Halloween geek party!!!

Me as Two-Face, Gary as Batman, Clara as Black Canary, Joe as the Joker (as played by Caesar Romero) and Jessica as Robin (Stephanie Brown).

Happy Halloween!

Happy Ghost Day! Here's a awesomely gruesome Vault of Horror cover to celebrate with.


Boo!

Bringin' Onslaught Back

I may not listen to enough pop radio to fully appreciate this, but I do know it's silly.

Next month = Na(Gra)NoWriMo

Okay, so I am one of those poor nerds/suckers who will be participating in National Novel Writing Month but I’ll be doing it a little differently. Inspired by Dave at Yet Another Comics Blog, instead of writing a 175-page novel, I will be writing the script for a 175-page graphic novel. This doesn’t exactly follow the rules of NaNoWriMo, but I’ve accepted my ineligibility for the No-Prize of winning the real NaNoWriMo.

There are several reasons why I’ve decided to tweak NaNoWriMo this year. First, I’ve been kicking around this idea for a story for over a year (maybe two) but I’ve never actually written it down. Since I believe that this story would only work properly in graphic novel form (especially since I can’t afford to film a blockbuster scifi/action epic on my paycheck) I knew I’d eventually have to write a script for it. And since NaNoWriMo is all about finally getting that novel written, I thought it only make sense to use the month to motivate me to finally get my shit together and something on paper.

Also, I’m not in the place, creatively to write long prose. It’s really shameful, but I really do not read much prose anymore. I’ve mostly only been reading comic books lately. Now, I’m not going to make a broad generalization about how prose is somehow superior to comics, but when you’ve been reading more Ms. Marvel than Kafka, tackling a 50,000 word prose novel is not a good idea. You’ve got to write what you know, and right now I know comics.

And writing a comic script, I think, will just be easier. Of course, I may actually end up writing close to 50,000 words by the end of the month (but most likely I won’t come close) but it just seems so much easier to structure a page of panels than it is to structure a page of paragraphs, especially since most of the writing in NaNoWriMo ends up being improvisational. I tried to write a novel last year and failed miserably because of the demand of one-the-spot prose writing at high quantities. I may be cheating and doing something apparently easier, but at least I’ll get something done.

I’ll be sure to post some on my progress next month. Wish me luck!

Update: Dave has set up a blog especially for NaGraNoWriMo. Any comic bloggers up to the challenge should check it out.

Dr. 13: Incest for the kiddies!

Inspired by this post at Comic Book Thoughts, I found a copy of Tales of the Unexpected #1 and read the backup Dr. 13 story to see what all the fuss was about.

The good doctor is hot for his daughter. Real hot.

Now, I have no problem with the theme of incest being addressed in literature, including comic books. I don't even mind if it is the main character who is struggling with incestuous impulses, like Dr. Thirteen is. I do, however, object to the lighthearted approach and flippant attitude towards incest that this comic contains. I believe, because this comic is a "general audience" title and not a Vertigo book, that the writers and editors refuse to examine the true horror of incest for the sake of making decent sales.

Let's first get the incest out on the table so people reading this don't think I'm just "reading into it" too much.

• First, the doctor dreams of his teenage daughter leaning over him as he lays shirtless in bed. She addresses him as "Daddy" and accompanying a close up of his seductive daughter is a word balloon saying "amazing." Thirteen then wakes up, screaming and in pajamas. The fact that he actually wears clothing to bed appears shirtless (perhaps nude) in his dream adds more to the sexual nature of the scene.
• Later, in his narration, Thirteen says, "Doomsbury Mansion, our in -- uh -- ancestral home." He was going to say "incestral," a Freudian slip that proves that incest is very much on his mind.
• Again, in his narration, Thirteen lingers on the fact that his daughter is accompanying him on his investigation. There is clearly a fixation on her, emphasizing their father/daughter relationship.
• After a conversation about cannibalism, including a passing mention of the creation of "fantasies," Traci asks her father if he would ever consider eating her. Thirteen is startled by the question, suggesting that he gave the girl's innocent question a specifically sexual double meaning.

