Doctor Who Comics #1

Well that was disappointing. I have to give the people over at IDW credit, it is very difficult to produce something with the Doctor Who logo on it that I don't enjoy. I'd probably have liked The Death of Superman if there was a Dalek cameo in it. But this was just awful.

Perhaps if they had used more than 1-2 panels per page, they'd have had room to tell an actual story.

This was a 30 some page comic without ads, so there was no excuse for telling so little story as they did. Doctor Who magazine gets 7 pages and they pack so much awesome into it that it leaks out the panels. This would have made a passable fan-fiction.

I really gave these idiots the benefit of the doubt too.

Review: Thunderbolts: International Incident.

Once again Marvel has decided that quantity trumps quality and thus has subjected us to another Thunderbolts one-shot written by an unoriginal hack.

The writer is Christos N Gage, which I feel is particularly appropriate because his ability to write the Thunderbolts is roughly in proportion to the number of people who bought an N Gage when it came out. This is the guy who decided that the 3 Issue X-Men tie-in to World War Hulk should be a three issue fight between the Hulk and the X-Men. Way to push the boundaries of the genre there buddy.

What is it with sub-par Thunderbolts writers and their inability to write Venom? Well Mr. N Gage takes it to the next level by being completely unable to write for Norman Osborn either. By now I'm used to Venom spouting clunky exposition and cracking wise in non-Ellis Thunderbolts, but I was compeltely unprepared for Norman Osborn being boring. If you can't think of anything interesting for the Green Goblin to do while in command of a group of government sponsored supervillains then maybe you should return to writing movies about teenaged cavemen.

I've been a fan of the Thunderbolts since before they were good, and let me tell you: the only reason the book is good now is because Warren Ellis is writing it. They might as well call it Warren Ellis featuring the Thunderbolts. Getting a Nokia video-game phone to write a lame one-shot tie-in to the Secret Wars is only going to dilute the brand, scare people off. One-shots are attractive prospects to people who want to try out a new series, so staffing them with Law and Order rejects probably isn't the best business model.

The story is told in the most straight-forward, uninteresting way possible. You would get roughly the same experience reading a Wikipedia summary, except Venom would probably seem a tad more in-character since you wouldn't be reading his dialogue. The book falls somewhere between painfully unreadable and sub-mediocrity. The only way any good could come from it would be if as a result of this comic the Mexican Jesus Handheld Videogame was never given another writing assignment as long as he lives. It also wouldn't hurt to nuke everything he's ever written from orbit. Just to be sure.

Late To The Party: Heroes Online Comics

I was waiting for a new issue to come out before I reviewed these but I have no idea if they've stopped until the new season, so I'll do it now.

If you watch Heroes and don't read these comics, you are missing out. These are professional grade comics being passed out free online. Better, actually. You'd be hard pressed to find a combination of writing and art this good in any currently published book that doesn't say "Vertigo" in the upper left corner. Not only that, but the writers clearly have a good understanding of the comic medium. There are a lot of good writers in comics who just write great stories but who have no idea how to tell those stories with pictures. That is not a problem here.

When I first checked these out, I thought they were going to be little insignificant character blurbs, intersting but largely irrelevant to the real story. I was completely wrong. Remember Wireless, the girl who can talk to computers? She's been in one episode of the show, but in the comics she's already been into outer space. I don't want to ruin anything but suffice it to say she has a number of crazy adventures, some of which will have to have an impact on the TV show.

But it's not just Bit-Part Heroes Excellent Adventures, there is also some very good character development, especially regarding the history of the characters prior to the show. If you read only one of the stories on the site, make it the one about when the Haitian first got his powers (called It Takes A Village). No matter which character is your favorite, you'll be able to find some new insights on them in these comics.

