Everything about this week was weird. I could have sworn this was not only a Conan week, but a Savage Sword of Conan week, which is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Still, it’s not like the shop was empty — I found some things to buy.
Bulletproof Coffin #3 was the best issue yet. David Hine and Shakey Kane briefly hand the book over to Ramona, Queen of the Stone Age, with highly entertaining results. There’s definite Jack Kirby homage in form and content, and that’s always welcome when it’s done well. There’s also more comic-within-comic fun, this time complete with antiqued margins on the page and some “torn” corners that reveal part of the next page. The two plots of the book are beginning to intersect in a strange way: Steve Neuman, collector of kitschy stuff, is now inhabiting the Coffin Fly identity, and Coffin Fly’s adventures consist of trolling a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of kitschy artifacts from before the war. Wheels within wheels, with heart on sleeve and tongue in cheek. It’s a good read, and it’s only getting stronger.
Jack Staff #4, while as fun to look at as just about everything Paul Grist does, was less coherent. I don’t know if I forgot everything in the first three issues (could be) or if Grist is dropping references I’m not picking up, but I really had little idea what was going on. Well, I had some idea what was going on — Jack Staff is in a future realm with a masked woman and watching himself get his butt kicked, waiting for “the Hero” to come along and save creation, while in the real world John Smith doesn’t know he’s Jack Staff. I dunno — that *sounds* like the sort of book I’d enjoy, but I seem to have lost the plot. I believe I’ll have to re-read numbers 1 through 3 and pay more attention this time.
Power Girl #15 is, and it hurts me to say this, a total dud. Everything that was fun and delightful about this title went out the door with Jimmy Palmioti and Amanda Connor, including and especially the zippy pacing. Judd Winick has us trapped in your standard “everything Kara Starr values is being taken away from her” story, complete with a non-super guy figuring out her secret identity (the handling of which was so clumsy and obvious that I rolled my eyes so hard one of them fell out of my head) and, oh yeah, she’s still fighting the same guy she was two issues ago. If you’re interested in cardboard characters going through cliché motions while nothing much happens for 20 pages at a time, I strongly recommend this book. Actually, if that’s what you’re into, I still wouldn’t recommend it.
World War Hulks is wrapping up this month (already? It’s only been 17 years since it started), and so I picked up Hulk #24 and Incredible Hulk #611 just to see how it all ended. I loved Planet Hulk enough that I bought all the attendant titles for a while, but after a year of Skaar and Son of Hulk doing permutations of the same thing with only the minutest differences between them, I dropped all Hulk books cold turkey. You know what? I had no problem following the action after more than a year away, most of which consisted of Banner Hulk beating up Red Hulk (he’s Thunderbolt Ross, of course! Betty is Red She-Hulk and Rick Jones is A-Bomb — everybody’s a hulka-hulka-burning hate!) and Banner Hulk beating up Skaar, which was exactly what was happening when I last bought a Hulk book. Both issues hinge on Banner Hulk clapping his hands together really hard, a move I’ve never seen Hulk pull off. Nah, I’m just messing with you; I’ve seen it so often that I believe Marvel has a secret licensing deal with The Clapper, and this is how The Clapper buy ads these days.
The issues weren’t a total waste, however — Hulk 611 ends with a hug, awwww. I was hoping Betty and Rick would give Banner a round of applause then, and blow everything away, including my memory of these two issues.
You know what’s the exact opposite of endless crossover non-eventful “event” books? Tiny Titans, that’s what. I don’t buy it every month, but I buy it pretty regularly. Art Baltazar and Franco are comic book geniuses, and I’m dead serious about that. Every month they cram an issue full of corny jokes that also double as sly commentary on the mainstream DC heroes and villains. My nephews have not one-tenth of my comic knowledge, and they find Tiny Titans to be hysterical — if you can make a 10- and a 7-year old laugh at the same things a 40-year old laughs at, you’re a genius. This issue involves a birthday party at the Fortress of Solitude with Match (the little version of Bizarro) consistently mistaking Psimon for a snow cone. There’s also a one-panel exchange between Superman and Lex Luthor that reads more like they’re a couple of bitter divorcees, and a special appearance by Ursa, Non and General Zod — that’s the sort of brilliant surprise that will make you forget your worries.