Let's not fool ourselves. Dr. Thirteen wants to bone is daughter.

Like I said, I have no problem with incest as a theme, especially as a major character flaw in the main character. Clearly Thirteen knows his desires are wrong and I object to anyone suggesting that Traci is doing any manner of seduction. This is all in Thirteen's fucked-up head. The problem is that, rather than confronting the awfulness of incest in a mature and constructive way, this comic uses incest for some easy laughs. It doesn't help that this is also a mainstream, in-continuity, general audiences title. In other words, this book is totally open to the kids.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is not a Vertigo title. Doctor Thirteen, a semi-obscure mystical character, seems pretty much perfect for Vertigo, and because of the lack of limitations on mature readers books, the theme of incest could have been addressed in a much more realistic and legitimate way. I would not mind reading about a parapsychologist who is being torn apart by guilt for his seemingly uncontrollable incestuous impulses. That would make for a good story. Hell, even a pitch-black comedy about the same theme would be better. But this isn't black comedy. This is a "kid friendly" adventure story.

I am convinced that this story is not appearing as a Vertigo title due to the editor's hopes to make a buck. Superhero comics sell much more than Vertigo books, which have been stigmatized as being "too smart" for most comic fans. Perhaps to cash in on some of the popularity of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers Zatanna miniseries, in which Thirteen is killed, this rather unremarkable, obscure character is given a backup story in what is essentially a Specter miniseries. Now, I don't think too many kids will be picking up Tales of the Unexpected since they would rather be reading about characters with recent blockbuster movies or TV shows, but some very well could having seen the Specter all through Infinite Crisis. This leads me to believe that TotU was made into a non-Vertigo book only to appeal to adult superhero fans but because kids might pick it up, the maturity of the story had to be drastically scaled back.

I think it is now time for an episode of "Hypothetical Fly-on-the-Wall Theater!"

Editor: So you want to do a Dr. Thirteen story, huh? He was just in Zatanna! Why don't we make it a backup for the Specter miniseries?

Writer: But my proposal involves incest. Don't you think that is a little inappropriate? I mean, I was thinking this would be a Vertigo book. Should I take it out?

Editor: No! We've got to appeal to the capes fans. Only snooty English majors who only call comic books "graphic novels" buy Vertigo titles. We need to make money on this. Just lighten up the incest stuff. Don't make it so serious.

Writer: But a kid might read it...

Editor: No, they won't! They're too busy figuring out their Identity Crisis trades.

I don't know if I'm giving the writer too much credit or just demonizing the editor, but the fact remains that PG-rated TotU is the wrong place to address a R-rated theme. Why this isn't its own Vertigo miniseries and the Specter story not the only feature in TotU will forever boggle my mind.

Oh, and I predict that all the incest stuff is coming from a demonic influence on Thirteen and is not a genuine character flaw. Someone let me know as I'm not going to bother reading any more of this crap.

Robbie luvs She-Hulk

In semi-recognition of Ragnell and Kalinara's Beefcake/Cheesecake Appreciation Week, I thought I would share some comic book hotness, albeit with a twist. Instead of posting select panels of cheesecake, I'll instead focus on a single character that I almost consistently find insanely hot. She is the the Savage Supersexy She-Hulk.

Damn, girl!

Um, where was I... oh yeah! You see, normally I have a very hard time talking to people once they begin spouting off about how hot a character is. It's typically the artists who are responsible for a character's apparent sexiness, on account that superheroes aren't real people. Whether it's Catwoman, Power Girl, Jean Grey or Black Canary, the "hotness" of characters is almost always just a matter of how they are drawn or presented in a particular instance. I say "almost" because, for me, there is one glaring exception.