The comics tend to be about 7 pages long each, with larger stories told throughout multiple "issues". I'd highly reccomend reading them using the "printer friendly" version, as their online reader was designed by chimps, for chimps and turned me off of the entire experience the first time I tried to read them. Also in the printer friendly versions, the Nissan ads are much larger than the comic itself in many of the first ones, so you'll have to do some resizing. The comics are free (thanks, I'm sure, to Nissan, whose product placements, you will soon find, are not limited to television) so a little extra effort shouldn't be a problem unless you're an entitled beardo, but if that's the case why are you reading this blog instead of writing angry e-mails to JMS? (If you're an entitled beardo, you know to whom I'm referring)

Normally I would go into more depth, but honestly they're online for free. If you want to know what they're like, read them.

Marvel Illustrated - The Illiad

Click to read the word boxes

I had heard about but hadn't read anything from this series, but I read the first issue of The Illiad today and it was very good. It's a fairly close adaptation of the poem, with beautiful art and mostly authentic sounding dialogue (some of it gets a bit thou and didst during one speech). I really dig classical mythology and this is exactly the sort of comic I want to read. Bravo to Marvel for getting over their superhero fetish in a very limited and non-commital (limited series) way.

My only complaint is a petty and personal one. They skip over the bit about the gods having a party and the golden apple and the whole reason Aphrodite gives Helen to Paris, which is my favorite. It's a stupid nitpick, it's mostly due to the fact that I'm a Discordian and wanted to see Eris. I can't really see why they skipped it, they sure weren't shy about using the Gods after that. But really, who gives a shit?

Anyway if this single issue is any indication, the Marvel Illustrated line is looking pretty good.

Buffy comics should only ever be written by Joss Whedon

I've always hated the Buffy and Angel comics (except Fray which, shock horror, was written by Mr. Whedon anyway) due mostly to the fact that they were terribly written. None of the writers seemed to be able to capture all the elements of the show, although admittably some of them did a decent job with the ones they did grasp. It also didn't help that the art was garbage. It had the kind of ackward anatomy that would make Rob Liefeld blush. I seem to be overusing the word ackward to describe the art of the old Buffyverse comics, but that's only because it's the most appropriate one to describe it. Adding insult to injury, none of the characters looked anything like the actors who play them. Normally this doesn't bother me, but the art wasn't stylized enough to justify it. The art style of the early comics also looked like the inker was LITERALLY just tracing.

However, recently I've been reading both a Buffy series and an Angel one. That's because these are the comics Buffy fans have been waiting for since the shows ended. For some reason, the dark gods of comics have decided to bless us with a Joss Whedon written comic-book new season for both of the shows. And they're both excellent, the spirit of the shows has finally been captured in comic form.

Buffy: Season 8
Not every issue of this is written by Joss Whedon, but then again not every episode of the show was written by him either. He's running it, they keep referring to him as the "executive producer" because he plays a role more commonly found in television than comics. But it's working for them.

The last thing you'll notice about the book, since it takes many issues to become obvious, is that Joss Whedon once again uses his mastery of plot arc to his advantage. They way this book tells self-contained stories which bleed together into a larger overarching narrative should be used as an example for all serialized genre comics.

The first thing you'll notice is: holy crap, the characters actually look like the characters. Check this out:


I spent a long time looking for a picture of Willow from "Once More With Feeling" where that dress thing is from for comparison, but I gave up. I'm assuming if you're reading this blog you know who Alyson Hannigan is, and that the above picture looks like her.

The comic skips months occasionally, but it schedules them ahead of time so when they say the book is going to come out, it's going to come out. And it'll have had the necessary time spent on it to be top-shelf.

If you liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer and can even tolerate the comic-book medium, this is the book for you.

Angel: After The Fall
Far more than Buffy, Angel had some 'splainin' to do if the story was expected to carry on past the last episodes, in which all the main characters that didn't die rushed into a suicidal battle against an army of demons and one dragon. Without ruining the experience for you, I can safely say that Angel: After The Fall has an excellent 'splaination. The way they brought back Wesley was especially well handled, but three issues in the whole core cast is back, although many of them in significantly altered forms.

