Category Archives: Comics
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/30/14
Happy Labor Day weekend to all my American readers! I hope, like me, you’re going to take full advantage of this long weekend. I actually managed to do the dishes all in one go yesterday! That’s real progress. But enough about my messy apartment, what about comics? It’s another solid week of solid titles, and this is actually kind of a momentous week. Both Marvel and DC are on the verge of some pretty big craziness this fall. For September, DC is going to do another one of those special anniversaries, taking all of their comics 5 years into the future. And Marvel is about to jump the Avengers 8 months ahead.
So you better believe Avengers #34 is on the read list this week. Does Jonathan Hickman leave me salivating for what’s to come? Or what about Geoff Johns’ Superman? Is he reinventing the Man of Steel like he did the Green Lantern Corps? Read ahead to find out. We’ve also got fun new entries from Silver Surfer, Red Lanterns and, surprisingly, Batman Eternal! I wrote this series off as crap not too many weeks ago, but the team behind Batman Eternal actually deliver an exciting issue for once – even though it still doesn’t make total sense! Let’s hope the energy sticks around.
Comic Book of the Week goes to Avengers #34 to apologize for me ever doubting Hickman – though I still think Infinity was a big pile of meh.
At least one of us has
If you’re so inclined, you can also check out my review of All-New X-Men #31 over at Word of the Nerd. That was definitely a good issue.
Comic Reviews: Avengers #34, Batman Eternal #21, Harley Quinn #10, Red Lanterns #34, Silver Surfer #5 and Superman #34.
Review: Saga #22
This is gonna get good. Do you ever get that feeling reading a comic? Do you flip through the pages, read the dialogue, scan the pictures, and get that feeling in your gut that all of this is going somewhere and it’s gonna be awesome? I got that feeling reading Saga #22. The last few issues have been pretty low key, and I’ve rated them as such, but now writer Brian K. Vaughn is starting to move his chess pieces around the board. All the characters he’s introduced, all the plot lines he seeded, start swirling together in the new issue, and it’s rather exciting.
Saga #22
Don’t say I didn’t warn you, but I think this Saga comic is gonna be pretty good.
Comic Rating: 8/10 – Very Good.
Vaughn and artist Fiona Staples had a lot to introduce coming into this new volume. They did a time jump, so there was a lot they had to get readers up to speed on in the universe before they could restart the story proper. I get that. Nothing wrong with that. But it made for a few issues that were just setting up the scenery. And it was depressing scenery. Can you believe that Vaughn and Staples are doing to Marko and Alana?! Man, what a drag. But in the end, there’s no denying that it’s going to be a great story, because that’s what these to do: they make great comics!
Things start to heat up in a bad way between Marko and Alana in this issue. We knew it was coming, and Vaugh just slaps us in the face with it. But they’re just the beginning. Were you, like I, wondering where all this crazy janitor stuff was going? Oh yeah, it’s going there. It’s going right there, and Vaughn is going to destroy us with it.
Well I say bring it on!
Join me after the jump for a full synopsis and more review!
The 6 Best French Superheroes
Leave it to the craziness of the world to spur my imagination! There I was, dear readers, wondering what sort of List of Six I could write for you this week. I hadn’t even started as of Tuesday morning, but nothing was coming to mind. Maybe a list of bird superheroes? People like birds…But no! Lo and behold, the universe was ready for me! French President Francois Hollande dissolved the French government this week!
And what better way to note the occasion than with a list of the coolest French comic book characters?
Oo la la!
I didn’t even know you could do that to the French government. It’s France! You’d think they’d have their croissants all in a row. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those French-hating Americans. Those guys are idiots. France is a pretty cool place, and was my foreign language of choice all through grade school. And you better believe there are some pretty cool French superheroes and supervillains out there!
Join me after the jump to get a good look at them.
Batwoman Break Up Bombshell! DC’s Revenge is Served Ice Cold
It’s been nearly a year, but I think DC Comics has finally gotten their revenge on all of us over gay marriage. Hear me out.
In the new issue of Batwoman, the titular hero just broke up with her longtime girlfriend, Police Captain Maggie Sawyer. Possibly the most prominent and promising lesbian relationship in mainstream comics just came to an end, but nobody on the Internet seems to care all that much, other than a few moistened tear ducts. It’s sad, sure, but where’s the outrage? Where’s the disappointment?
Maggie has some, that’s for sure
Obviously Kate Kane is free to break up with anybody she wants. But this couple and their relationship has a bit of notoriety behind it.
Remember a year ago, when the original creative team on Batwoman – J. H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman – blew up the Internet by walking off the comic, declaring that DC wasn’t going to allow Batwoman and Maggie to get married? That was huge news! Everybody weighed in from all corners of the Internet! DC was in damage control. Kate and Maggie are a great couple, and the idea that DC wasn’t going to allow gay marriage in their comic hit the Internet like a lightning strike!
Though to be fair to DC, their policy wasn’t about gay marriage specifically, they just said that no marriage of any kind would be allowed in their comics. Unfortunately, the very idea of gay marriage remains a hot button issue all over the world, so this policy reveal at DC came as a bit of a shock to readers.
And DC was so firm against marriage that an incredibly popular creative team walked off an incredibly popular, forward-thinking comic. Williams and Blackman had even won a GLAAD Media Award for their work on Batwoman.