It's hard for me to put a finger on exactly what I find so attractive about She-Hulk. She's a successful lawyer and she can beat the crap out of pretty much anyone. Those factors are both sexy on their own. She also doesn't have a distractingly ridiculous costume like Psylocke or Wonder Woman*. Of course, I can't really pull a finger on what her costume is since she is almost always in a bathing suit, but this isn't a post about complaining over the absurd oversexualization of female heroes. This is about the cheesecake. And yes, the green skin is part of the appeal.

And here is where I make a shameful confession (as if drooling over a fictional green lady isn't pathetic enough). I've only read a handful of She-Hulk comics. They really aren't that good, so while I love She-Hulk, I've only really read a couple of stories that feature her. The current series is alright, but nothing to write home about. The original series, now criminally collected in a colorless Essentials book, was written by Stan Lee. Given Lee's record for writing strong female characters (he doesn't), it's safe that I will never be picking it up. I wonder how She-Hulk feels about Stan Lee?

Don't take that from the old douchebag, Shulky! I would love to see Stan Lee brutally beaten by one of his female creations. Or just throw him through a wall, for that matter.**

For now, it seems that She-Hulk will remain my guilty pleasure of pure eye candy. Hopefully some day I will be able to write something about She-Hulk's personality or how awesome she is outside of the realm of hotness, but not this week.

Okay, so that's my cheesecake appreciation post. I know it's stupid and sexist but I can't deny my hormone-fueled love for that green-skinned hottie. I will now go back to writing about stupid comic books and how I hate Virgin Comics advertisements, never to mention She-Hulk again at risk of looking like a complete pig.

But before I end this, there is room for one last, gratuitous bikini-clad She-Hulk.

Yikes.

*I should clarify that while I find Wonder Woman's costume to be silly looking, I still think she is awesome. And so do plenty of other She-Hulk fans considering all the WW/She-Hulk femslash fanart I found in creating this post. Psylocke, on the other hand, is just stupidly slutty.

**I mean, "Stan Lee is an incredibly creative man and is responsible for the best characters in comics." Yeah...

I hate this Virgin Comics banner

Every time I see this animated banner ad for Virgin Comics' 7 Brothers, I am first confused and then annoyed. I must voice my disapproval.

My issue with this banner stems from the tagline "Comics will never be the same again." What ticks me off about this is that each time I see this add I automatically think that it is for some upcoming Marvel comic because the characters shown look EXACTLY like older, well established characters. Ripping off character design is nothing new to comics.

First there is the dude who looks just like Wolverine sporting his trusty, if not nonsensical cowboy hat. Really, do many Canadians wear cowboy hats? Anyway, it looks just like Wolverine, right down to the gritty, inky and intense action pose. If the character's hands were in frame, I would expect three foot-long claws sticking out of each.

And then there is the guy who is all leather and spikes, and I can't really say that it looks like any Marvel character. It looks a bit like one of DC's Female Furies as drawn by Amano Yoshitaka. Certainly a pale S&M enthusiast for a villain is nothing new.

And then Dr. Strange shows up! The first time I saw this banner I had to have it cycle through several times before I realized that it was not Stephen Strange at the end. All the text indicates that the banner is for 7 Brothers, which most people know is for Virgin, but they someone who looks exactly like Dr. Strange is in there. It blew my mind. The guy has a flowing red cape with a tall, horned collar, short black hair and possibly a porn star mustache. And he's being all mysterious and mystical. That IS Dr. Strange.

Every time I see that frame I forget what this banner is for and begin to wonder what Dr. Strange story Marvel is trying to promote. (Other than Brian K. Vaughan's kick ass Dr. Strange: The Oath miniseries.)

Curse you Virgin Comics! I thought ripping off characters from the two major publishers died with Youngblood!

Oh yeah, Trajectory died.

Yeah, so I finally got around to reading 52 Week 21 last night and I finally got to see what all the controversy was all about. Trajectory, a throw-away character from a throw-away team from a throw-away storyline in a book that I am sometimes wanting to throw away all together, was killed. She was a girl.

