Joe Rice Media Review 9/21/06

[Joe Rice]

I didn't write one of these last week. Do you know why? It is because I did not buy any comic books last week. I was too tired. This week I was mad but not too tired. Now I am not mad. I am reviewing.

Anthologies are usually a real gamble. The Goon is usually awesome. SO WHAT ABOUT DWIGHT T. ALBATROSS'S THE GOOD NOIR?!? It was pretty good. The Oswalt/Ploog story was a nice one-off with great use of Goonspeak. I liked the start of the Little Unholy Bastards strip. The Bill Morrison comic was just as funny as you would expect: not funny. And the Big Ma was a bit too predictable and didn't go far enough but the Sook art made me drool. Three or two and a half out of four ain't bad for this sort of stuff.

I tried Ultimate Fantastic Four before and it was the boringest boring to ever boring. Whereas Stan and Jack would have like a thousand cool things happen on a page, one retread thing would happen per arc. But Carey is doing an interesting Kirby play here and Pacheco draws real good. Thanks for the recommendation, ED and KO. This is fun comics.

I've been enjoying the dumb action movie blockbuster nature of Civil War. This issue intensified the action and also the dumb. I'm afraid I'm done with this. From stupid character bits to the obvious BLACK GUY DIES FIRST it was just one big "meh." And what the hell is up with Cable, of all folks quitting a battle? Oh, well, it was fun for a while. Now it's just a superhero comic book.

The Escapists isn't, though. And it isn't quite a comic about superhero comics, either. (We really don't need anymore of those). It's about people making a comic and, uh, "finding what heroism is" except much less lame than how I said it. The imitation-Bond art is nice, the storylines are interesting, and the characters are individual and believable, as one would expect from a Vaughn book. I know CBR avoids indie stuff like PAD avoids fashion magazines, but this is Dark Horse, it's Vaughn, and it's nothing to be scared of, you goddam superhero pussies. Try it.

WHAT?!? MORE VAUGHN WORK?!? Ex Machina is still good? Tony Harris is more amazing all the time? The stories are complex, fascinating, and filled with real meaning? And someone has superpowers? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

Runaways (completing the two-week Vaughn tri-fecta) is also still good. The art suffered with a fill-in, but not to the point of distraction. The story cooks, and I'm curious as to whether the Whedon that takes over will be the Firefly/Serenity Whedon (yay) or the everything else Whedon (sob).

Why is Nextwave: agents of h.a.t.e. so fun? It's not the nihilism . . .in fact, I don't think it's nihilistic at all. Ellis has always seemed to be a false cynic . . .like his repeated character type, he acts cynical because he's a disappointed idealist. But Nextwave reads like the fun he always wanted to have but was embarrassed to. Of course, critiquing Ellis instead of his work is old hat, but I really do love this book. Smart as it is stupid and silly, it really works.

I got X-Men: First Class because I've enjoyed Parker's work on Agents of Atlas. This was unfortunately blander. It's a nice retelling of the X-Men early days. Well, not a re-telling, a "untold stories set in modern times but the X-Men are young). It'll make continuinerds crap their pants even more than they usually do, but it's not a very weighty comic. The character moments are nice, and the young X-Men finally have actual personalities rather than Lee generalities or Claremont stereotypes. I might try another issue. I dunno.

I've said for ages that DMZ is good. But howy mentions it in a political thread and all the sudden people are like WHAT IS THIS BOOK!?!? This issue was a fill-in, kinda. We get the background of Zee, the Manhattan med student punk girl, and it's pretty cool. Nice art from Kristian Donaldson. When AIT lost Brian Wood, the world gained a better writer. Check it out.

L' Auberge espagnole is a shitty movie even though Audrey Tautou is in it. Don't let your wife convince you to stay up late to watch it. It's a self-indulgent "WOW EUROPEANS ARE THE AWESOMEST BECAUSE WE ARE SO DIVERSE" piece of stupidity that made me angry. Wow, yeah, all you well-off Eurocrackers sure are diverse. Congrats on "bucking the system."