Is Tiny Titans the best thing I read this week? Aw yeah it is.
The oppressive heat and humidity got us thinking: How can we fill a week’s worth of blogspace with the minimum amount of effort?
Theme week. One topic, four bloggers, each attempting to out-think and out-fancy the other bloggers with their unique take on the theme.
This week’s theme is “Guns,” or maybe “Guns!,” but specifically, our personal favorite guns from the world of comics/cartoons and comic-inspired films — it was really too hot to lay down too many rules, so we’re doing it as we see fit.
Just like Han Solo, I’ll shoot first, and my weapon of choice is Judge Dredd’s Lawgiver.
It’s a simple-looking ray gun sort of thing, but don’t be fooled: Designed by Carlos Ezquerra to be the ultimate firearm for the ultimate lawman, this baby does everything.
It shoots regular old bullets.
And armor-piercing bullets.
And high-explosive shells.
And incendiary bullets.
And heat-seeking bullets.
And ricochet bullets.
It can fire any of these at any time, in single shot or fully automatic mode, up to its three-mile range.
And it’s voice operated. Well, either that, or Judge Dredd’s so authoritative that even his gun obeys him when he gives it an order.
As sophisticated and classic as the original design is, Hollywood saw fit to redesign the Lawgiver for the Sylvester Stallone film, making it bigger, bulkier and more menacing looking — and the film’s designers completely missed the point of the gun and the character when they did so. Dredd’s not menacing because the Lawgiver is so awesome, Dredd’s menacing because he’s Judge Dredd. The gun is just the icing on the cake, the perfect problem-solver for a man who has a lot of problems to solve.
That said, I absolutely want a Lawgiver. I’m no Judge Dredd, but with a Lawgiver in hand, I’d never have to open a door the old-fashioned way ever again.
Here we are in the middle of our greatest guns blogs here at Star Clipper, and I’ve got a doozy for you. In this case it’s not a matter of the quality of the gun but the quantity. And who has a bigger arsenal of massive guns in comic-dom than Cable? You’d think that 1000 years in the future, or whenever he’s from that technology would have advanced to the point where weaponry is more compact and concealable. But no, thanks to Rob Liefeld’s vision of the future, firearms just became more cumbersome and massive.
At least in X-Man Bishop’s not-to-distant future, the guns available seem much more manageable and practical. In Cable’s far more distant future, they became bigger than the person who operates them. I suppose that would explain Nate Summer’s predisposition to wearing big shoulder pads. It would make it that much more comfortable to hold one of those bulky cannons over your shoulder when you’re trying to pose all cool-like in a splash page. Much as I’m not a fan of Rob Liefeld’s ability to draw, you have to admit that the man defined an era of comics for better or worse. How many Image characters were basically a rip-off of Cable? Especially characters created by Liefeld himself. Also, how many classic characters dabbled briefly with bulky armor, and ridiculously massive firearms? Even Superman came back from being dead and started lugging around a big-ass gun, not to mention sported pouches galore on his extreme! black costume. And the mullet too…
One of the greatest Cable moments, for me anyway, came during the Phalanx Covenant from 1994 when Cable was helping the adamantium-less Wolverine, Cyclops and Jean Grey fend off the techno-organic menace with not one, but two massive guns mounted on tracks on his shoulder-pads. Now that’s extreme! By the way, check out this link and witness the ebb and flow that is Cable’s wardrobe over the years.
I also should mention that Cables best guns aren’t always the ones that fire bullets, or energy blasts, or whatever it is they shoot. The biggest, deadliest guns Cable possesses are attached to his torso, and one of them is made of organic metal. That’s right, few characters of average strength can take you to the gun show quite like Cable.