Now, I do understand that women have gotten the short end of the stick for fall too long in comics. Actually, they've mostly gotten the business end of laser guns, axes, refrigerators and Dr. Light. Comics have an awful history of brutalizing female characters where the male characters almost always come out clean and heroic. In comics, when a man dies, he is a martyr. When a woman dies, she is a plot device.

But I don't think this really is the case for Trajectory, the speedster of Lex Luthor's Infinity Inc. who had her neck twisted (off?) by some random villain being called the "new Blockbuster." She was clearly always meant to be killed off (murdered by Luthor, in fact) which is a bad sign, but she also, with the exception of Natasha Irons, was the most fleshed out character in the new Infinity Inc.

Of course, it is very sketchy that her career highlights were being hooked on drugs and being murdered, but we also knew her motivations and personality, which is more than we can say about the other members of Infinity Inc.. I can't even list the other members of Luthor's little troupe.

Now, I think it's pretty obvious that all of the members of Infinity Inc. is going to loose their powers by the end of 52. That would mean that even if Trajectory wasn't killed (let's say whichever one came from Gary, IN got his head ripped off), she till would have fallen victim to depowering and then obscurity. My point is, all of the characters of Infinity Inc. are made to be forgotten, so why should people be upset that the one who is given the spotlight but is also killed happens to be female? Would it have been better if she had remained in the background only to be depowered and tossed aside?

But then again, other than the well-established Natasha Irons, Trajectory was the only female character on the team (I think?). What were the odds she would be the one to be brutally killed?

Pull List: Make it awesome

Because I've noticed that Digg is lacking a comic books category, I decided to do something about it. Thus I created Pull List, for all your social comic book bookmarking needs.

For those unfamiliar with not familiar with how sites like Pull List work, users find cool comic related news or sites and submits a links to such sites. Other users then check the submitted links out and, if they like what they see, give the stories votes. The more votes a story has, the cooler it must be. Also, users can comment on the links just as they could on a forum and the RSS feeds make Pull List work very much like a blog.

Join Pull List and help make is awesome.

A few thoughts on Nightwing #125

When I heard that Marv Wolfman would be writing Nightwing, I got excited. Mostly because Wolfman and Dick go way back and I was sure he would drop that Jason Todd crap that Bruce Jones was using during his "One Year Later" arc.

I swear, I will boycott anything that features Jason Todd from no one. That dude must really be a zombie because whenever he shows up he stinks up the comic to high heaven.

Back on topic, I was looking forward to Wolfman writing and when I picked it up at the comic shop and saw that Dan Jergens would be drawing it, I got a wave of instant nostalgia. But it didn't take me two pages to realize that I really wasn't going to like this issue.

I will admit that it is better than Jones' crappy scripts, but that's not saying much. The issue is incredibly dated with Wolfman's sometimes chunky dialogue (and that narration, good God!) and Jergen's art looks exactly like it did fourteen years ago when I though he was the shit. This issue is way too retro for me.

There are a handful of really bad parts, like Raptor, who is some spaz in armor that somehow is able to take down Nightwing without even trying. Raptor's dialogue is especially bad. At one point Nightwing says something about how Rappy claims to have not killed someone. Raptor replies "I didn't. But you're not him!" I then expected him to say "I know you are, but what am I?" soon after.

And now we have new babes to fawn over Dick. There's Ryan who is a masseuse and then there is her roommate Zen, who is a bit of a ultra-liberal poststructalist Asian background character. She doesn't approve of the system of family names but she'll name herself after an Asian philosophy? Want to make a pool as to how long these two stick around. I predict they will leave as soon as Wolfman leaves the book.

And the script is a little spotty. I wish I had scans on hand to illustrate this point, but you'll just have to trust me that I'm totally right. Transitions between scenes are really, really jarring. On one page the scene shifts three times without any visual cues of transition. One panel has Dick, the next one is of Raptor across town, then back to Dick a few panel's later. It's just very sloppy and I haven't seen that level of poor transitions since the mid-eighties. Oh, yeah, it's Wolfman. And the only book of his I have is Crisis on Infinite Earths, which I never finished due to lack of interest and readability. Nostalgia has clouded my judgement again!