[Michael P]

Runaways was good, albeit slower paced than I expected. Several good character moments with the cast. Caffeine-addled Molly amuses.

Astonishing X-Men made me happy, in spite of the obvious gimme of the first few pages. The revelation of the mole was a nice surprise, and I have to give props to any book where Cyclops pops a cap in a bitch's ass.

Exiles was a surprising let-down; I feel like Bedard wanted to do more with this story, so maybe it should have been three issues instead of two. I did like Brother Mutant's plan, though; simple, yet effective.

X-Factor rocked my socks, save for the strange problem with the lettercol. It's good that, unlike some other writers, when Peter David introduces a background concept/subplot, he actually uses it instead of letting it hang for two years.

Birds of Prey was... weird. Huntress and Canary sniping at each other through Sin was funny, and the practicality of that whole subplot was also brought up, which is good. Rose working at Sherwood Florist is a nice twist, but I have no idea where this Batgirl thing is going. The other plot, with the gangster lady, I didn't follow as well as I would have if I'd read the previous story with her, so points off to both Gail and me for that one.

Oh, and Final Fantasy X still kicks ass.

[Joe Rice]

Astonishing X-Men[/b] made me happy, in spite of the obvious gimme of the first few pages. The revelation of the mole was a nice surprise, and I have to give props to any book where Cyclops pops a cap in a bitch's ass.


I tried slogging through it but it was like Buffy in Tights. So is Emma all the sudden evil again?

[Michael P]

I tried slogging through it but it was like Buffy in Tights. So is Emma all the sudden evil again?
Sorta. There's two Emmas: Evil Emma and Indifferent Emma (the latter being the fun Morrison one). And one of them's probably a psychic projection created by Cassandra Nova, but we're not sure which one.

More importantly: Beer heals Wolverine's mind.

[Kid Omega]

Anthologies are usually a real gamble. The Goon is usually awesome. SO WHAT ABOUT DWIGHT T. ALBATROSS'S THE GOOD NOIR?!? It was pretty good. The Oswalt/Ploog story was a nice one-off with great use of Goonspeak. I liked the start of the Little Unholy Bastards strip. The Bill Morrison comic was just as funny as you would expect: not funny. And the Big Ma was a bit too predictable and didn't go far enough but the Sook art made me drool. Three or two and a half out of four ain't bad for this sort of stuff.


Is it just me, or the whole Dwight Albatross character not nearly anywhere remotely as funny as Powell seems to think it is?

I tried Ultimate Fantastic Four before and it was the boringest boring to ever boring. Whereas Stan and Jack would have like a thousand cool things happen on a page, one retread thing would happen per arc. But Carey is doing an interesting Kirby play here and Pacheco draws real good. Thanks for the recommendation, ED and KO. This is fun comics.


You're welcome. And it's Pascual Ferry, not Pacheco, you drunk.

Ultimate FF is finally fulfilling the promise of it's title. This really is the ULTIMATE FF... it's awesome. In two issues (and an annual) it's the funnest, wildest, best looking cosmic adventure book out there.
FINALLY. It only took three years to stop being boring.

As for CIVIL WAR, how about that lame fake Thor? What kind of cheap-ass, cheating, fan-bait red herring is that shit?

EX MACHINA is picking up steam, and NEXTWAVE is a must-read. Right up there with DAREDEVIL for best Marvel book going.

DMZ was excellent, as was RUNAWAYS. Did I mention yet the BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and BRIAN WOOD signing at Rocketship on October 13th?

No?

Well check it out, ladies...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/Kamandi/flyer_copy.jpg

[Joe Rice]

Yeah, the Dwight thing, I don't get it. It's the one weird misstep from a very funny comic, and he makes it so important.

[Joe Rice]

You're welcome. And it's Pascual Ferry, not Pacheco, you drunk.

