Gauntlet" "Spider-man vs. Silver Sable" or "NYX" those were donated by me

[Kalbear]

I really need to pick up the Nextwave stuff. It's seriously awesome. I've been checking some of it out on Scans_daily and it's great. "We celestials have spent 360 of your cycles with you, and we have decided: you are ****"

The one doing the big L on his forehead was the best ever.

[Bana]

Kate Elliot.

[Nephrite]

Superman/Batman #26 - A nice and really funny Superboy/Robin story. This turned out really good, and flows amazingly well considering that 26 people worked on it.

Action Comics #839 - I'm kind of bored with this story.

The way characters just spout out stuff is really weird. Like when Lois talks about how happy she is Clark is normal, or when she talks how Superman is a fireman. Or in this issue when Perry talks how great Clark was for a whole year. It's this weird kind of exposition, like when the writer wants to show as what makes these characters great, but can't show us, so he spells it out. Kind of like all those "Batman does not kill" stories.

Here we have Superman muse about his dual identity and how it functions. Geez. And another thing, the narration. I'm getting really sick of this "dear diary" monologues in comics in general. The writers most think they're all deep and profound like this "Train of thoughts" shit is opening me some new insights into the universe or somethin'. Well, it's not. It's a bit difficult to get into a story and feel the danger the character is in, when the bleedin' Superman has time to write his own fuckin' memoirs during combat!

Shut up and punch stuff.

52 #4 - God, if I was Ralph I'd be pissed. They nicked his wedding ring, those cultist bastards!

Anyway, an okay issue. Loved the Steel and Booster bits. Liked the mystery in space angle. The Montoya bits were pretty boring, though. Like they… I don't know… like they were written by Greg Rucka. They also had that deep-noir-narration, which tried soooo hard to be witty but failed miserably.

"Surveillance. Boring. Like dull, man. You know. Surveillance = boredom. Geddit? Geddit? *rimshot*. I have absolutely nothing to say here, but silent panels make for a quick read so bear with me."

Whatever.

[Galactus]

*spoilers!!!!!*

Y the Last Man #46: Hilarious issue, Yorick and Agent whatshernumber has a nice little chat, dr. Mann has a swordfight with the ninja chick ("I'm an ivy-league lesbian bitch, did you honestly think I've never fenced before!?")

New X-men #27: Conclusion to the Stryker arc. The art looks very cartoony (though Beast looks really, really weird. He looks more like his namesake from the Disney movie for every issue....) There are a few glitches, mostly with timing (how does Laura get back to the mansion so fast?) but it's a good ish still, I think. The action is pretty nice, and a lot of stuff *happens*.

Stryker invades the mansion, Emma has a few nice comments ("Failure to comply will result in eternal ire". Student. "What's "Ire"?")

As theorized the girl in the burqa they shot last ish was Laura (X-23) and not Dust at all. She proceeds to kick ass.

Oh yeah, and Nimrod goes online. And did I mention that Forge is building a robot? And that Nimrod is looking for Forge? And that he calls him "Maker".

Oh yeah, and Elixir gives Stryker what looks like a terminal case of acne. He deserved *that*.

Annihilation: Silver Surfer #3: Thanos plots, Annihilus reveals more of his plans, three former Heralds converge and destroy some Annihilation Wave ships.... Galactus tells Surfer about some old foes that have escaped from the Kyln, he offers him a return....

"BEHOLD THE SILVER SURFER! HERALD TO GALACTUS!"

Apparently SS was given a significant power-upgrade (as if he needs it!)

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-man #9: I'm not too sold on the entire time-travel schtick. Meh, it's a decent enough read, but nothing very *good*.

[Stilgar]

Star Wars Legacy #0: I think I might end up liking this series. It seems like they're finally moving the Empire past all that xenophobic idiocy. From what little they explained, the Empire's rebirth seemed plausible enough. It's always great to see Grey Jedi. I was also pleased by the relative lack of obvious descendants from well-known characters. Having the Fels as the Imperial dynasty might be iffy, or it might be great- although I don't know if I like the implications of having them as Force-users, mostly because I hate the idiots on message boards who are going to use this to crow about the supposed superiority of their Jaina/Jag theories.

[Kalbear]

Five Fists of Science TPB: This was pretty awesome. The artwork was a bit dark at times, but it was really funny, fairly cool, and kind of a nice take on that whole Alan Moore LoEG deal. "For SCIENCE!" Heh.

[Devil Hanzo]

In Y the last man, does he maskerade as a woman or something?

and as for x-men....i though nimrod was distroyed like years ago? Or am i mixing him up?

And whats happening with Civil war?

[Stilgar]

Yorick wore a gas mask in the immediate aftermath of the plague, explaining that he was paranoid about it possibly targeting women. In the intervening time, he has often dressed as a woman; however, a cottage industry of women looking like men has sprung up, so after awhile, it becomes possible for Yorick to go around as he is and not arouse too much suspicion.

[Devil Hanzo]

How many TPB are there for Y the last man?

[Stilgar]

7:

Unmanned: Issues #1-5

Cycles: Issues #6-10

One Small Step: Issues #11-17

Safeword: Issues #18-23

Ring Of Truth: Issues #24-31

Girl on Girl: Issues #32-36

Paper Dolls: Issues #37-42