As well they should have
Readers were not happy, but DC forged ahead with the series. They grabbed popular writer Marc Andreyko to pick up the slack, with the promise of more quality comics.
But Batwoman has been pretty mediocre since Andreyko took over. The quality in both art and story have gone downhill. And then along came Batwoman #34 this week, and all of a sudden, I might start believing in conspiracy theories.
In the new issue, Kate abruptly breaks up with Maggie, despite their engagement. Kate leaves a ‘Dear John’ letter (Dear Jane letter?), and even though she bumps into Maggie one last time on her way out of the building, she can’t even break-up with the woman face-to-face. She just moves all her stuff out of Maggie’s apartment and leaves the letter behind.
Why not break up over Twitter if you’re going that route?
In the letter, Kate claims she’s breaking up with Maggie so that Maggie can spend more time with her daughter. Apparently Maggie’s ex-husband is a bit homophobic, and he thinks Kate is going to be a bad influence on his daughter. He started fighting for custody, but in the previous issue, Kate made a secret phone call to the man to arrange some sort of deal.
Apparently she agreed to break up with Maggie if he agreed to drop the custody battle.
First of all, how cowardly is it of Kate to take the ‘noble sacrifice’ route in a break-up? She’s being so gracious on Maggie’s behalf by breaking up with her, even though being in a relationship is a two-person tango. Shouldn’t Maggie get some kind of say in whether or not Kate is a bad influence on her daughter? Maggie was more than willing to fight in the custody battle. And how skeevy is it that Kate broke up with Maggie as part of a secret deal with Maggie’s ex-husband? Maybe Kate isn’t the best person to be in a relationship…
Second of all, this ex-husband, his apparent homophobia, and the custody problems with Maggie’s daughter didn’t exist before Andreyko came on board the comic. He created this storyline leading to the break-up.
Now, it is entirely possible that Andreyko is going somewhere with this break-up. Maybe this is only the start of an even larger storyline that brings Kate and Maggie back together. I don’t know, and won’t know for a good long while, considering how often comic books come out. If that’s the case, then I’m probably entirely wrong (it’s happened before).
But maybe, just maybe, DC was so perturbed that the Internet dare question their marriage policy that they gave Andreyko the task of breaking up Kate and Maggie. Once upon a time, Batwoman was considered one of the very best comics DC was putting out, in no small part thanks to Williams and Blackman. But then Andreyko took over and everybody stopped caring. The quality dropped considerably, and Batwoman fell off everybody’s radar.
Giving DC the perfect opportunity to take away the very thing we were upset about in the first place.
Those cold, dead eyes…
It’s been a year since that Internet firestorm over Batwoman’s marriage. Nobody talks about Batwoman anymore. Revenge doesn’t get much colder than that.
Then to twist the knife even further, Batwoman #34 ends with Kate, in her underwear, being attacked by a sexy lady vampire in bed.
Look at what you have wrought!
In one fell swoop, DC takes away the most prominent lesbian relationship in comics, and turns Batwoman into a story about sexy ladies in lingerie playing around in bed.
As if DC Comics doesn’t have enough problems with sexism.
Or maybe prominent blogger and comics writer Kristi McDowell has it all figured out.
I would buy that comic in a heartbeat!
And again, I could be totally wrong about all of this – in fact, I probably am. But I was a huge fan of Batwoman back in the day, and the Kate/Maggie relationship was pure comic book gold. I have no idea where Andreyko is going with this, but the comic just hasn’t been anywhere near the same since Williams and Blackman left.
In an industry in seemingly constant battle over equal treatment of women and minorities, it’s a shame to see one of the best titles featuring both go down this route.
Plus, I just really liked Kate and Maggie. They were aces.
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Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 8/23/14
The week is finally here! Grant Morrison’s long-gestating project, Multiversity, has finally hit the stands! I think it was first announced back when I was in college. Feels like forever. It was one of those project that I never thought would see the light of day. But Grant Morrison lives to mess with our heads, and he definitely carries the slack.
And he’s not alone! This was a week of above average comics! Storm, Ms. Marvel, New Avengers; I was a glutton for good comics this week. But despite those quality issues – and Multiversity does indeed live up to expectations – I’m going to personally give Comic Book of the Week to Batman and Robin #34. It wasn’t the best comic of the week, but it spoke to me personally, and this is how I roll.
Moment of the week, though, goes to New Avengers. The world is coming to an end, and Reed Richards flies out to Latveria in the middle of the night to spend his last hour alive with his daughter, who has been staying with Doctor Doom. But only Reed knows the world is about to end. Every else is in the dark. All they know is that Reed woke everybody up in the middle of the night. It’s great.
I love Doom and Valeria
Though now that I think about it, why didn’t Doom ever get involved in the incursion storyline in New Avengers? Remember when that was teased all the way back at the beginning? That would have been awesome.
Comic Reviews: Batman Eternal #20, Batman and Robin #34, Ms. Marvel #7, Multiversity #1, New Avengers #23 and Storm #2.
You can also check out my review of All-New Ghost Rider #6 at Word of the Nerd.
And I was going to review Batwoman #34 this week, but something happens in that comic that deserves a much closer examination. Come back on Sunday for a deeper exploration of just why DC Comics has screwed us all over again. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, after all…
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