But it's not all bad.

The stuff with Dick trying to get back to himself is interesting. Of course, I don't understand why he can't find a job. He's one of the best heroes in the world, but he has no employable skills? He can't do some networking with those Wayne family connections? Whatever, it's still cool.

And then there is the shower scene, which I do like because it shows a male character clearly being eroticized, just like female characters always are. If it were a woman in the same panel no one would have batted an eye, but since it was Dick it really stands out. Good. I hope there are a thousand homophobic fanboys burning down forums in flamewars over it. And the slash fans are probably going rabid.

And the best part is just meta this comic is. One of the new Monitors shows up at the end, telling Dick that he was supposed to die in the Crisis and evidently it is a problem that he didn't. What is so cool about this is that Dan Didio, the editor-in-chief of DC Comics, wanted Nightwing to bite it during Infinite Crisis. Luckily, someone with half a brain saved Dick from this fate.

I really think we were very close to losing Dick there if you look at Infinite Crisis #7. On the page where Alex Luthor shoots Nightwing with some kind of energy gun, it looks like he is just knocked out, but Batman goes apeshit and holds a pistol to Luthor's head. My theory is that this page was drawn before it was decided that Nightwing would live but before it was sent to printing a word balloon indicating that Dick was dead was omitted. He was then added to the scene where Bruce and Tim sail off into the sunset.

Anyway, I think it is awesome that Wolfman is making a plot out of Didio's editorial stupidity. The art, clumsy transitions and awful dialogue really turn me off of this run, but the meta nature of the plot has me too intrigued to stay way.

He rises!!!

Found over at Superdickery.com, this New Teen Titans panel proves why Nightwing is such a chick magnet.

Evidently Dick is able to be cured by a good boning.

JLA vs. Predator

I took a few years away from comic books to focus on other things in my life like school, girlfriends and sunlight, and now that I’ve gotten back into the game I’m coming across tons of things I unfortunately missed.

The most unfortunate has to be JLA vs. Predator.


Why didn't someone tell me about this?

I like Predators, but the funny thing about them is that a great majority of their appearances have been in crossovers. With the exception of two movies and a few farted out mass-market paperbacks and comic books, the Predators have only shown up when they decide to hunt some other, more popular character. There has been Aliens vs. Predator, Batman vs. Predator, Superman vs. Predator, and even an Aliens vs. Predator vs. Terminator.

And some how all those crossovers made sense. Hunting different prey is what the Predators are all about. But the JLA? That is just madness!

Well, not so much “madness” as it is “a messy attempt at getting some cash from people who don’t know this is going to suck no matter what.”

I know you’re aching to know how this meeting can possibly happen, here’s what goes down:

The Martain Manhunter is doing what he does best: sitting around the JLA watchtower while everyone else actually does crime fighting. I swear he is the only member of the League who is ever “on duty” in the watchtower. Anyway, a Dominator (nasty aliens who look a little too much like "yellow peril" caricatures) spaceship is about to crash to Earth so J’ohn teleports them onto the watchtower. Only they aren’t alone. Something attacks him and the other Leaguers book it to the watchtower to save him. Here’s that they find:


Kyle’s reaction, instead of rage or sorrow, is total disgust. He puts the power ring to good use.


Superman’s reaction is similar to anger, but it’s really closer to the emotion found only in comics called “righteous exposition.” This is when something absolutely awful happens and instead of reacting like a human being, the character launches into an unnatural explanation of the events.* It does, however, give us a chance to see some of the worst drawn Predators ever published.


Whoa, that’s bad! The artwork in this comic constantly teeters between mediocre to what-the-hell-is-that bad. The writing is slightly worse.

It appears that J’ohn has kicked the bucket, thus getting my hopes up that the rest of the League will suffer horrible deaths, but it is not so. J’ohn escapes death by doing the coolest thing he has ever done. Ever.


