If comics get reviewed in a forest and no one is around to hear - Matt on 6/10

Hey, remember those other guys who used to post here sometimes? They seemed nice. I wonder what ever happened to them. Also, the two people who used to comment. Ah well. Comics!

۞ Okay, I've mentioned how much I'm enjoying Batman R.I.P., right? Like, in a non-ironic, non-negative way? Because I really, really am. So why is nothing even resembling that storyline showing up in this ostensible crossover with Detective #846? I'll admit that I think Hush is a monumentally stupid character, so I'm prejudiced against this from the jump, but this is ... Look, in a vacuum this would be okay. Ish. I guess. But trying to tell me that this has ANYthing to do with the clever, complicated stuff Morrison's doing over in the main book is setting the bar a bit high. Forgettable, and I'm not going to be sticking with this storyline.

۞ Batman Confidential #19 is part three of the storyline, and more of the same: a solidly entertaining flashback story from Fabian Nicieza with exquisite artwork from Kevin Maguire. They've worked together as a creative team before, and they mesh well. Fun stuff.

۞ I know, I know: I swore I was done with Booster Gold. And I hate buying things just because they're part of a crossover -- it makes me feel like a sucker. But I LOVED DC One Million back in the day, so sending this book retroactively into the crossover was reason enough for me to buy it.

The level of disappointment I feel is suitable punishment for letting myself be tricked like this. Hey, DC: it's ISSUE #1,000,000, not the YEAR 1,000,000. It's the year 85,271, as you correctly note on the cover. And if you were going to go to the trouble of matching the cover, why not include the stupid CGI title page that was on all the 1,000,000 issues as well? Seriously half-assed as a One Million tribute, and still meh as a comic on its own. Fool me once, etc.

۞ Secret Invasion #4 is better than Secret Invasion #3. Damning with faint praise? Maybe so, but it's what I've got.

۞ Invincible Iron Man #3 is fantastic. Matt Fraction's script seems carefully designed to be equally applicable to modern Marvel Universe continuity or to Iron Man movie continuity, and it's such a good Iron Man story that I found myself not caring either way. The strongest Iron Man's book has been since ... I dunno, since I was, like, 12. Nice showcase for Larocca's art, too. Much more appropriate than newuniversal.

۞ Okay, okay, a little bit more on Secret Invasion: it feels to me like Bendis is just hitting plot beats, like he just re-read Robert McKee's STORY and is following all the rules on this one. This is the middle issue, so we find out more about the Invasion plans, the heroes begin to regroup, sort of, and ... yeah, it just all completely fails to come alive for me. Oh well. Maybe next issue.

۞ Although I do have to wonder why the whole thing feels so much better in the tie-in books -- Captain Britain and MI-13 #3 is what I want from the MAIN miniseries: a plot with enough energy and momentum to carry itself past its own stupid points; characters who seem different from one another, and invested in the moment; some humor, some wit, some flair; heroic moments that feel genuinely heroic ... this is worth checking out even if you're ignoring SI altogether.

۞ Action Comics #867 does a nice job continuing the Braniac story. It's shaping up to be another nice Geoff Johns-written DCU book and the best Superman's been in a while. But... well, how to put this.... Ah, heck with it, I'll scan in the image, but let's do it in bits and pieces first. This is from the book's splash page. Can you guess what Supergirl is doing?


If you guessed "vomiting," "recovering from a brutal hangover," "smelling something awful," or "appearing in a Warren Ellis comic," you think along the same lines as me. You're also wrong; she's examining a Braniac drone and is meant to be looking frightened.

Here's another bit of the image that irritated me.


Yes, the left side is a bit deceptive as the shadow cast by her arm makes her appear even more unhealthily skinny, but even with out that ... why is Supergirl emaciated? Look at her ribs jutting out -- it makes me want to send her fifty cents a day so she can get away from Sally Struthers.

So let's put together those two images with the rest of it and see what we get...


Yep. It's Paris Hilton: Supergirl. I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough to enjoy this with me.

GET IT TOGETHER, GARY FRANK!

