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.

Blah blah blah about 6/18 from Matt

Last week, I proudly declared that I was going to chop books to save money and then only found two books to get rid of. I can guarantee that number jumps by one this week, but let's see how we do.

۞ The book that's gone is Trinity. I know this is a bit strange, as I was just singing its praises last week, but I realized with issue #3 that I just kind of don't care. The art is painfully static, the writing more than adquate but still not particularly interesting, and the plot unremarkable. Ironically, I think the weekly scheduling is working against the book -- I'd pay three bucks a month for this, but 12 bucks every month? For 12 months? I'd rather buy Wii Fit, or Rock Band Wii, or a palette-load of diapers at Sam's Club. Sorry for misleading y'all before, but I'm done.

۞ Glad I got that off my chest. Now we can turn to ... hmmm ... yeah, let's do another negative one before we get happy. I'm done with Flash. My go-to line on the book has been that I'll buy anything with Freddie Williams II art, but, well looks like I was wrong about that. I really hope DC can figure out what to do with this title, though, because I loved the character back in the mid-90s.

۞ On to happier things! (Happier things which, perhaps not coincidentally, include NO futher DC books. Hmmmm.) Still loving the Incredible Hercules. Last week I called Captain Britain the best thing to come out of Secret Invasion, but the God Squad here is pretty entertaining as well. Hell, writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente also manage to do something vaguely interseting with Nightmare, that depressingly dull knock-off of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. (Down to the word balloons, no less. Good lord, Marvel. Have you no shame?) Nice last page twist, also.

۞ My goodness, but the cover for X-Factor #32 is ugly. And dull. I think we should have a word for that. Dugly? Ull? I'll work on it. Anyhow, yeah, ugly cover but some really nice interior art from Valentine De Landro, and Peter David manages to keep building on the story he's telling here -- he's done an incredibly good job of rolling with the various crossover punches and still letting his story feel organic. Good book, hideous cover -- feel free to send Glenn Fabry back to Vertigo where he fits in a bit better.

۞ Although I have an avowed fondness for Mark Millar's writing of young kids, he's pretty clearly at his best when he's A) working in his Big Dumb Action Story mode, and B) he doesn't need to rely on a bunch of other writers making his ideas make sense. (I think B is what really crippled Civil War at points; Millar wanted to write creepy, vaguely incenstuous dialogue for Johnny Storm and Sue Richards, and the Fantastic Four writers had actually read the characters before.)

ANYHOW, Wolverine #66 sets off Millar's big Future Wolverine In The Bad Marvel Future story, and it looks like it's going to hew pretty close to his strengths. Still plenty of time, as always, for Millar to give in to his more puerile impulses ("...and then in issue #69, the villain has sex with the corpse of Wolverine's children!" or something like that), but he's set himself off to a very strong start.

۞ My favorite book this week, though, was one that most people probably missed: Genius #1, from Top Cow. It's part of their Pilot Season thing, where they release a whole bunch of first issues into the wild with virtually no publicity, and everyone votes on what should become an actual series. (Where "everyone" equals "all seven people nationwide who are aware of the promotion," I guess.)

Genius is a pretty clever book, though -- the high concept seems to be "What if the 21st century's military genius were born into an L.A. gang, and used her military tactics to band the gangs together to declare war on the cops." It works much better than it sounds thre, and the art is stinkin' GORGEOUS, somewhere between cel-shaded animation and Adam Hughes. This Afua Richardson girl is going to be big at some point, I suspect. (Unless she becomes big for her music, which is not entirely impossible either. Good, big voice. God, I loathe talented people.)

Anyhow, all of you should pester Sheldon to order this for you (Diamond Order Code: APR082211, I believe), and then vote for it to become a series, and only then will I accept your gracious thanks.

۞ And I also bought the final trade of Y The Last Man to read, having remained remarkably unspoiled as to the ending. Hopefully I'll get to that today, but I'm pretty confident it'll be fabulous.