Fast Thoughts - The Week of 11/19/08

AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #4 - Ambush Bug kills Dan Didio just after Dan takes responsibility for everything going wrong at DC Comics. What more do you need to know?


CONAN THE CIMMERIAN #5 - More flashbacks to the days of Conan's grandfather but at least this time there's a lot of good action in the past AND present. The last few pages don't speak well of Conan's homecoming... but do speak well of an interesting issue #6.


DOCTOR WHO: THE FORGOTTEN #3 - Pia Guerra goes off art duties and the art and the art goes into the toilet. The 10th Doctor looks like an anorexic Elvis impersonator, Martha looks nothing like the character from the show. Even Tom Baker is unrecognizable except by virtue of his hat and scarf. Even then, the scarf is FAR too short. A pity, because this series was enjoyable enough, even if it IS a Martha-Era 10th Doctor story. At least Tony Lee's story still holds up and the characters sound like themselves even if they don't look like themselves.


EX MACHINA #39 - Should I feel the least bit ashamed that I was rooting for fighting liberal "Trouble" here and was hoping she'd humiliate the Republicans royally?

Nahhhhhhhhh.

The series goes into the endgame and I can't wait for the next issue.


HELLBLAZER #249 - John finds out that he's been getting his strings pulled and who has been behind not only his recent troubles but most of his problems throughout life. It's somewhat ironic that the revelation presented here may annoy some old-school Hellblazer fans but they are likely to be the only ones to get what is going on anyway. Personally, I have no problem with the idea and at the very least, it isn't quite as continuity breaking as Brian Azarello's unfortunate run on the series. And the final page is pretty much the sum total of everything you need to know about John Constantine.


RED SONJA #39 - I still don't get if Sonja is amnesic or if she's just being reborn or what. At least it will all be settled next issue. I hope.


SAVAGE TALES #10 - The Red Sonja story is the highlight, as usual. Two-parter with Sonja going on a quest with a legendary general in honor of an old friend. And a historical Hercules tale that stacks up surprisingly well with the Marvel version of the character - heroic and a womanizer, but no less noble for it.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 9/03/08 & 9/10/08

EX MACHINA #38 - We finally have a name for my new crush - Trouble.

I like it.

Apart from that, not much happens except that we find out that Kremlin has nothing to do with Trouble and we get the most appropriate quote of the week given what is coming tomorrow.

"9/11 doesn't belong to the Republicans, no matter what the out-of-towners they're busing into Madison Square Garden think."


FABLES #75 - This would have been the perfect ending for the series.

How fortunate for us then that Willingham and Buckingham have elected to keep it going. And fitting as well, for this series has proven that there really isn't any such thing as a pat, perfect "happily-ever-after" ending. So I'm glad to see that this comic about what comes after the end of the most famous stories in the world isn't ending itself either.


GREEN LANTERN #34 - This is Geoff Johns doing what he does best.

No, not coming up with disturbing images of innocent people being killed to create new characters. I was referring to his ability to take the broken fragments of other writers works and reforge them into a stronger mythology. He did it in JSA and later in Hawkman when he rebuilt the Hawkman/Hawkgirl mythos. And now, in Green Lantern, he is doing it again by explaining away some of the countless unbelievable aspects of the classic Green Lantern days.

*considers how Johns' explanation of the Green Lantern's yellow weakness involves beings of living fear and an entire spectrum where emotions are manifested as light energy*

Well, RELATIVELY unbelievable by the standards of DC Comics science. Things such as Hector Hammond's exposure to an intelligence-enhancing radiation are made more plausable as is William "Black Hand" Hand's creation of a device that drains the energy of Green Lantern rings. It turns out he stole it from an alien. But more importantly than that, we are given our first glimpse of a plausable student/mentor relationship (to say nothing of a friendship) between Hal Jordan and Sinestro as well as the first inkling that Sinestro - rather than being a bad egg who somehow slipped through The Guardians screening process - is a tragic hero brought down by hubris.

Which somehow makes him a much cooler enemy than "that putz who looks like a pink Vincent Price who really hates Green Lanterns".