When Paul proposed writing a group of theme blogs about famous comic book guns I knew right away I wanted to write about the Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol. Buck Roger’s iconic ray gun was one of the first toys ever to be manufactured from a licensed character. Released in 1935, the XZ-38 toy was the follow up to the popular Buck Roger’s XZ-31 Rocket Pistol from the previous year. However, the more outlandish, art deco design of the XZ-38 Disintegrator, lifting straight from the popular newspaper strip, was the gun that would become synonymous with Buck Roger’s space adventures.
Interestingly, I discovered the distinctive ray gun an entirely different way, from the cover of the first self-titled Foo Fighters album.
Back in 1995, the Foo Fighters debut was the first CD I ever bought. I also had a t-shirt of the album cover (My second band shirt behind a Dookie-era Green Day shirt) which I wore to my first concert: The Foo Fighters and That Dog at the American Theatre in March of 1996. There I bought a second bootleg shirt with the Buck Rogers ray gun on the front and the tour dates on the back from what looked to be a homeless woman on the streets outside of the venue. Unbeknownst to me, or any of my peers who sported the same shirt through the halls of middle school, we were advertising a toy from our grandparent’s generation.
When I discovered the XZ-38 was from the Buck Roger’s legacy of toys a few later, I gained a new found appreciate for the disintegrator. After reading the introduction in the book “Ray Gun” by Eugene Metclaf, it really put the toy gun’s cultural importance in perspective. The XZ-38 and other 30s ray guns were really the first of their kind, setting up a template for the stylized interpretation of all the subsequent science fiction guns we’ll be discussing over the week.
To zap you back to the past, here is footage of the Foo Fighters tour I saw in my teens, complete with Dave Grohl head-banging with his Black Gibson Explorer and Pat Smear!
I think we can all agree that Wednesday is one of the happiest days of the week. But when you walk into the comic shop at the end of a very long day at work and see that your favorite ongoing title is back on the shelves a mere two weeks after the last issue, that, my friends, is a very happy moment.
Northlanders #31 is the sort of comic that justifies my love for comics as a storytelling medium. I stopped watching TV years ago because most shows are watered down by necessity — you can’t attract a huge audience and the attendant huge advertising revenue unless you appeal to the broadest possible swath of America. That means anything controversial or risqué is removed by several levels of middle management, corporate oversight and network censors. There are notable exceptions (South Park, I’m looking at you fondly), but most of TV is safe, boring and highly profitable because of it. So the fact that a comic book — a medium still considered childish by that meaty mainstream — would feature a character who is high all the time, vengeful with a magnificent bloodlust and waging a one-man war on Christianity as our nominal hero, well, that’s proof that comic creators have a freedom to express their vision that is unrivaled in any other format. I make no bones about being an absolute sucker for Brian Woods’ viking adventures, and there is definitely a personal element to that affection; your religious beliefs are yours, and mine are mine, and because this is America we’re both OK. But because nobody in America can talk about the opposing viewpoint right now without someone shouting them down, I’m amazed that the opposing viewpoint — my viewpoint — is being presented at all, anywhere, let alone in a comic book. We live in fascinating times, and comics have never been more liberated. That’s worth celebrating. If I’m being honest, I can no longer be rational about Northlanders. I love this book with a passion that has no name, and I’m going to bury my copies in the earth and raise a mound over the hoard to honor it.
But if it weren’t for Northlanders, what would I talk about? Well, despite my aversion to the multi-title, cash-grab crossover series, I bought Daredevil #509: SHADOWLAND because I loved the book 20-something years ago, and because Power Man and Iron Fist were on this month’s cover. (It is one of my fervent wishes that Marvel revive Power Man and Iron Fist, the Defiant Ones of the 80s.) Look, if you’re not trying out new titles regularly, you’ll never know what you’re missing.
I was … not missing much in the world of Daredevil. I’m willing to accept Matt Murdock as some sort of ninja warlord, but just barely. I’m not gonna go along with the illogical choice of someone “holding a bridge” by standing dead center and cutting the bridge down and thereby falling to their death when they could just as easily have stood ten feet closer to the end and cut it down and lived.