Oops. I AM SO RETARDED.

DMZ was excellent, as was RUNAWAYS. Did I mention yet the BRIAN K. VAUGHAN and BRIAN WOOD signing at Rocketship on October 13th?

No?

Well check it out, ladies...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/Kamandi/flyer_copy.jpg

Why, this is fantastic surprise news for me!

[Kid Omega]

Also, best metatextual comic book conversation of the week:

ULTIMATE FF 34

Reed: "My God, look what they've done. Look what they've done to the city!"

Ben: This time somebody pays, right?
We're not gonna find more reasons to do nothin'?

Reed: No.
We're not.

Yow! Scathing rebuke of the last three years of lame stories, while simultaneously being kick-ass-but-not-stupid-macho tough guy talk from Ben and Reed, who is wearing mirrored shades, no less.

[Joe Rice]

Sorta. There's two Emmas: Evil Emma and Indifferent Emma (the latter being the fun Morrison one). And one of them's probably a psychic projection created by Cassandra Nova, but we're not sure which one.


I forgot to reply to this part.

Ugh.

[berk]

L' Auberge espagnole is a shitty movie even though Audrey Tautou is in it. Don't let your wife convince you to stay up late to watch it. It's a self-indulgent "WOW EUROPEANS ARE THE AWESOMEST BECAUSE WE ARE SO DIVERSE" piece of stupidity that made me angry. Wow, yeah, all you well-off Eurocrackers sure are diverse. Congrats on "bucking the system."I didn't get that feeling at all - it impressed me more as a statement in support of the tolerance of diversity, not a self-congratulatory "we're so special." It was made for a European audience, so I took the message as "let's try to accept our diversity, and yes, even celebrate it, because if we're going to make the European community (small "c") a viable idea, we've gotta get over the old way of looking at everyone through a filter of simplistic stereotypes (as exemplified by the attitude of the English girl's visiting brother)."

It wasn't a great film, but I thought it was fun, for what it was - it's basically a teen-movie and does suffer from some of the limitations of that genre, including, as you point out, the tendancy towards self-involvement (if not self-importance) typical of the adolescent mind/emotion-set anywhere in the world. But given all that, I thought it had a lot to offer. What did your wife think of it?

The sequel "Les Poupéés Rousses" is a pretty interesting 5-year-later revisiting of some of the characters. Give it a shot, I`d be curious to see whether your opinion might change.

[Jack Zodiac]

I've been enjoying the dumb action movie blockbuster nature of Civil War. This issue intensified the action and also the dumb. I'm afraid I'm done with this. From stupid character bits to the obvious BLACK GUY DIES FIRST it was just one big "meh." And what the hell is up with Cable, of all folks quitting a battle? Oh, well, it was fun for a while. Now it's just a superhero comic book.

Worst issue of any Marvel comic in history. I'd rather read "The Clone Saga" than this bullshit. Not only was practically every single character written as if Millar had never even read a book starring them before, but the pace compared to the wait is absurd. I dont' want to wait another two months or more for the same old, unproductive and seemingly irrelevant crap. Nothing about the Act itself has been addressed or resolved yet, it's just been one senseless, character-destroying super-brawl, and I'm through with it. This thing's off my pull-list faster than Supergirl.

Why is Nextwave: agents of h.a.t.e. so fun? It's not the nihilism . . .in fact, I don't think it's nihilistic at all. Ellis has always seemed to be a false cynic . . .like his repeated character type, he acts cynical because he's a disappointed idealist. But Nextwave reads like the fun he always wanted to have but was embarrassed to. Of course, critiquing Ellis instead of his work is old hat, but I really do love this book. Smart as it is stupid and silly, it really works.