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #28 - Two cool things from past issues that go even better together. The serial killer striking against the families of rookie Green Lanterns returns as does the Green Lantern who has the power to talk to the dead. All this and Ice shows up on Oa to surprise Guy... just before he gets the call to duty.

Call me a sentimental ol' wag, but I'm glad to see that someone is using Tora now that she's been resurrected by Gail Simone... especially if it's to ground that greatest of Green Lanterns. God knows Guy deserves it after all the abuse he's suffered in the last 20 years.


HELLBLAZER PRESENTS CHAS: THE KNOWLEDGE - I wonder how this series got green-lighted. Out of all the characters in John's life who deserve a mini, Chas is... well, probably not a bad choice. He is the only one of John's long-term friends to have survived the relationship and he did suffer some major personal losses at John's hand during the Mike Carey run on the series. A mini exploring what Chas has done with his life and his family since he told-off John would be entertaining in a Garth Ennis' Heartland way.

The problem is that Chas has always been - in most stories - the comic-relief with the stereotypical evil wife. They're about as deep and complicated as Andy and Flo Capp. So while the broad concept of this series (Chas takes on a new job working for an attractive American woman without telling his wife and then gets dragged into a supernatural mystery) could be funny or powerful, the execution is woefully lacking. Add in the fact that the only reason John isn't getting involved in this particular madness is that because he spends the entire issue raving it up somewhere else and wakes up on a beach somewhere with some kind poking him in the face with a small plastic spade.

It doesn't speak well of this series that I'd rather see how John spent an evening getting wasted rather than watching his sidekick fight demons. The only way I can picture this being worse is if it were centered upon the Chas from the film Constantine universe and I had to pay three bucks to watch Shia LeBeouf mince around for 32 pages.


KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #142 - Even in an issue where Brian gets his comeuppance and Jo Jo Zeke is fired in what will hopefully become known as the biggest mistake in Heidi Jackson's career... this issue still seems less than complete.

Why? I put it to one factor and one factor alone - the dismissal of Noah Antwiler as KODT's film critic.

It seems some people - most of whom apparently have nothing better to do than to sit on KenzerCo's forums and grouse about how they weren't buying another issue until Noah was fired (yet still kept writing about how bad the latest reviews were) - finally convinced The Powers That Be to give Noah the boot on a temporary basis after a frankly flawed poll that only consulted people who visited the KenzerCo website and not... oh... say... all of the people who were actively buying the magazine week after week.

Well, I hope those people are happy. The new film column is a rather dull and lifeless piece about how to adapt old sci-fi/fantasy movies for your campaign; something most GMs I know are already fairly adept at and hardly need any help with now since D&D became WoW. Then again, these people who weren't satisfied with KODT printing a helpful dotted line as well as instructions on how to remove Noah's columns from the magazine (perhaps because they aren't allowed to handle sharp objects in the institutions they live in), so I doubt they'll be happy with anything other than Noah's head on a spike and a letter from Dane Cook nailed to the spike assuring them that he is the true god of comedy.

Still, KODT's loss is The Internet's gain as Noah's website - The Spoony Experiment - has been updated with more and more fresh video-based content, including a review of Yor: The Hunter From The Future that is easily funnier than most things Mike Nelson has done with RiffTrax in that last two years. Check it out.

And continue to enjoy the comic parts of Knights of the Dinner Table... which are, for the moment, the only parts worth reading in this author's humble opinion.


RED SONJA #37 - All the fuss over how this comic involves a reincarnation of Sonja and I had failed to notice that Osin - Sonja's old (now old before his time it seems) bard companion and new trainer - has two hands. This issue explains that as well as how Osin was able to track Sonja down and how he got his hand back. Bad news for Osin - he apparently cut a deal with the god Jullah (aka The Black Gorilla God) to do all this which can't possibly end well. There's worse news on the way though, as it seems that Sonja's beloved sister (in this life, anyway) has turned traitor and is sleeping with the enemy in every since of the word.

I'll give Brian Reed credit - he's got me hooked now to see where he is going with this.


SAVAGE TALES #9 - I honestly skipped most of the stories in this anthology, having little interest in Alan Quartermain or the Battle for Atlantis. The rest more than make up for my need to skip half the book.