The ultra-hardboiled attitude of the book, coupled with Murdock’s recent murder of Bullseye, just doesn’t jibe with the Daredevil I know. Years ago, Frank Miller drew a cover that showed DD doing his best Dirty Harry with the tagline, “No More Mister Nice Guy.”
In the actual story, DD just winged Punisher to stop him, but the thought engendered by that cover — that Matt Murdock was fed up and going to cross a line — was thrilling in its suggestiveness. Frank Miller created this hardboiled ninja theater version of the character, and even he knew that being a hero means that you don’t just gun down the bad guys — well, Punisher does, hence DD’s extreme measure to stop him — but Daredevil believes in justice and the law (hence the whole lawyer career choice), and the idea of redemption. This Shadowland stuff is a far cry from that and yes, I know that nobody is really dead in the Marvel Universe — they’re merely waiting in the wings for someone to redesign their costume and Rastafy their origin story by ten percent — so Murdock didn’t really “kill” Bullseye. Heck, Elektra’s appearance in the book is proof of that, she’s been dead before. But still — Daredevil doesn’t kill. That hipster Iron Fist is also a bitter pill to swallow; I may be a little reluctant to change.
Or am I? At about the same time in the distant past that I last enjoyed Daredevil, Hank Pym was revealing himself as a wifebeating, insecure loser. I’ve lived with that characterization ever since. Roger Langridge undoes it in one issue of Thor the Mighty Avenger, and I couldn’t be happier. Hank is shown in flashback as a struggling young scientist and in his modern role as Ant-Man, teamed up once again with the winsome Wasp. Pym is a little unsure of his role as a superhero, more brainy scientist than brawny skullcracker, but he’s also gloriously in love with Janet Van Dyne and, more importantly, respects her as a person. She’s clearly the common-sense brains of the pair, and they’re FUN. In Landgridge’s hands, these two are the Nick and Nora of superheroes. I demand a spin-off title with Langridge writing and Chris Samnee penciling the crime-fighting adventures of Pym and Van Dyne, Superhero P.I.s. Samnee’s rendition of one of Wasp’s early, goofy costumes is a delight, by the way; she looks like she escaped from the Moon. Oh, yeah, Thor’s in the book, too, engaged in a classic “I’m not your friend, buddy” fight with Ant-Man in his Giant Man form, and we also get the first appearances of Loki, Odin and the Warriors Three, with a teaser for next issue strongly implying some sweaty Volstagg loving coming Thor’s way.
We’re three issues deep into this title’s run and it’s quickly becoming a favorite, updated origins and non-official continuity be damned. And it’s all ages, to boot; I love an all-ages book because I can give them to my nephews when the trade comes out. Cue up Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman,” because I’m hooking a new generation on comics.
All right, so Northlanders is a totally awesome book you should all be reading so that Brian Wood recognizes my adulation and creates a character based on me in gratitude — that’s a given. I’m clearly around the bend. But this week, Thor the Mighty Avenger was the best thing I read, because it’s modern, clever, fun and suitable for everyone you know. Now buy a copy and give it to the neighbor kid.
These books will aid you in defeating evil ex’s…or something. Let’s do this. Fight!
5. Phonogram – The Singles Club
Bryan Lee O’Malley does a fantastic job of incorporating an interest in indie music into the volumes of Scott Pilgrim. In fact, the starring character takes his name from the title of a Plumtree song. The short-lived Image series Phonogram one ups Scott Pilgrim in music cred. The second, all-color series The Singles Club is presented as a 45′ club where every issue is an individual story of music and romance. Plus, if you don’t get the references the series comes complete with an expansive musical glossary.
4. Strugglers
The popular coming of age story Strugglers from leading gay cartoonist Tim Fish is set right here in St. Louis, MO. The story’s trio of lead characters eat Imo’s Pizza, read the RFT best of issue, and hang out at the Way Out Club, all while complaining about the struggles of young adulthood. This is perfect for fans of Scott Pilgrim’s cool gay roommate Wallace Wells.