This has to happen more often.

Sadly that is the best part of the entire fifty-page story. The rest is pretty dull stuff. The Dominators sneak to three different locations on Earth and the JLA splits into teams to track them down. This allows Wonder Woman to freak Aquaman out by being completely out of character and rambling on about how romantic Venice is. Each team encounters Predators that have the same powers as they do. That’s right, the Predator’s have their superpowers and that is how this comic is justified. Here’s what the Plastic Man Predator looks like:


Okay, so it turns out the Dominators made the “MetaPredators” to kill the JLA. All the Leaguers make it back to the watchtower and the Predators follow. The writer must have loved Aquaman, because it’s Arty who figures out that by mismatching the JLA and Predator counterparts, the League can take them out in no time. The plan works, although I don’t really understand how Batman is more of a match for the Flash Predator than the Flash himself. I know Batman is badass, but he can’t beat a super-fast Predator at a moment’s notice. Superman takes down his Predator completely off panel. Boring, except maybe for Kyle’s insisting on stripping a Predator down before beating it.


So then, like always, the Predators blow shit up rather than surrendering. They puncture the wall of the watchtower and are sucked out into space. No one else is. They live happily ever after, content to assume that it only takes the vacuum of space to kill a Predator with Superman’s powers.

This has got to be the worst Predator crossover ever. Unless I missed the Dazzler vs. Predator miniseries. Bad stuff, but it was still worth it to see Martian Manhunter get his head on a stake and grow a face through his chest.

*Another good example of this is Cyclops’ three panels of exposition immediately after Jean Grey, the woman he loves, kills herself at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga. And he wonders why no one likes him.

Quick Reviews

Amazing Spider-Man #535 - In case you're wondering which of the bajillion Civil War tie-ins in the best, it is without a doubt the "War Comes Home" arc in Amazing Spider-Man. Out of all the monthly tie-ins, ASM is the most directly connected to the main series and is also the most interesting. In this issue, after dwelling on the use of the Clone Thor (Spidey hates clones) as a secret weapon and the resulting death of Goliath, Peter demands as tour of the super-prison where all the superheroes and supervillians spend their supertime for supercrimes. For some reason, the prison got a make-over since its appearance in Civil War: Frontline #6, where is looked like a Nazi prison camp. Let's just say that Spidey didn't like what he saw. And I loved what I saw with the last page. No spoiler, but let's just say that the one thing I've been waiting for since Road to Civil War is finally going down.

Teen Titans #39 - I can safely say I have no idea what is going on. It's hard to keep the drama going with so many new characters who are nothing more than homages to the original, adult versions. Do we really needs Zatara or Captain Atom Jr? Miss Martian is cool though.

Batman #657 -Awesome issue. The best of Morrison's run so far. For months leading up to this storyline I was dreading reading it purely because it brings Son of the Demon back into continuity. Now, Son of the Demon is a fun story and I have nothing against Batman having a kid. What I don't like is having the kid hang around the batcave. It's simply.... troubling to me. I didn't even really like it when Bruce adopted Tim. I must be anti-bat-family. But this storyline is shaping up to be a good one, especially in this issue that showcases the dynamics between Damien (that name, yesh!) and Robin. Of course, it does leave me wondering how the Ninja Man-Bat Army plot is going to be resolved with only one more issue left in the arc.

Civil War: Frontline #6 - I really don't care too much for this series. It's nice to get so much Civil War every month (especially with the delays) but I have not connected to any of the stories in this series. To sum up this issue: Ben Urich nails Iron Man, the superprision is a death camp, Marvel is not above dropping lame JFK assassination references, and Iron Man's side is likened to Nazis. At least now we know who the bad guys are.

Justice League of America #2 - I must be so lame, because I think the best part of this issue is Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman giving commentary on different DC heroes. Some stuff is going on with Red Tornado and a bunch I villains I don't recognize. And there is a blurb from Entertainment Weekly on the cover. That kinda weirded me out.