The first comic - Valaka - centers upon a sorceress who offers a young warrior help in fighting the wizard who has destroyed his village and taken his love. Of course, as always in these Hyborian lands, the help of a magic-user is rarely helpful.

The final tale tells a story of the young Osin, proving that anyone who says bards are useless in a fight don't know how to play one properly, as Osin uses his natural gifts with a sword, with magic and persuasion to turn an entire village against an evil wizard.


SECRET SIX #1 - It just figures. Not a few weeks after I struggle to find the perfect Deadshot quote for my Neutral Evil comic book character alignment poster, Gail Simone comes along and gives me the perfect one.

All you need to know about the rest of the comic is... more Ragdoll, more Nicola Scott/Doug Hazlewood artwork and Deadshot stopping a robbery only to decide to rob the place himself, all while giving the original group of robbers pointers on "how to do it right".


WONDER WOMAN #24 - Speak of Gail Simone books...

Am I the only one who didn't find much funny in Nemesis (now Sir Tom of Cleveland) being taken to meet Wonder Woman's mother? Maybe I've just had too many weird mom/daughter encounters to be unbiased.

On the other hand, this is more than made-up for by the idea of Diana having to deal with an unauthorized Hollywood blockbuster biography based on her and her mother... and Diana's albino gorilla bodyguards reaction to the contract negotations after being offered a snack and a drink.

"We would like to hear more about this fresh fruit portion of the negotiations."

Still...After seeing Gail's take on the Wonder Woman movie in this issue... I really want to see Gail write a Red Sonja special of some kind more than ever. I can't help but wonder if this is in reference to some meeting that Gail had...

I can dream, can't it?

Please do not reveal the secret behind the villain at the end of the issue.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 7/2/08

DOCTOR WHO #5 - You know, this is the first issue that didn't have me groaning at the presence of Martha. This is, coincidentally, also the first issue where there weren't any moments of forced romantic tension between her and The Doctor. But that's my hang up and doesn't really have any relevance to the story.

Apart from that... I dunno. It's not that this is a bad comic. But it just seems to drag compared to the TV show and the original comics currently being reprinted in DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS. It doesn't feel like Doctor Who, to me. It feels like an overly decompressed comic that just happens to have a character called The Doctor, who travels around time and space.

Still, I'll probably pick up the advertised The Forgotten Doctor Who special that is coming up, if only to see how an "official" Ten Doctors story stacks up compared to the fan-made fan-fiction comic The Ten Doctors.


FABLES #74 - Another "how they did it" issue, where we have the full details of The Free Fables war on The Adversary and his forces spelled out for us. No pun intended there as the major brunt of this issue - dealing with the invasion of the Imperial City itself - does involve a spell. I won't say more, though I suspect that at this point you all are either already reading this book as attentively as I am or you are wishing I would stop saying that you SHOULD be reading this book.


SAVAGE TALES #8 - Hamlet is widely regarded as the greatest of Shakespeare's plays and indeed the greatest play written in the English language. And yet, like everything in this wide world, it is infinitely improved by a woman in a scale-mail bikini.

In all seriousness, the opening story - in which Red Sonja visits a place much like Elisnore Castle - is an amusing spin on the habit of many pastiche writers to take a classic story and alter the heck out of it to make it into something fit for the sword and sorcery genre. Still, if one can get Forbidden Planet from The Tempest, why not Hamlet into Momento Mori? Even if the influence is obvious, one must give Vito Delsante credit for the conceit that the king's ghost was not really the king's ghost, but the ghost of his jester - getting revenge for his mistreatment in life by making his leige's son kill his entire family in the name of false vengeance.

The rest of the issue is made up of the familar back-ups of classic pulp literature. Another story on the Atlantis of Kull. The next part of an Alan Quartermain story. And for you fans of the monthly Red Sonja book, there isa story of Osin; the one-handed bard and his efforts to save the world on his own in the wake of Sonja's death which is easily the best thing in the book.

Two Weeks Worth of Fast Thoughts - 12/19/07 & 12/28/07

Limited to one paragraph per book because Lawd-A-Mighty we has stuff to catch up on!



