Okay, maybe not, but look at his hair. Look at it!
Oxendine is running for governor in Georgia, and was brought to my attention thanks to this amazing cartoon campaign ad, which is well worth watching. If a follow-up ad depicts a political opponent as a spider, somebody track down Mark Millar and shoot him for making Marvel 1985 real.
The Planetary retrospective rolls on with a podcast dissection of the series. WHERE IS THE FOURTH MAN? Sorry Jamaalamanaics, he was busy this weekend. But he’ll be back later this week in our Umbrella Academy review from the archives! Also, if you haven’t already checked it out, our Planetary Timeline has been updated with corrected images and more moments in the past decade of funnybook history!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:23 — 39.5MB)
As I discussed in our previous installment, Planetary finishes in a comics world quite different than the one it entered. Sure, Marvel and DC still have an effective oligarchy and pervert suit/nurse novel/ammonite pimp/fanmen still rule the land, but they do so in a different — and I will be so bold as to suggest better — landscape than what existed in 1999.
This timeline is a work in progress, and I know there are loads of important releases and business moves that I have not yet added to it, especially in recent years. If you think I’ve missed something, please let me know in the comments. But in the meanwhile, check out the timeline!
Thanks to Pedro for coding the thing in Flash, and thanks to the Gang of Davids (Brothers, Uzumeri, Cole) for input on dates and design.
For nearly twenty years, Deadpool has been a cult favorite Marvel character, beloved on the Internet for his scan-ready quips and pop culture references. But lately — whether it’s because his increased presence in movies and video games, change in market demographics, or just some sort of Yellow Word Balloon Zeitgeist — he’s a bonafide fan favorite, with a third ongoing series forthcoming and his current two series outselling the likes of Superman and Wolverine.
Read the rest of this entry »
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:01 — 25.5MB)
As suspected by a few people in last month’s comment thread, the Red Hood is in fact the obvious option, Jason Todd. So that entire mystery’s away from us, although the domino killer and Man-On-Gargoyle are still milling around, not to mention Oberon Sexton.
Philip Tan’s art in this issue is rather confusing and unclear with regards to the storytelling, especially on the fifth page, so I’ll try to disentangle some of those things as we go.
Read the rest of this entry »
Planetary #1 came out on February 3rd, 1999. Britney Spears was still a chipper seventeen year old whose debut song “Hit Me Baby One More Time” was on top of the Billboard charts. New shows like Family Guy and The Sopranos had debuted days earlier on television. Nobody knew what The Matrix was and people were still optimistic about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Sales of Zip Discs were peaking, and no one had an iPod, an Xbox, or a TiVo. Major studios like Paramount, Fox and Dreamworks were still resisting the DVD format, throwing their lot in with DIVX.
Read the rest of this entry »
This month, Dark Horse Comics released The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the Twenty-First Century, a behemoth six hundred page hardcover so balling only Pedro could fathom purchasing it.
So instead, we just read 1990’s Give Me Liberty, the four issue series that introduced Martha. This was one of the first projects Miller and Gibbons each worked on after their era-defining works on The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen respectively, and like those works, it has a uniquely Reagan/Thatcher Era vision of a bleak near future. The secret ingredient this time? Ayn Rand!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:52 — 26.8MB)
From this week’s Incredible Hulk #602, by Greg Pak and Ariel Olivetti:
versus
You know, if they just had Greg Land doing Ariel Olivetti’s backgrounds and Olivetti doing Land’s, at least then we’d get one readable comic and one hilariously horrific piece of shit rather than two painful comics.
With Dark Reign entering a new phase with the release of the first Dark Reign: The List one-shots, the gang looks at Marvel’s recent experiments with telling One Big Story, from Civil War to today. Of special interest in Norman Osborn: is he the Green Goblin, Super-Cheney, or the second coming of Hitler? Marvel’s stable of writers seem to hold different opinions, and we explore them all.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:53 — 28.1MB)
Dark Reign: The List - Daredevil
by Andy Diggle & Billy Tan
Bad art can ruin even the best of stories, but lesser known is its ability to obscure mediocre writing. Billy Tan’s art in this issue is bad: it’s static during action sequences featuring ninjas, masked superhero gymnastics and government agents rappelling from the roof. Tan’s talking sequences fail to display any emotion besides tension. As a result, at first glance, this art is terrible enough to hide a weak effort from Andy Diggle.
