Comic Book Chatter

[Cornelius_Smiff]

The Good Asian... from Image Comics. One that's been on my radar for a while with very positive reviews. Finally picked it up and im kicking myself for not doing it sooner. Already have thye first 5 issues (as well as a few variants ha ha). The guy in the comic book shop almost did a sex wee when I purchased 4 issues at once. Fantastic writing, noirish vibes and a very tough subject matter handled with care and in a very fascinating way.

85 thumbs way up!

[Cornelius_Smiff]

Well it's all kicked off hasnt it? The upcoming issue of Son of Kal-El will reveal Jon Kent as being Bi-Sexual. As you can imagine this has caused the heads of numerous idiots to explode. It's amusing as much as it is sigh inducing, since most people reacting badly are not aware that it isn't actually Clark Kent. Numerous accusations of them altering a beloved classic Superhero to pander to the 'Woke' narrative... It's always fun to point out that Jon Kent has only been around circa 7 years and was a kid prior to this.

[ratsoalbion]

Plus of course, the original Superman was never some kind of, ugh, Social Justice Warrior, right?

[Cornelius_Smiff]

Plus of course, the original Superman was never some kind of, ugh, Social Justice Warrior, right?

No indeed! It's like when we had people complaining about the gay relationship portrayed in Star-Trek: Discovery with words akin to "Star Trek isn't supposed to be this woke! I've been a fan for years, but not anymore!". Clearly not a very observant Star-Trek fan if you only just noticed this.

I think my favourite example is that scene from Endgame where the female members of the cast team up and it evidently caused outrage by being too "Woke". I had someone backtrack a little with "ohhh its not that its women... its because its so unrealistic that they all happened to be together at once!".. Dude really? At what point did the ludonarrative dissonance fail? Was it before or after the big space demon used his gauntlet infused with bing bang stones to punch a hole into a charging army that came through some portals made my dimensional wizards?

I do have a dread fascination with watching bigoted people trip over their own logic. Give someone enough rope and all that eh?

[duskvstweak]

I don't have Twitter anymore, so I just see news announced and then move on with my day. This reaction is nothing new, be glad we didn't have internet in the 80s when Rhodey took over as Iron Man.

[duskvstweak]

Disappointed isn't the right word. Underwhelmed might be it. I'm sure it will be good but the trailer has a lot of "been there, done that" moments. There's a scene where Batman is beating up mooks in a nightclub and I had to convince myself it's not just the same scene from The Dark Knight.

Plus, while it's technically been longer between Dark Knight Rises and this than there was time between Batman & Robin and Batman Begins, it feels like just yesterday thanks to Batfleck's three (four?) appearances, five seasons of Gotham and Joker. I very rarely don't enjoy a Batman-anything, so I'm sure I'll be eating my words come March. But, as of now, the fire is burning a bit cooler than normal.

[Cornelius_Smiff]

'The Good Asian' goes from strength to strength, really good stuff!

'Die' is one I have been trying to acquire all the issues of before I delve into it. I am 2 issues away from having all 20. This is one I have been told is up there amongst the best things to come out in recent memory.

'The Nice House on the Lake' ooof just gets better and better, I am annoyed there will be a large break after issue 6 . I have made a point of getting at least one variant cover for each issue I already have, since they are just beautiful to look at.

[Alex79]

'The Nice House on the Lake' ooof just gets better and better, I am annoyed there will be a large break after issue 6 . I have made a point of getting at least one variant cover for each issue I already have, since they are just beautiful to look at.

I just read issue 5 yesterday and it was good, but I didn't really feel it moved the story along any. Well, aside from the final two pages, which were a bit WTF is going on here!

[Cornelius_Smiff]

I love the variant artwork of King Spawn #3... It's incredibly disturbing, but I love the sideways wink wink to the marvel and dc universe here. ha ha.

Have a butcher's: https://ibb.co/j40mQHD

[Alex79]

Sat in a boring training session via MS Teams, so obviously took it as an opportunity to read the first two issues of Batman vs Bigby, the long awaited Batman/Fables crossover.

Written by Bill Willingham himself, it really doesn't have the quality of the writing Fables had, in fact - it reads quite poorly. However, the story is at least interesting and I'm curious to see where it goes. Worth a look if you're a fan of both series.

[Cornelius_Smiff]

The Nice House on the Lake pre hiatus issue just dropped (naturally I got it and the arty variant cover), but as good as it is (and it is) it felt to me as if this should have been the first issue after the hiatus.

Stupidly got into a few new ones too. 'Dark Knights of Steel', which is essentially the justice league go Medieval in a very interesting alternate universe type affair. I like the premise.

Primordial, which (as you'd expect from Image) has great artwork and I love idea. 3 issues in and very solid stuff.

[Alex79]

The Nice House on the Lake pre hiatus issue just dropped (naturally I got it and the arty variant cover), but as good as it is (and it is) it felt to me as if this should have been the first issue after the hiatus.

Oh cool, didn't realise it was out yet, assumed it'd be a month after the last one.

[duskvstweak]

Stupidly got into a few new ones too. 'Dark Knights of Steel', which is essentially the justice league go Medieval in a very interesting alternate universe type affair. I like the premise.

Not sure if you've read it, but if you want more Medieval DC, Demon Knights was a great, but short series. One of the pleasant surprises to come out of the New 52 back in 2011.

[DeadpoolNegative]

Taskmaster: The Rubicon Trigger- Maria Hill is DEAD! Wait, before you start celebrating, be advised that everyone's favorite wisecracking master mercenary, The Taskmaster, has been accused of the crime!