BIRDS OF PREY #113 - A promising first issue from Sean McKeever. He has all of the Birds and their personalities down-pat but his take on Superman seems way off the mark. Or am I alone in thinking that Superman is acting like Batman here in his lecture to Oracle about operating in his town and how he won't tolerate failure?


BRAVE AND THE BOLD #9 - Of course with Waid and George Perez on this book, you know things are going to be excellent - but did you know that the HERO Dial works on robots or that the Boy Commandos and Blackhawks both have Frenchmen named Andre among their members? We find out all this and more in a trio of short-stories framed by the continuing story of the Challengers of the Unknown, this issue deserves credit for teaching us several things about the DC Universe that only Mark Waid would think of and only a handful of trivia buffs outside of Mark Waid are likely to recall in ten-years time.


CONAN #47 - A simple set-up issue, but it looks to be leading into one heck of a battle next time. If nothing else, this issue is amusing as we see how Conan the Thief first fell in with a soldier group and became Conan the Mercenary by accident, after sneaking through a Corinthian patrol with little effort.


DAREDEVIL #103 - This is your basic house-keeping issue. A lot of talking heads. A lot of recapping for people who may have missed the first few issues of the current story. And generally a lot of things that don't really do a lot to advance the story, giving this issue the feel of a typical "I had four issues of story, but the editor insisted we needed six chapters for the trade" comic. Despite this, Brubaker does keep things moving and it is interesting to see Brubaker expand and improve upon the ideas that Brian Michael Bendis introduced and then ignored, such as this issue's logical conclusion that if illegal vigilantes need a doctor than super-villains almost certainly need the same thing.


EX MACHINA #33 - The inclusion of the supernatural to what has been - for a comic book about a man who can talk to machines, anyway - a relatively science-based book is one heck of a rabbit to let out of the hat this late in the game. Still, if anyone can make the idea that Mitchell Hundred talked to God work, it is Brian K. Vaughan.


GREEN LANTERN #26 - Despite what the cover says, this issue tells us nearly nothing about the Alpha Lanterns. So what do we get instead? A lot of material about Green Lanterns besides Hal Jordan and John Stewart - enough that I had to double-check and make sure that I wasn't reading Green Lantern Corps. And that's no bad thing, with an issue that features Hal confronting Sinestro, John Stewart usual method of "celebrating" victory, Hal's more conventional methods involving fellow pilot Cowgirl, the Guardians returning to their old secretive ways and The Lost Lanterns dealing with the loss of one of their own. The Sinestro War may be over, but this book isn't slowing down at all.


GREEN LANTERN/SINESTRO CORPS SECRET FILES - Are you a Green Lantern fan? Do you have $4.99 American? Than you simply must get this book which is easily the finest print reference for Green Lantern trivia I have ever seen in print, containing a list of dead Green Lanterns as well as information on all current, living members of the Green Lantern Corps who have been profiled - however briefly - in the current volume. There's even profiles of a few of the more obscure Lanterns from previous volumes such as Raker: The Forgotten Green Lantern of Apokolips and Perdoo The Mad of Sector 2234.


HELLBLAZER #239 - One issue away from John's 20th Anniversary and Diggle has returned John to his roots... literally, in this case. This story centers around an African mystic, whom John met way back in his first monthly adventure in Hellblazer #1 - trying to get a memory encased in a root to John Constantine in order to thwart the machinations of a warlord/dark magician who also has some business with John. All pun-ishment aside, this is one heck of an issue and a good jumping-on point for any readers who might have just crawled out from under their rocks, missed the first two decades of Hellblazer and are curious to see what the fuss is about.


JACK OF FABLES #18 - As a librarian, I should probably be relieved that after a year and a half of a book in which the main bad guys were all evil-ish librarians that this issue introduced an even more evil librarian named Burner. Guess what he does to the books in his zombie-populated town? Still, my personal issues with the maligning of my profession aside, this is one of the best books out there.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #16 - Can we please, please, PLEASE let Dwayne McDuffie start writing his own stories instead of having to do introductions and fill-in-the-blank tales for every other stupid crossover that is coming down the pike? Don't get me wrong - this issue is far from bad, as we get more off the no-nonsense ass-kicking Black Canary and (thank you) a Roy Harper who isn't just Green Arrow lite. But I'd rather not settle for merely "good" stories that set-up a Tangent Universe crossover in the Superman books when I could have great stories akin to what McDuffie has been doing with Fantastic Four in recent months.