This book is also not written entirely by Joss Whedon, although this time he has a collaborator I've never heard of instead of delegating some of the stories like he did with Buffy Season 8. Apparently said collaborator wrote some otehr Buffyverse comics, which is probably why I've never heard of him. I'd look his name up, it would literally take less time than I'm taking to type this aside, but I know you don't care. As far as anyone reading this book is concerned, he's "the guy who isn't Joss Whedon".

Without ruining the plot too much, I can tell you that the story takes place in a post-modern post-apocalypse: Hell on Earth, in LA. It hasn't gotten as far as the Buffy comics yet (3 issues so far to Buffy's 8) but the story thus far has been thoroughly absorbing. I think I can accurately convey the feel of the book with one panel. Watch me go:

You're going to have to click it. Lazy.

As you can see, the art is also very good. There are some drawings of the cityscape of a demonic apocalypse... wait why am I trying to describe this?

This One Too

Yeah. The art is a real high point of this book, and that's saying a lot considering how good the writing is.

Interestingly enough, despite the similarity of the projects, they're both being published by different companies (Buffy by Darkhorse and Angel by IDW Publishing). I'd reccomend either of them, not just to fans of the shows but to any comic fan who enjoys a tightly plotted, well written story. Unless you don't like Thunderbolts, then you'll hate it.

P.S. I spotted a cameo by the Doctor, interestingly enough in the Buffy book, not the one being published by the people who are also doing a Doctor Who comic:

Oh it's him alright.

HOLY CRAP

So I was reading Angel: After The Fall #1, which is a really good comic by-the-way, I usually hate the Buffyverse comics but, surprise surprise, the recent ones that were actually written by Joss Whedon have actually been able to recreate the feel of the show, whereas the old ones were just a bunch of ackwardly forced dialogue with more ackward positioning of characters in the ackward fight scenes that cause the ackward story to drag. Ackwardly.

This isn't about Angel comics. I'll start again.

So I was reading this comic, the exact one doesn't matter, and I was sort of idlying flipping through the ads in the back, and all of the sudden BAM!



Which is a much bigger deal to me than most people because I am a rabid Doctor Who nerd, and I love Tennants incarnation of him. The 7-whatever page comics in Doctor Who magazine are a joy, so I'm sure longer stories will be even more welcome. And as I'm getting all excited, I notice

THAT'S RIGHT NOW! This happened under my nose and I somehow missed it. How did that happen? I've even seen all the episodes of Sarah Jane Adventures. As both a comic-nerd and a Doctor Who nerd I should have been blathering on about this for months before it came out. And here I am, sitting at my computer typing this and I still haven't read it and other people have and it's driving me nerd crazy. So I did what any nerd would do in this situation.

I blogged.

Edit: And the blog just kept on blogging.

So I looked into it and the comic doesn't physically exist yet, so I suppose I can be forgiven for not owning it then. I did manage to scare up a preview:


The other four pages are here. The preview didn't dazzle me, the writing is kind of dry and mediocre, but hardly anything happened yet. This isn't a 7-pager where they have to start in media res. I'm willing to give anything with "Doctor Who" written on it the benefit of any doubt.

Also it looks like they've got a rather broad Doctor Who liscence, since they're also doing Tom Baker era stuff. It looked marginally better. These people also publish Star Trek comics apparently. It's a good thing they somehow got the Angel liscence from Dark Horse because otherwise I'd never have heard of them.

If you don't like Thunderbolts then you're part of the problem

One of the problem with the comic medium is it's overreliance on the superhero genre.

One of the problems with the overreliance on the superhero genre (other than the general stagnation that comes from limited any medium to any single genre) is that superhero comics appeal greatly to morons.

One of the problems with appealing to morons, is that morons buy lots of superhero comics, so superhero comics try to appeal to morons even more, to get a larger chunk of the moron market share.

The result: comics today. Have you ever read Infinite Crisis? I mean really sat down and read that thing? (if you're a Marvel fan, you can replace "Infinite Crisis" with "the recent Spiderman stuff")

This picture was boss before Blogger got ahold of it. Click for proof.