Black Cat writer Jed MacKay and artist Alessandro Vitti (Red Lanterns) did this five issue miniseries meant to tie into the Black Widow movie, even though the conception of that character in the movie turns out to be very, very different from the comics. No attempts to emulate the movie here (well unless you count the Marcus Johnson Nick Fury), just a fun, if overlong five issue chase scene.

Mackay is know for his wacky, reference filled jaunts across the Marvel Universe with the Black Cat miniseries, and The Rubicon Trigger is also about a scavenger hunt of sorts. While the Black Widow bears down on him, intent on taking Tasky in for Hill's murder, Nick Fury guides him to three possible suspects, and and attempt to solve the mystery of the title: What, exactly, is the Rubicon Trigger and why was Maria Hill killed for it?

The plot is simple, and feels like something you could probably resolve in an annual or two issues forty years ago. But that's not the way comics work now. Thankfully, MacKay and Vitti make sure the acton scenes are pretty strong. But it's the ending that really pushes it towards a recommend: something happens that you'd totally expect, and then something happens that you totally don't expect. Also, there's some trenchant commentary about the whole hard people making hard choices thing, and how you have to use people for the greater good, but that means you're still using- and hurting- people. Even someone like Taskmaster can be a victim.

--Dan

[duskvstweak]

I've been reading through the post-House of X/Powers of X stuff. The Hickman era! What a time to be reading X-Men comics. Just wish I liked it! I can see a lot of the appeal but it doesn't click for me. Some of the books, like Hellions and Marauders, win me over but the rest haven't done it for me. I'm starting X of Swords now.

I started reading Immortal Hulk which has my full attention now! It's been a while since the Hulk comic was this focused.

Keanu Reeves has a comic called BRZRKR which sounds silly because it is but it also kind of rocks. Bloody and fun.

Once & Future remains great and gorgeous.

Batman Universe was a surprising joy from Bendis, who I didn't think had it in him anymore.

The Joker was refreshingly not about the Joker! It's a Jim Gordon series and I'll be picking up the second volume.

And I don't know if anyone has read them, but I finally got my hands on the Just Imagine... Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe. It's split into two trades. They're a weird mash of eras. Stan Lee with his 60's sensibilities. A lot of artists from the 80s and 90s. And it was written during the very early aughts, which is its own wild time for comics. Some of the characters work better than others, I actually would follow this version of Batman for a bit. It's a strange project that's worth checking out, I think.

[Alex79]

I got a few new books for Christmas

Alan Moore's Providence collection, which is great. It's the third part to a very Lovecraftian story from Moore, the first two excellent parts being The Courtyard and Nemonicron.

I also got Portrait Of A Drunk by Florent Ruppert, Jerome Mulot, and Olivier Schrauwen and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel, both of which frequently appear on 'best ever...' graphic novel lists, so looking forward to reading them. The latter is the authors autobiographical story of growing up gay in a strict home, while her father also came out when she was a teenager. Sounds really interesting, and I've enjoyed a lot of autobiographical graphic novels over the last few years (although Blankets by Craig Thompson is going to take some beating).

[Cornelius_Smiff]

An interesting little comic thats arrived 'The Crimson Cage'. Set in the world of professional wrestling and follows the storybeats of Macbeth.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, this is just bloody perfect as an idea. Only planned to be 5 issues, but actually fascinated how they will marry the two.

[Alex79]

The Nice House On The Lake is back after its hiatus! Those months flew by, thought we were ages away yet. Issue 7 out now

[DeadpoolNegative]

Hercules: The New Labors of Hercules- this is an all but forgotten 2006 miniseries from Wolverine scribe Frank Tieri and penciler Mark Texeira (Wolverine, Ghost Rider). It was pitched as a new take on the venerable Marvel version of the Greek God.

Reeling from the seeming death of Thor, and drowning his sorrows in a strip club, Hercules is approached but that perennial plot device of the past 15 years, producers of a reality show. A surprising figure from Hercules' past has proposed a show where Hercules performs modern day takes on the hero's twelve legendary labors, as his fellow Greek gods have established themselves as modern day rich Manhattan douchebags.

Tieri's story is initially slight but moves well, as Hercules' twelve labors get increasingly wacky. Then about halfway through, things take a surprisingly dark turn, as, and I think this may have been the first time this was ever established in the Marvel version, a rather... infamous part of the original legend of Hercules turns out to be true. Let's just say Disney would never have agreed to the central surprise. The tonal shift works way better than I thought it did when I first read the series 15 years ago.

This should have worked, but the problem is Texeira's pencils combined with inker Jimmy Palmiotti's very thick lines. Occasionally, there are some boffo action scenes and great facial expressions. Most of the layouts are flat and unexciting, however, and everything seems wreathed in shadow (When the book was announced it was going to be a MAX book, and it had the bad luck of Marvel higher ups killing any mature readers books at the time- It's hard not to wonder about edits). It doesn't work for the story's light comedy bits OR the bleaker stuff, and the two credited colorists put everything in a reddish brown palette I didn't like. It's a real shame.

Still, there's a good deal of potential here. Of course, Hercules did get a pretty good run under writer Greg Pak with The Incredible Hercules. Tieri did get a crack at the character again with a Wolverine team-up miniseries, and that's much better drawn and colored.

--Dan

[Alex79]

Xbox Gamepass Ultimate subbers now get a 3 month trial of Marvel Unlimited comic service, which is pretty awesome!

EDIT: US only. FFS