RED SONJA #28 - I've said it before and I'll say it again - DITCH THE STUPID SUPPORTING CAST AND LET SONJA GO IT ALONE! Nobody cares about the lion-man, Osin the Beefcake or Valera or Valerie or whatever the pirate chick's name is (no Howard fans - it ISN'T Valeria) and this plot with Gath has dragged on for far too long. Sonja, like Conan, while being an epic figure is better suited to brief, episodic tales rather than large written-for-the-trade stories spanning twelve issues. Take an example from Savage Tales - keep it short and sweet.


SAVAGE TALES #5 - Now this is what I'm talking about! Part Two of a Red Sonja story from last issue features Sonja rescuing a bunch of kidnapped women from a demon while dealing with a lecherous hunter who wants to test that "I may only give myself to a man who can best me in combat" oath. Sure, the first part of this story opened with Sonja holding the dope's severed head, making this tale anti-climactic in the extreme. But it's still the best Red Sonja story since the Red Sonja Annual earlier this year.

Fast Thoughts - The Week of 6/20/07

Go Starman! It's your birthday! Read the comics! Write a review!

...

Yeah. I promise never to do that again.




AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #541 - Ah, Wilson Fisk. You have been missed, sir. Anti-climactic as this issue is regarding the confrontation between Spider-Man and Kingpin (we already know that Fisk will escape the prison brawl unharmed, thanks to recent issues of Daredevil) it is effective in building the drama regarding an injured Aunt May. And full props to JMS for the reference to Stan Lee's story with Peter having to donate blood for Aunt May's transfusion.


CONAN #41 - After months of waiting, it is here. - Part One of Tim Truman's adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Rogues in the House. While quite a bit has been adapted and added-on (Conan is decidedly more verbal in this first part of the tale) the gist of the story is captured perfectly and indeed Truman remains truer to the original story than even Roy Thomas was in his adaptation of the story for Marvel Comics. Thumbs up from this die-hard fan of the world's most famous barbarian.


COUNTDOWN #45 - Well... that was... anti-climactic. And am I the only one confused as to who most of the Moinitors are working for now?


FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #13 - Okay, I've never been the biggest Bart Allen fan - especially after he was forcibly grown up, forcibly aged and forced into becoming The New Flash - but to have the book end like this is just disrespectful.


HELLBLAZER #233 - The more and more I read Andy Diggle's take on John Constantine, the more I wish he was writing Green Arrow past the upcoming Green Arrow: Year One. Diggle had delved into the past of John Constantine and the continuity of other writers with a glee and zeal not see in many writers besides Geoff Johns. Still, this issue, based on a throwaway bit during Paul Jenkins severely underrated time on the title, is a real treat as we see Diggle move John back toward being the John Constantine of old rather than the more generic mystical hero written by Denise Mina over the last year. If you aren't reading Hellblazer, now is a great time to start.


JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #10 - By the same token, re: The Flash, while I have always liked the character of Wally West - there had to be a better way to bring him back than this. Was there really THAT much outcry against the current Flash book that we had to waste three months of time in JLA and JSA to bring Wally back the same week that Bart dies?


SAVAGE TALES #2 - A bit flat compared to the first issue. The Sonja story ends in a predictable manner. The Atlantis story feels far too slow. The story with the Hunter seems a standard middle chapter. Only the continuation of the story of how The Old Ones from Lovecraft's books came to Earth seems to hit the high-mark set by the first issue. Not a bad book by any means - but the first issue seemed much more exciting by comparison.


ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #110 - Okay, Bendis? I know you have a major man-crush on Moon Knight. And I know that the Ultimate Universe characters are, for the most part, different people than the Regular Marvel Universe. That being said... I don't like Daredevil threatening innocent lives and meaning it. I don't like Danny Rand being a whinny bitch. I don't like Doctor Strange being an incompetent poser. But mostly, I don't like Peter being robbed of the moral victory he wins here just because you wanted to make your version of Moon Knight look like a bad-ass. Okay?