I always thought that the reason Ellis never honestly wrote superheroes is because he hated the genre or, at the very least, disliked typical action-punchy-kicky adventures. This book's a gem, though, and one of very few books worth reading from Marvel right now. It's got humor in spades and ridiculously overexaggerated animé style action, but it uses canonical characters in an absurd situation. And I never thought I'd ever say this ever, but I love Robot Man. :) I've loved pretty much everything Ellis has done, and this one's definitely among his bigger hits, if only because it's so out of place in the superhero vein. And the next issue's supposed to be hilarious. It's a Civil War tie-in that's not a tie-in, and the cover's incredible.

[Sean Whitmore]

I've been enjoying the dumb action movie blockbuster nature of Civil War. This issue intensified the action and also the dumb.

Eh. As long as the action is cranked up sufficiently along with the dumb, I can still enjoy dumb action movies. The last page was pushing it a bit, but still, eh.

Eh, I say, EH!


And what the hell is up with Cable, of all folks quitting a battle?

Because Cable is a big girl's blouse and now everybody knows it.


SEAN

[Joe Rice]

Worst issue of any Marvel comic in history.


Jack, you're a smart guy. This comic was a bad one, but that's a silly thing to say.

[Joe Rice]

cable culd have stopped the bomb!!!!!1!

[Lone Ranger]

The Escapists isn't, though. And it isn't quite a comic about superhero comics, either. (We really don't need anymore of those). It's about people making a comic and, uh, "finding what heroism is" except much less lame than how I said it. The imitation-Bond art is nice, the storylines are interesting, and the characters are individual and believable, as one would expect from a Vaughn book. I know CBR avoids indie stuff like PAD avoids fashion magazines, but this is Dark Horse, it's Vaughn, and it's nothing to be scared of, you goddam superhero pussies. Try it.


Agreed - this is one the best things I've read in years.

Kudos to everyone involved with putting it together.

[Sean Whitmore]

Jack, you're a smart guy. This comic was a bad one, but that's a silly thing to say.


Yeah, do all those Chuck Austen and Howard Mackie stories not count anymore?


SEAN

[Justin D.]

I tried Ultimate Fantastic Four before and it was the boringest boring to ever boring. Whereas Stan and Jack would have like a thousand cool things happen on a page, one retread thing would happen per arc. But Carey is doing an interesting Kirby play here and Pacheco draws real good. Thanks for the recommendation, ED and KO. This is fun comics.

Hmm. I wonder if I could pick this up as just a good storyline or I’d feel compelled to keep buying the book when the storyline finishes. I’ve not once purchased an Ultimate Marvel book. The closest I’ve come is looking on eBay for the collected trade of Marvel Zombies.

I've been enjoying the dumb action movie blockbuster nature of Civil War. This issue intensified the action and also the dumb. I'm afraid I'm done with this. From stupid character bits to the obvious BLACK GUY DIES FIRST it was just one big "meh." And what the hell is up with Cable, of all folks quitting a battle? Oh, well, it was fun for a while. Now it's just a superhero comic book.

I haven’t picked up any issues of Civil War yet. I’ve read opinions about it from amazing to total crap with everything between. All I know about this week’s issue is that something big happened with Thor.

There still seems something inherently wrong with Spider-Man revealing his identity to the world.

Also, “obvious black guy dies first”? While it’s a horror movie cliché, that comment just reminds me of the weird comment you made in a media review a few weeks ago about how Meltzer put Black Lightning in the Justice League as an undercover agent because “he’s blacks, so crooks love him” when there actually was a good, short explanation in the book. Then again, I might just have taken the one-off joke too seriously. If so, oops, sorry.

WHAT?!? MORE VAUGHN WORK?!? Ex Machina is still good? Tony Harris is more amazing all the time? The stories are complex, fascinating, and filled with real meaning? And someone has superpowers? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

I do. Vaughn is awesome. Tony Harris is awesome. The concept of Ex Machina is awesome. That equals awesome cubed. I really need to pick up all the books, in trade or singles, that I’ve missed since moving to Austin back in February.