That said, Thunderbolts is everything that's being done right with comics today. It's like a shining paragon of the genre. I could make this entire post about the degree to which Thunderbolts rocks, but I won't. Despite the objective perfection of Thunderbolts, I know a lot of comic-fans dislike the title. These are the enemies. The aforementioned morons.

These gibbering, mouth-breathing simpletons don't like complex motivations for characters, (they consider character development to be the sole pervue of Soap Operas) they don't want surprise or novelty (they feel change is inherently wrong) and they despise morally grey situations ("Heroes should be heroes" they'll tell you). What they want is an exact recreation of a half-remembered issue of Justice League they read when they were 7.

And they have more say in what ends up on the comic shelf than you ever will. But at least we have a good way of identifying them.

You: Hey, I see you're reading The Green Lantern. You into Thunderbolts at all?
Judgeee: No, I think superheroes should be heroes.
You: Oh I get it. You're one of those religious fanatics.

As you can see, you just avoided a potentially trivial conversation with some jerk who thinks his opinion matters, when we all know only my opinion matters.

Tune in next week when I'll tell you what to think about Superman.

One Piece: What's this guy's deal?

My friends and I have been speculating as to the nature of this guy ever since he first showed up and everyone thought his Devil Fruit power was teleportation.

I'm not even sure what he's supposed to be anymore. The Paw Paw Fruit seems to bestow the user all manner of strange abilities, and none of them seem to have an awful lot to do with paws. Most recently, he used it to expel all the damage and fatigue Luffy had accumulated in his fight with Moria, and transfer it to Zoro.

So now apparently he's a super cyborg created by Dr. Vegapunk. And his body is stronger than steel according to Zoro. And he can shoot lasers from his mouth.

Sounds like One Piece to me.

Ruining Spiderman: A Case Study

Amazing Spiderman 546.

I was wrong about the reset being impermanent. Apparently Harry Osborn is back from the dead and no one, not NOBODY, knows Peter Parker is Spiderman. Although people still remember him being unmasked on TV somehow, because they went and reset one character's history without touching anyone elses with all the grace of a steam-powered bull painting easter eggs.

If I had to sum this issue up in a mantra, it would be: don't care, don't care, don't care. That's what was running through my mind as I desperately searched this pile of crap for some sign that the unfathomably retarded continuity semi-reset wasn't permanent. The whole comic is one exercise in irrelevance. I've seen more engauging episodes of the 90's Spiderman cartoon. The story involves Peter looking for a job and going to a club. Oh also they have a guy who is a villain but, get this, he dresses like Spiderman. Like, mistaken identitiy. I can see why they decided to get rid of Mary Jane if it would lead to wellsprings of genius such as that.

And the sly references to all the crap you just Dallased away? Not as funny as you think they are. Especially when the reader is making a tremendous effort to give a tinkers damn about any of the warmed over snorefest you're trying to pass off as a story. It's a little early and you're not nearly a good enough writer to be rubbing salt in that wound just yet.

I really don't get how all this bullshit is supposed to work. They make reference in this issue to Parkers previous job as a teacher, so apparently it's only the MJ stuff that's disappeared. But correct me if I'm wrong, but the presence of Mary Jane had if not a profound then at least a noticable effect on the events of the comics. Also how can Iron Man not know Spiderman's secret identity if Civil War is still supposed to have happened? So apparently we're expected to not think about it too much, and expecting that from comic fans is like expecting your cat to learn arabic because you leave Al Jazeera on all day while you're at work. No scratch that, it's like expecting your cat to learn Arabic on it's own.

It's really sad, Marvel was really starting to get interesting, they seemed less obsessed with maintaining the status quo, and it was making for better stories. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they thought of a way to ruin it in suitably spectacular fashion. And they always go after Spiderman first. It just wouldn't be Spiderman if it was readable for four consecutive issues.