I wish Diggle had exercised some restraint here since the book’s “everything is rotten from the core” vibe already wears out its welcome by the time the corrupt judge shows up six pages in. When we finally see Norman Osborn, he is exhaling pure evil. It’s not as if Daredevil hasn’t tangled with some sinister dudes before, but the moral conflicts and ethical backsliding that had been the bedrock of Bendis and Brubaker’s Daredevil runs begin to feel less complex when Murdock is trying to take down the next Hitler.
Diggle’s overplaying of the systemic corruption moves Daredevil from a troubled man trying to straighten up a clan of killer evil ninjas to the leader of a band of freedom fighters. Regardless of if Murdock succeeds here, his goal becomes noble enough to the reader that he will be redeemed in their eyes. This isn’t Diggle’s intent and this will push Matt away from the tipping point that has been teased since the title was relaunched back in 1999. It’s a shame since there was just so much farther he could have fallen.
-by Pedro Tejeda
Dark Avengers #9
by Brian Michael Bendis, Mike Deodato, and Rain Beredo
In a week with a Grant Morrison Batman comic and a new volume of Pluto, somehow I think I enjoyed these 22 pages the most. Bendis’s recent work has gotten slagged on a lot - sometimes deservedly - but I think this is a solid crystallization of everything that makes his style work: Character, Character, Character. The cover promises Ares versus Fury in a glocks-versus-battle-ax contest to the death, and I’m glad the cover lied because the mature conversation inside is so, so, so much better. Then Bendis drops a shock ending bomb on you, one he’s clearly been waiting to drop forever, and one that works pretty well at eliciting an “OH SHIT!” from almost anybody invested in the Marvel status quo right now.
But Bendis isn’t even really the main reason. Mike Deodato fucking shines on this comic, with interesting but clear panel layouts, especially in the middle section. This guy has really evolved from a tits ‘n muscles artist in the ’90s to a guy who, despite his propensity for swaying hips, constantly tries to make his panel layouts interesting (and still clear) - check out the “Ares smash!” two-page spread to see what I mean. He’s good with balls-out action and talking heads (as displayed near the end with the Dark Avengers just chillin’ and chattin’), versatile enough to move from the everyday to the extraordinary and make it seem like it’s in the same world. I’m willing to take his (increasingly rarer) propensities towards T&A in stride as long as he keeps turning in superb storytelling like this.
- by David Uzumeri
Vengeance of the Moon Knight #1
“Shock & Awe Chapter 1″
by Gregg Hurwitz & Jerome Opena
I haven’t paid attention to the Moon Knight book for years, and viewed him as a third-rate Batman suffering from mental illness. But sometimes a comic doesn’t have to be original to be entertaining. We’ve all become familiar with the use of the super-hero narrative to explore identity and mental illness. Not only that, but the story of a lone man who must do battle with a crazed totalitarian state is older than John Galt. So what sets Vengeance of the Moon Knight apart from the crowd? The art. Gregg Hurwitz turns in a competent script, but Jerome Opena transforms what could have been a banal book into an entertaining romp.
The first issue sets the status quo - Moon Knight is a hero who is in the midst of an identity crisis. Will he be the restrained old-school hero who avoids unnecessary violence or a brutal vigilante close to the edge? We see MK elegantly dispatch armed bank robbers and escape from the authorities with ease in the first half of the book, which unfolds like a slick action movie filled with bright colors and unambiguous victories. In the second half, we begin to see the cracks in the facade - the criminals from Heat have been replaced with the degenerates in Taxi Driver, Moon Knight’s resolve is tested, and his instability becomes more apparent: the voices in his head/ghosts that haunt him become clearer. There are shadows everywhere, and triumph is replaced with temptation. An atmosphere of fear lurks in the background, with the visage of Norman Osborn staring at us from billboards and video screens. And that’s without even looking at the words.