I've said for ages that DMZ is good. But howy mentions it in a political thread and all the sudden people are like WHAT IS THIS BOOK!?!? This issue was a fill-in, kinda. We get the background of Zee, the Manhattan med student punk girl, and it's pretty cool. Nice art from Kristian Donaldson. When AIT lost Brian Wood, the world gained a better writer. Check it out.

Thanks for reminding me! I loved the first trade and need to get the rest of the series. I’m still thinking about waiting for this to come out in trade. Like Fables, Y the Last Man, and The Exterminators, I think it’ll do well enough monthly that I can buy it in trades.

L' Auberge espagnole is a shitty movie even though Audrey Tautou is in it. Don't let your wife convince you to stay up late to watch it. It's a self-indulgent "WOW EUROPEANS ARE THE AWESOMEST BECAUSE WE ARE SO DIVERSE" piece of stupidity that made me angry. Wow, yeah, all you well-off Eurocrackers sure are diverse. Congrats on "bucking the system."

I haven’t seen that, but do plan to see movies at Fantastic Fest that happens for the next week here in Austin. Here’s a list of movies I know I want to see so far: Tideland, The Hamster Cage, Blood Trails, Naisu No Mori a.k.a. Funky Forest: The First Contact, and The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell. That's just today and tomorrow. There's still Bug, The Fountain, and others I want to see on Monday through Wednesday. Most of them, including Fountain, have the directors and/or actors there to answer questions.

Wow, I’ve done about 20 minutes of work since I arrived here two hours ago. It might be a good idea if I do some more now.

[Jack Zodiac]

Jack, you're a smart guy. This comic was a bad one, but that's a silly thing to say.

Maybe not the worst, but pretty fucking terrible. The story itself could be good, and for the first few issues I honestly thought it was going to be one of the first Marvel crossover events in a long time worth reading, but between this book and the tie-ins in the other titles, very little good has come of Civil War. The unbelievably bad characterization, the ridiculous situations brought up because of the plot, and the utter hijacking of what are normally decent titles to accommodate the event. All of it has been disappointing.

It's making me look forward to Hulk returning next year and going Maestro on all of them.

[howyadoin]

I've been enjoying the dumb action movie blockbuster nature of Civil War. This issue intensified the action and also the dumb. I'm afraid I'm done with this. From stupid character bits to the obvious BLACK GUY DIES FIRST it was just one big "meh." And what the hell is up with Cable, of all folks quitting a battle? Oh, well, it was fun for a while. Now it's just a superhero comic book.Wait till you find out who the surprise behind-the-scenes villain is.

WHAT?!? MORE VAUGHN WORK?!? Ex Machina is still good? Tony Harris is more amazing all the time? The stories are complex, fascinating, and filled with real meaning? And someone has superpowers? I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.I was thinking about this the other day. It might just be my favourite book right now.

I got X-Men: First Class because I've enjoyed Parker's work on Agents of Atlas. This was unfortunately blander. It's a nice retelling of the X-Men early days. Well, not a re-telling, a "untold stories set in modern times but the X-Men are young). It'll make continuinerds crap their pants even more than they usually do, but it's not a very weighty comic. The character moments are nice, and the young X-Men finally have actual personalities rather than Lee generalities or Claremont stereotypes. I might try another issue. I dunno.Isn't Roger "Swipe" Cruz drawing that?

I've said for ages that DMZ is good. But howy mentions it in a political thread and all the sudden people are like WHAT IS THIS BOOK!?!?That's because I rock.

Fuckin' great issue, though.

[Justin D.]

Maybe not the worst, but pretty fucking terrible. The story itself could be good, and for the first few issues I honestly thought it was going to be one of the first Marvel crossover events in a long time worth reading, but between this book and the tie-ins in the other titles, very little good has come of Civil War. The unbelievably bad characterization, the ridiculous situations brought up because of the plot, and the utter hijacking of what are normally decent titles to accommodate the event. All of it has been disappointing.

It's making me look forward to Hulk returning next year and going Maestro on all of them.