3. Solanin
What’s reassuring about Solanin is that Scott Pilgrim’s twenty-something blues is a universal struggle. Meiko’s post-graduate life isn’t everything she thought it would be, but instead of keeping her boring desk job she quits and starts from scratch. Though she doesn’t battle evil ex’s like a Street Fighter tournament, Meiko could easily be mistaken for Scott Pilgrim’s high school girlfriend Knives Chau.
2. Street Angel
There is no other comic that gets as close to Scott Pilgrim’s mash-up, pop culture freak-out as Jim Rugg’s Street Angel. The title character is a 12 year old homeless girl named Jesse Sanchez, or bettered described in the Stan Lee presents-esque introduction, “Orphaned by the world, raised by the streets… Jesse Sanchez is a dangerous martial artist and the world’s greatest homeless skateboarder. She fights ninjas, drugs, nepotism, and pre-Algebra as Street Angel.” The importance of her Skateboard resembles Evil Ex Lucas Lee’s Mithril Skateboard power-up.
1. Lost At Sea
There really is no better book to read after Scott Pilgrim than Bryan Lee O’Malley’s earlier graphic novel Lost At Sea. A similar coming of age story, Lost at Sea follows Raleigh as she searches for her lost soul she believes was stolen by a cat. Her quest takes her on a cross-country road-trip with complete strangers, something many kids find themselves doing after high school. Though not quite as surreal and outrageous as Scott Pilgrim, Lost At Sea is key to watching O’Malley develop his signature style.
Honorable Mention: Scud The Disposable Assassin.
If you read all of these you will gain 100 Exp. Points!
With the final volume of Scott Pilgrim complete and the movie release right around the corner, I’m sure there are going to be some new comic readers looking for something like Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic/video game/indie rock mash-up. I’m not sure if any comic has ever been as masterful as Scott Pilgrim at exploiting a certain generation of geek culture, but a few have come close. Here are my Top 10 graphic novels to read after Scott Pilgrim.
10. Tekkon Kenkreet
This stylized manga follows Black and White, two homeless boys who protect the streets of Treasure Town from a deadly megacorporation. Like Scott Pilgrim, the protagonists have an almost video game-esque fighting style that leaps off the pages. The manga was also adapted into an animated film in 2006.
9. Hopeless Savages Greatest Hits
This Eisner Award-nominated series actually has illustrations from Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley. Another Oni Press collection, Hopeless Savages recounts the adventures of the first family of punk, Dirk Hopeless and Nikki Savage, and their relocation to the suburbs to raise their kids Rat, Arsenal, Twitch and Zero. The Greatest Hits collection will be released in October of 2010.
8. Buddy Does Seattle
Anytime I have an opportunity to recommend Peter Bagge’s ground-breaking comic “Hate” I’m keen on doing so. It is my favorite comic of all time. Here Buddy Bradley actually out-slackers Scott Pilgrim, but it is treated as a depressingly ironic allegory on twenty-something life (though it’s done in good humor), and not a celebration of pop culture nostalgia.
Laced in pop culture reference, the popular web-comic PVP is perfect for fans of the video game references in Scott Pilgrim. Riffing on everything from RPGs to tech humor, the comic is set in the fitting location of a fictional video game magazine office. Honorable Mention: fellow web-comic Penny Arcade.
6. Unlikely or How I Lost My Virginity
Really any of the Jeffrey Brown books from his girlfriend trilogy (Clumsy, Unlikely, Any Easy Intimacy) are perfect fits for fans of Scott Pilgrim’s agonizing relationship with Ramona Flowers. However, as the sub-title implies, the tale of how Jeffrey Brown lost his virginity is arguably the definitive statement on the naiveté of youthful relationships. Suggested for mature readers.
Whats big, green, irradiated with gamma radiation, and seeks to smash the patriarchy? Duh! Feminist Hulk. This Twitter thread came to my attention thanks to my lovely wife who has been recommending that I bring this to your attention for at least a month now. What is Feminist Hulk? Well, somebody out there in the Twitter-verse has taken the Hulk’s rage and directed it at gender and social inequality in postings that are in all capital letters because let’s face it, the Hulk yells a lot.
