Where is everyone? Matt on 6/2

I was out of town at a wedding! What the hell is everyone else's excuse? Anyhow, here's some belated thoughts on all things comicky for June 2nd.

۞ So there's apparently been some kind of fooferaw over Batman #678, partially because of the blatant use of the stupid "magic negro" trope, partially because some people find it incomprehensible, and mostly because it's becoming clearer and clearer that to fully understand Morrison's Batman run, one is going to have to have read (and remember!) thousands of seriously obscure Batman stories. (So far, "Batman -- The Superman of Planet X," "Robin Dies At Dawn," possibly a few issues of World's Finest, and Batman #47. Great.)

But here's the thing: I'm LOVING this. Yes, the art is atrocious (although I like it much better than I did the Kubert who started the run off). Yes, Morrison is writing in a deliberately elliptical and allusive style. But it's FUN. It's interesting. It's somewhat challenging, I suppose, but mainly in the sense that I'm honestly curious about what's going to happen next month. In other words, it's that rare comic that I enjoy in EXACTLY the same way I enjoyed Transformers off the 7-11 spinner racks when I was a kid. I don't expect everyone to agree, but, there you go.

۞ On a different end of the spectrum is Angel Revelations #2. I'm enjoying this -- Aguirre-Sacasa needs to give up on the more action-y stuff and just accept that drama is his metier -- and Adam Pollina's art is fluid and lovely. But if it disappeared from the shelves tomorrow, I don't really think I'd notice. That said, if you haven't given this a shot, check it out; it's good to reward Marvel when they actually try something interesting and different.

۞ And then there's Astonishing X-Men #25, which ... exists, I suppose. It's easy to forget that Warren Ellis wrote Excalibur for 20-odd issues back in the nineties (especially easy as Marvel hasn't ever bothered reprinting them), but ... yeah, I feel like I saw all of this back then. In those days, it was Moira MacTaggart's coffee, which was terrible. Now it's Beast's coffee, which is apparently terrific. Ellis appears to have decided that the way to humanize superheroes is by having them shill shade-grown organic beans. (Actually, Planetary starts with a coffee discussion as well, as does Ellis's novel Crooked Little Vein. Maybe I'm onto something here.)

Back then Pete Wisdom was the sardonic British character who managed to enliven and poke fun at the mutant team tropes. Now it's Emma Frost (who is not actually British, I don't think, but don't tell her last three or four writers).

It's all good enough, I guess, helped along by Simone Bianchi's van art on steroids. We'll see what Ellis does with it long term, I suppose. I know I've been finding a lot of his recent stuff, from newuniversal to Doktor Sleepless to Black Summer to even Nextwave, MUCH better when read as a chunk. It's like he's abandoned writing for the individual issues altogether.

Anyhow, blah blah blah Warren Ellis-y.

۞ Some of you might remember that I really liked Top Cow's Pilot Season: Genius, and that I encouraged everyone to vote for it in the official Top Cow Popularity Contest Of Popularness. Let's just say that I'm a little cooler to Pilot Season: Alibi, which reads like either the pilot episode of a really dull Alias/24 knockoff or like the first issue of a really mediocre Boom! Studios comic that's clearly being pitched to Hollywood.

Nothing here engages me, nothing makes me want to see where the story goes, and, really nothing here is worth wasting any more time writing about.