I only seem to read Spiderman seriously when they're about to do something retarded with the character. I started reading it during the clone saga, got back into it just before Avengers Disassembled. After briefly giving up the title after Spiderman hatched out of the giant spider he turned into for, frankly, inadequately explored reasons, I came back just in time for The Other.
So here I am, fresh on the heels of Civil War and it's Cathartic half-brother World War Hulk once again reading Spiderman and lo and behold they found a way to top themselves. I want to sit in on the meetings the editorial staff at Marvel must have:

Editor 1: How about he falls in love with a bug-lady because of her bug pheromones, which somehow turns him into a giant spider, which somehow hatches into Spiderman again, but his powers work slightly differently.
Editor 2: I dunno, can we get Captain America in there? And maybe kill Hawkeye?
Editor 1: Let's kill all the Avengers.

Editor 1: We need to take the character in new and interesting directions. How about it turns out that he's made out of magic?
Editor 2: Yes! But then he finds out he's made of magic, so he turns into a caccoon which hatches into Spiderman again, but his powers work slightly differently.
Editor 1: Yeah we'll give him spears. Spider-bone-spears.
Editor 2: Just like a spider has.

Editor 1: How about we undo every major point of character development we've made in the past, oh lets say, three decades?
Editor 2: We'd have to handle something like that with a lot of finesse. Maybe "the devil did it"?
Editor 1: I love it. We'll take the story plot-point for plot-point from Hellblazer's "Dangerous Habits" storyline. Nobody reads Vertigo comics, so they'll never know.
Editor 2: Afterwards, his powers should work slightly differently.

Seriously though, I don't know who wrote Amazing Spiderman 546, and I don't care. What's really sad about this whole thing is I was really starting to enjoy Spiderman again. With his secret identity out and his open feud with the Iron Hand Of The Establishment the comic was forced to stop rehashing the same goddamn stories they've been telling for 40-whatever years. 4-comics by the dude from Babylon 5 later, and we're back to where we started, only worse.

Wake me when Mephisto hatches into Spiderman with his powers working slightly differently.

P.S. The back of the comic is full of lame 2-page-or-so stories using supporting characters. Apparently Mary Jane is now a superheroine called "Jackpot". Because, you know, they like to be thorough in their debasement of the series.

The Iron Fascist

At the onset of Civil War, when Iron Man went from largely forgettable alchoholic filler Avenger to deluded overbearing big brother figure, I didn't like the abrupt character change. Very people did, although I wasn't really all that concerned with it. I was more upset about Mr. Fantastic, a character with whom I had stronger associations with what the proper characterization is. All things considered, it was Mr. Fantastic who was most out of character, Iron Man was just the one we were supposed to hate. And don't believe Marvel's BS about thinking Iron Man was right, it's pretty clear what they were up to, and they did it well. They transformed Iron Man from a mediocre "A" hero into a brilliantly polarizing fascist anti-hero. So often anti-heroes are of the anarchist bent, but here we've given one at the other extreme of the spectrum.

All said, Civil War was extremely well produced, as we were all caught by it's web of emotional manipulation only to have our goo sucked out by the mandibles of buying the next issue. We were lured to each issue with the promise of the Iron Fascist finally getting his come-uppance. But they weren't going to give it away that easily, we had to wait for World War Hulk, for the green angel of Catharsis to descend from the heavens and beat Iron Man into within an inch of his life. Oh and the second issue of the new Thor, same excact premise. Now that 90% of comic fans everywhere hate Iron Man with a firey passion, it's easy for Marvel to just have another fan-favorite hero beat the snot out of Iron Man and basically print money. Granted, comic-book money, but still.

I wouldn't be surprised if Spiderman doesn't give him a sound thrashing next. I don't buy any of this "Marriage to Mary Jane" reset being permanent. I got a definate vibe of "we're going to fix this later" from that whole storyline. Although, it was from the writer who is no longer with the book, so we'll soon see won't we? I suppose Wolverine could always fight Iron Man. Or Squirrel Girl.