Such classic Feminist Hulk postings are as follows: “HULK BAKE STRAWBERRY SCONES FOR MONTHLY FEMINIST POTLUCK. HULK KITCHEN SMELL WONDERFUL. DELICIOUS BERRIES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE!” and “HULK PUT THE FUNK IN “RENDERING PATRIARCHY DEFUNCT.” HULK ALSO PUT THE FUNK IN RECYCLING, BUT NOT ABLE TO FIND PUN FOR IT” also, HULK TRY TO WRITE ANTI-HEGEMONIC SONGS. BIG HULK FINGERS SMASH GUITAR. HULK GO BACK TO SLAM POETRY.
This would lead you to believe that all this time that all Hulk really needed was a hug, which has always been my theory. Deep down inside, the big lug is as socially conscious and evniromentally green as his skin tone. This doesn’t always mesh well with the Hulk we’ve all come to know. The Hulk we’re more familiar with gets angry and smashes pretty indiscriminatly, but it’s nice to know that he’s finally focusing that rage for the greater cause of feminism and social equality.
Marvel: Why can’t this be a comic? We could get Peter Bagge to illustrate in the way he did for Strange Tales, and it would be a productive outlet for Hulk’s rage. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind heading to the local farmers market with Feminist Hulk. He’s an alright dude. By the way, I’d be careful if you’re a sexist or a bigot ’cause Feminist Hulk will smash you.
For those of you who were excited that this blog was about the super cool Japanese superhero, Ultraman, I’m sorry. Not this day. This is the fourth update in my ongoing “Who’s that Superman?” thing… So, for those who don’t know who that guy is at the top of the article, that’s Ultraman, the Superman from… Well, that’s a good question. Generally, there is only one Ultraman at a time, but the universe that he hails from is always changing. To make things simple, whatever universe he hails from, he’s the top bad guy. And all of his buddies are villainous versions of other heroes. That’s pretty cool, right? So what are his powers, what makes him different from the normal Superman? Well… He’s pretty much the same, to be truthful. The biggest differences between the two are the costume and the attitude. Ultraman is a jerk. Also, he is weak to a different colored kryptonite than Superman… sometimes… Now that I think about it, Ultraman is easily the hardest Superman to write about.
My favorite thing about Ultraman generally comes down to his disposition. It feels like he’s always pissed about something. And come on, what’s cooler than a pissed off Superman? The leader of the Crime Syndicate (Evil Justice League) was recently turned into a vampire though. I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, it wasn’t like he was a standard vampire or anything… More like a Space-Time Vampire. Then he died shortly after. At least, I think that’s what happened. I need to read Final Crisis again, but when I read that vampire business, I just had to take a step back. What the hell, Grant Morrison? But it’s cool though. Ultimately, I enjoyed Final Crisis, mostly because Batman was “killed” and there were a ton of Superman variants flying around in the story. But once Final Crisis happened, I began to worry, was that really the end of Ultraman? No. It wasn’t. You see, Grant Morrison is writing a new series that’s called, “Multiversity”. Multiversity is supposed to feature at least one version of the Crime Syndicate, and it could possibly feature most, if not all versions of Ultraman, so that’s something for us to look forward to. So that’s it for today, and here’s the your hint for the next Superman.
“Who says my cousin is the only one can cut loose? Plus, when I died, it really meant something… Not like those other Supermen who die every other week!”
Read enough comic books and you blithely accept strange accidents of super science, questionable physics and laughably inaccurate anatomy as not only normal, but believable. But every once in a while, the real world rears back and pops you right between the eyes with an example of its own ineffable strangeness.
Like say, when a recent Australian scientific expedition beneath the Great Barrier Reef returned with photos of a new species called the deep sea amphipod crustacean, which looks a lot like Marvel’s Dire Wraith.
It’s only a matter of time until ROM buzzes the International Space Station.
One of my favorite bookstores in St. Louis. Star Clipper offers not only the best selection of comic books and graphic novels in the city, but also a cornucopia of art, design and pop-culture related books and magazines. 