Matt buys back some time - 6/11 books

I think it's getting to be about time for me to trim my buying list -- I find myself reading an awful lot of these books and thinking, "Hey, that was meh ... just like last issue." Which is both financially irresponsible AND a waste of my time, especially as I have a new baby that's more intriguing to me than mediocre comic books. Also, I don't want to feel like Negative Review Guy, which is what happens when I read a bunch of books that don't thrill me. Here, then is my public declaration of what I'm not reading

۞ Booster Gold #10 is my last issue of this book. It's perfectly adequate, but it's not dazzling me enough. I feel like the ideas are intriguing at their core, and I like the issues when they're described to me ... it's just that actually reading them consistently leaves me cold.

۞ I'm buying Green Lantern Corps as I eagerly await the forthcoming crossover, but issue #25 ends that. I confused Peter Tomasi and Stuart Moore last month, which makes me feel dumb, but they both write perfectly good space opera that fails to engage me. I'll stick with the core book for now. (I maintain that this book would be much awesomer if it were called Green Lantern Crops and were about interstellar farming, but what do I know?)

۞ Somewhat surprisingly, the current run on Batman Confidential remains on my purchase list. I just adore Kevin Maguire's art, and Fabian Nicieza is, er, playing to his artist's strengths here. (ie, Issue #18 features an extended sequence in which the original Batgirl fights Catwoman naked in a hedonist club. If that's not playing to Maguire's strengths, I don't know what is. Also, probably not a comic to read at work, or around children, or in public, or anywhere else where you might be embarrassed.)

۞ Trinity #2 makes me think I'll stick with this as well. I've got a lot of time for Kurt Busiek, who is competent even at his worst, and this nice, slick, mainstream superhero story is far from his worst. Feels more "comic book-y" than the semi-novelistic sweep of 52, and more "good" than the horrifying disaster of Countdown.

۞ I like newuniversal shockfront also -- it builds nicely on the basic NU concept, but is another strong mainstream showing from Warren Ellis. Every so often it seems like he recharges his batteries and starts churning out really solid work again; he's in one of those phases now. I'll keep buying this...

۞ ... and Doktor Sleepless as well, for most of the same reasons. I wish the art in Doktor Sleepless were a little less generic Avatar house style, but it's perfectly readable, and this book makes a great venue for Ellis's obsession with the intersection of science fiction and our contemporary reality. Good stuff.

۞ I really enjoyed Captain Britain and MI13 a LOT -- it's an improvement on the first issue, and one of the best things to come out of Secret Invasion so far. I'll definitely keep picking this up ... BUT it also points out one of the main problems with modern superhero comics, althoug I'll have to bury discussion of it behind whited-out spoilertext. Highlight between the brackets to figure out what I'm on about. [Apparently, we were meant to believe last issue that Captain Britain (or at least his human host) really died. Like, tragically sacrificed himself. This issue is all about starting to play up the ramifications of that, and it does that well ... except that I never, ever, ever, ever even considered that at the end of last issue. I saw the explosion, thought "well, I wonder how he escapes from that," and moved on. It was a bit jarring to find that everyone here is taking it so seriously -- don't you all know you're in a comic book?] Aside from that minor complaint, though, a fun book.

۞ Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust is pretty good for one of these one-shots. I really like Mike Carey's work at Marvel, and Christos Gage is becoming a reliable mainstream writer. And there's some gorgeous Timothy Green III work, which is nice to see. Worth picking up if you're following Secret Invasion, actually. I don't regret buying this at all. (I absolutely abhor the title pages for the SI books, though -- it's like generic Photoshop Backgrounds for Spastic Beginners 101 stuff. Just hideous.)

۞ I love Action Comics #866 -- when Geoff Johns is on, he is ON. And this is the strongest thing to appear in a Superman book in some time. Genuinely creepy, ominous, and fun to read. I'll be buying this, moving forward.

۞ And Locke & Key continues to be the best thing being published this year, by ANY comic book company. Not only will I continue buying this (for the one remaining issue), I'll buy the collected edition, and anything else Joe Hill writes. Fantastic horror comic. Really.

So after that dramatic intro, I cut a whopping two books. Great.