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.

Matt hurries through comics for 6/23

So I have, like, eleven billion other things to do, most of which I'm even being paid for, so of course I'm doing this to procrastinate. But I'm going to make it quick, though! In, out, comment, done, bam!

(I also previewed a bunch of this week's Marvel books a few days ago but can't be bothered finding the link. Scroll down a bit.)

Here we go!

۞ What If This Was The Fantastic Four: A Tribute To Mike Wieringo is a review-proof book, really, because what kind of jerk would complain about paying five bucks to donate to the HERO Initiative in honor of a really terrific artist...? Okay, fine. I'll do it: this isn't a great comic. Wieringo was one of my favorite superhero artists, he brought a real sense of fun to his work, and his death really is a tragic loss for the comic book community as well as his family and loved ones ... but this isn't his strongest work by any stretch, and it's in service of a Jeff Parker story that's ... well-intentioned, anyhow. The tributes in the book are genuinely moving, and I'm glad to have bought it for charity purposes, but as a comic book, it's really only so-so.

Annnnnnnnnnnd that's me going to hell, I suppose.

۞ No Hero #0 from Avatar is an interesting book, Warren Ellis hammering his particular vision of superheroes onto a Marshall McLuhan/Timothy Leary type. Could go either way, but ... did Black Summer ever finish? I don't remember an ending, but can't see Ryp and Ellis starting something new with that still uncompleted. Yes? No? No time for questions! Onward!

۞ Oh, look, it's eleven thousand Secret Invasion crossovers! Runaways/Young Avengers is actually really strong; it captures the voices of both teams, and has some strong artwork from Spidey Loves MJ mainstay Takeshi Miyazawa. New Avengers #42 and Mighty Avengers #15 are both Bendis showing us what's REALLY been going in his books, and they're good if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm kind of tired of Bendis feeling compelled to actually show me whole entire scenes again and again, because I know something slightly new now, but whatever. It's not like I have to pay for it again each time or anythin-- wait, I do? Oh, well THAT'S annoying.

۞ My Matt Fraction love continues unabated with his work on Young Avengers Presents #6: Hawkeye. (And, seriously, the last issue of a mid-selling miniseries is suddenly written by Matt Fraction and drawn by ALAN DAVIS?!? What the hell?) The double entendre on "god, he moves so fast" alone is worth the cover price on this one. Great stuff. Make Sheldon try to reorder it for you.

۞ I'm going to be honest about this, even though I hate reviewers who say this sort of lazy crap, but I literally fell asleep during 1985 #2. Just dozed right off. Not a reflection on the book, I don't think -- I really am juggling a whole bunch of stuff right now, and it's tiring -- but ... yeah, I'm not really qualified to say. I don't like the art very much, though, so there's that.

۞ Meanwhile, over in the DC books....

You know, cutting all the DC books that I haven't been liking really makes their output seem much stronger to me. Green Lantern #32 continues to be an excellent (if somewhat unnecessary, maybe) retelling of Hal Jordan's origin -- I'm really liking this run on GL through and through. Pity about Green Lantern Corps, but I think I've already covered that.

۞ And the big one: Final Crisis #2 I loved it. Just loved it. It feels less like a stupid, continuity-heavy crossover "event" and more like one of Grant Morrison's better efforts on JLA. (Also, I didn't read Countdown or any affiliated books once I realized how terrible they were, so I couldn't care less about the continuity hiccups, which might help.) Anyhow, yeah, good, packed issue with a real sense of menace for the heroes and some characteristically great throwaway ideas from Grant Morrison. (Bullet shot through time indeed.) This one seems to be getting better with each page, unlike the whell-spinning Secret Invasion on the other side of the store. I'm optimistic.

Okay, back to real work. Bye.

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.