- by Jamaal Thomas
Amazing Spider-Man #604
“Red-Headed Stranger pt. 3: The Ancient Gallery”
by Fred Van Lente & Barry Kitson
I’m one of those fans who opposed the One More Day storyline because I think that characters should always be allowed to develop and grow. In the great conflict between those who view mainstream superhero comics as a continuing narrative and those who view them primarily as part of a broader strategy to manage valuable intellectual property, I thought OMD was a victory for the latter camp: a victory of commerce over art. Why? It’s not the decision to end the marriage between the characters of Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson, but the rationales offered, many of which were based on returning to a more ‘classic’ portrayal of the character (that would also make him easier to market and package on different platforms). Although there have been a handful of strong arcs in the months following the “Brand New Day” soft reboot of the Spider-Man family of titles, they only reinforced my ambivalence about the new direction. Dan Slott, Marc Guggenheim, Mark Waid, and Joe Kelly’s fun take on the book would have been equally effective before the reboot. However, with the three-part “Red-Headed Stranger” arc, I think that Fred Van Lente has written a fun, light, compelling story that actually benefits from the new status quo.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Shield #1
“Kicking Down the Door pt. 1″
by Eric Trautmann & Marco Rudy
“Burning Inside pt. 1″
by Brandon Jerwa & Greg Scott
The first thing that struck me about this was how much it differed - in a good way - from J. Michael Straczynski’s lead-in that capped off his Red Circle series of one-shots. Where Straczynski combined the traditional Captain America super-soldier origin with stock scenes heavily inspired by Generation Kill and added on a layer of military conspiracy to tie it in with the other Red Circle stories, Trautmann creates an early-career super-soldier who isn’t fighting as morally convincing a war as Captain America was, and as a result, is forced to operate a bit more cynically.
Read the rest of this entry »
Models, Inc. #1
“Models, Inc. pt1″ by Paul Tobin & Vicenc Villagrasa
“Loaded Gunn” by Marc Sumerak & Jorge Molina
Reality television has probably taught me more about modeling and fashion than any other source. Maybe it’s this skewed vision that makes Models, Inc. feel like such a throwback to times past. I feel like Tobin’s story takes place in a world that hasn’t existed in ages. Even though several aspects of the story — like Chili Pepper’s outing — are obviously modern, Villagrasa’s art evokes the Mod 1960s, when the idea of modeling was more fresh, glamorous and fun. The book has none of the eating disorders, fierce competitiveness, or other aspects that seem to populate the seedy underbelly of modern modeling. It’s a decision that fits the tone of the book, even if I wasn’t fully engaged with the plot. I didn’t connect with any of the characters as they felt too light. Only three of the characters seemed to have any conflict and Millie being accused of murder was the only conflict I was remotely interested in. The art itself was adequate, but one of the two inkers was clearly stronger and detailed than the other. I did enjoy Tobin’s dialogue, which kept the characters, especially the models, from being flat. But I’m not sure that’s enough to make me come back to see what happens next.
Read the rest of this entry »
Again, a link to what’s come before.
The immediate interpretation of the issue title is the Nick Cave song of the same name, but its use within the issue makes it pretty clear that while that may have been an inspirational source, the context in which it’s used in the issue relates more to Milton’s “Paradise Lost” - which isn’t to say the song doesn’t eerily parallel the promises Red Hood is trying to sell Scarlet.
Philip Tan comes on as artist for this arc, and it’s certainly very different from Frank Quitely; losing Alex Sinclair as colorist gets rid of the posterized sky effects, and Tan’s art style owes way more to his time on Spawn than any precedent Quitely set, all stark shadows and straightforward panel layouts. This is a much darker look than what Quitely offered.
But anyway: new story, new start. Let’s go!
Read the rest of this entry »
As promised at the end of episode 111, we present a contentious look back at David Lapham’s Young Liars, a frequent podcast topic. In the end, did anyone change their mind? Were any of us Spiders? We may never know!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:25 — 23.7MB)