X-Factor is the only book I've read that's crossed over with Civil War, and I liked how Peter David handled it. He integrated the crossover smoothly into ongoing storylines so I don't have to read anywhere else to understand what happened in X-Factor.

I stopped buying Hulk about halfway through the current Planet Hulk storyline. It was really interesting at first, but fizzled out a few issues into it. I am curious to see his return to Earth though.

[K'Nort]

I always thought that the reason Ellis never honestly wrote superheroes is because he hated the genre or, at the very least, disliked typical action-punchy-kicky adventures.

What about Stormwatch? Or were there layers of satire that I missed? As usual.

[This book's a gem, though, and one of very few books worth reading from Marvel right now. It's got humor in spades and ridiculously overexaggerated animé style action, but it uses canonical characters in an absurd situation. And I never thought I'd ever say this ever, but I love Robot Man. :) I've loved pretty much everything Ellis has done, and this one's definitely among his bigger hits, if only because it's so out of place in the superhero vein. And the next issue's supposed to be hilarious. It's a Civil War tie-in that's not a tie-in, and the cover's incredible.[/QUOTE]

I love this book so very much.

Still haven't received this issue yet though. Grrr.

[Michael P]

I read the Nextwave hardcover last night, and I figure it out.

It's Ellis's version of a Saturday Morning cartoon.

[Forefinger]

Damn. I didn't even care enough about getting new comics this week to drive 5 minutes to get to the store. What's happening to me?

[Brian Cronin]

Nextwave is fantastically good.

-Brian

[Jack Zodiac]

I read the Nextwave hardcover last night, and I figure it out.

It's Ellis's version of a Saturday Morning cartoon.

Yeah! Even more, it's blatantly animé-like in both art and writing. It's a parody of ridiculous animated action series with characters nobody would ever touch. :p

[Dan Apodaca]

Isn't Roger "Swipe" Cruz drawing that?

Yeah. It's pretty lame. I sent my dad to get comics for me because I hurt my back. He got First Class because he thought I might like it. I love my dad, so I didn't tell him that it was garbage. Boring, unoriginal, and mostly ugly.\

Nextwave was really, really, really good, though.

[Paul McEnery]

Wait till you find out who the surprise behind-the-scenes villain is.

Five'll get you ten, it's Loki again.

Or maybe it's evil Tony again.

Or it's Hydra, and the New Avengers and Civil War wind up in one great big megacrossover all over again, when Wanda turns out to be the new Madame Hydra!

Or maybe Bobby Ewing's in the shower.

[howyadoin]

Five'll get you ten, it's Loki again.

Or maybe it's evil Tony again.

Or it's Hydra, and the New Avengers and Civil War wind up in one great big megacrossover all over again, when Wanda turns out to be the new Madame Hydra!

Or maybe Bobby Ewing's in the shower.I think Bobby Ewing would be more believable than:
Damage Control

[Sean Whitmore]

I think Bobby Ewing would be more believable than:
Damage Control


I have no trouble believing it was Damage Control. Did you see the size of the boss lady in Wolverine? She needs MONEY! Money for FOOD!


SEAN

[Dan Apodaca]

Oh yeah, that revelation ^ ?

That is the lamest thing of the whole Civil War mess, and is the perfect example of what's wrong with the project. It's all about making things less fun.

[berk]

When I was in the comic shop - literally - it's called "The Comic Shop" - last week, the thing that struck me about the cover to Civil War was that Marvel is billing it as an "event"; not a multi-part story, not an epic, not a drama, but an "event".

I've been calling Marvel and DC story-factories, but it appears I've been too generous. Apparently they're no longer even pretending to sell stories, even bad ones, they're selling events. It's like how the music industry doesn't really sell music, but rather images and personas and media-events built around them, except with Marvel the personas are fictional and the events are imitations of actual stories, the way a music-industry event is an imitation of an actual concert that you'd go to for the primary purpose of listening to the music rather than stare at a monitor a few hundred metres from the stage.