Comics are Awesome III

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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JediTricks wrote: I'm only replying to this because issue 2 also had blank white eyes on both Batman and Robin's cowls, alternating in and out of panels indiscriminately. If this is a style choice, they really need to own it instead of dicking around, panels with white eyes a la comic books should have different elements that pop out and speak with their own unique voice separate from the rest of the panels' art.
I didn't notice it so much in issue 2. If that or any issue had blank white eyes in longshot, when it's hard to fit so much detail into the drawing, I understand that. I just don't care for it all the way through the book if the various artists are going to be trying to represent the live action Batman, where we always saw Adam West and Burt Ward's eyes behind the masks.
As for the modern elements, they had that in issue 2 and it's cheesy, there was a climate change comment and training in martial arts in a monastery in the Himalayas, I understand the need to be free to branch out a little, but it sticks out like a sore thumb this way.
Yeah, I noticed the "training on ice" comment and immediately thought of Batman Begins and Christian Bale. And I ranted about the global warming comment in my review of issue 2 earlier in the thread, because it's so anachronistic for a series ostensibly set in 1966.
I do very much enjoy this series so far, even though the art in issue 2's first story is on thin ice *wak wak*. It's fun and doesn't talk down to a younger audience (I find that grating), it's just fun Batman and Robin adventures with a voice that is excellent.
Agreed, it's good reading. I'm really enjoying it.
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Dominic
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Black Hand #1:
Nominally set during "Forever Evil", but operationally more of a lead in issue for the upcoming "Green Lantern" event ("Lights Out"?). Not a bad read, even if it raises the question of why Green Lantern thought it was a good idea to inter Black Hand's remains on Earth to begin with.
Grade: C

Eclipso #1:
Every so often, DC makes a noble if doomed attempt to push Eclipso. I guess it is about time for them to make another attempt. For some reason or another, DC has replaced Bruce Gordon with Gordon Jacobs. Name change aside, they are more or less the same character. In fact, they are more similar than other characters using the same names post-"Flashpoint". I do not anticipate this push for Eclipso being much more successful than any of the past attempts. But, much like "the Darkness Within" from the 90s, it is not a bad read thus far.
Grade: B

Onslaught Six wrote:Word is, Issue 9 of Cobra Files will be Costa's last. Thoughts, Dom? Prowl?

I'd love to get caught up, but I only want to read the Costa shit, and if Dom is correct, they've put it in collections with all the other IDW Joe stuff-doesn't make sense, but whatever.
From what I have heard, issue 9 will be the last issue of "the Cobra Files". It looks like Costa is getting moved to another Joe related book in the near future though. Based on comments that he made at General Joes, it looks like he is more or less done with Cobra, but not the property (or comics as a whole). I can understand this. He has spent 5 years on various iterations of "Cobra", showing characters crossing the line between factions from both directions and eventually blurring that line so much that it may as well not have existed.

I am most likely going to be in for whatever book Costa ends up on.
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Dominic wrote:Not a bad read, even if it raises the question of why Green Lantern thought it was a good idea to inter Black Hand's remains on Earth to begin with.
Does it actually show that? I have yet to pick up this issue. The last we saw of Black Hand, he'd been transported to the Dead Zone, where his body turned to ashes after his ring selected Hal as a Black Lantern so he could escape and fight Volthoom. His remains should still be in the Dead Zone...
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Dominic
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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The issue shows two guys who work at a crematorium (sp?) disposing of remains. They make comments about how most of their business comes from a local asylum (presumably not Arkham given that they are near Coast City). I am guessing that the crematorium was once owned by Black Hand's family, but I may be misreading that (not being familiar with recent GL comics).

After they dump the ashes outside, a black ring falls from the sky and raises them as Black Hand, so I have to assume they were his remains.

And, to answer O6's earlier question:

The Costa "Cobra" run is excellent. It is well worth picking up and reading through.

3 or 4 issues of the renumbered series are compiled alongside issues from the (then two) Dixon books in the "Cobra Civil War". From what I read, the Dixon stuff is pretty bad. Think "the 90s are over" bad and you will be on the right track. He kicked off "Cobra Civil War" with two stories that were variants on the same (pretty basic) theme. The theme in question was actually more of a cliche, specifically "kick off the story by killing a bunch of C and D-listers to show how totally the bad guys mean business this time (because they normally do not mean business)". In one case, you see the C and D-listers get whacked. In the other, you see a few A-listers (who have no chance in hell of dying) discovering the grisly remains of another group of C and D-listers. It made the "Rise of the Red Shadows" from the DDP run look clever and sophisticated.

But, yeah, go read the Costa stuff. (And, read his own "Smoke and Mirrors", which is damned good.)
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Dominic wrote:The issue shows two guys who work at a crematorium (sp?) disposing of remains. They make comments about how most of their business comes from a local asylum (presumably not Arkham given that they are near Coast City). I am guessing that the crematorium was once owned by Black Hand's family, but I may be misreading that (not being familiar with recent GL comics).

After they dump the ashes outside, a black ring falls from the sky and raises them as Black Hand, so I have to assume they were his remains.
Oh, I saw that much from the preview pages. You're right that it is the Hand Brothers Mortuary (Black Hand sees a plaque on the wall when he enters the building), but that wasn't Black Hand's remains. Looks to me like the ring used the ashes as a means to kill those two guys and then in turn transforms them into a new body for Black Hand. Sorta like how Nekron made a new body for himself when a Black Lantern picked up his scythe during Blackest Night.
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Dominic
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Mixed run to the comic shop today:

Daredevel Dark Knights #5:
Second part of a two part story. I left it in my pull file (along with part one) as this is a fairly low profile book and I am rationing money at the moment. The next issue kicks off a 3 part arc by Diggle, which I will be skipping entirely.

Uber #6:
This is the start of a new arc, and is sitting in my pull file. I got the regular cover edition, despite preferring the wrap-around edition's cover because the only wrap-around copy at the shop was dingled up. The first "Uber" compilation is due out soon. I am very much looking forward to that.


Hoooookay, comics I actually did buy this week:

Cobra Files #7:
As ever, Costa is a bright spot on my pull list. He rarely disappoints me, and has never done so on this book. "The House Always Wins" is set to be the last arc of "Cobra Files". I would be more upset by this if Costa were not slated to be writing something for IDW in the near future (even if that project has yet to be announced). The blurring/erasing of lines between the factions theme is evident in this issue when Flint is called out for losing his nerve by Clockspring. (Flint's heroic squeemishness arguably is undermining the effectiveness of the team as a whole.) And, Costa manages to use Night Adder (a non-screen movie character) to good effect. I almost want a Night Adder figure now....

Grade: A


Earth 2 #16:
After last month's pointless digression, it is nice to see the book back on track. (Okay, to be fair, last month was not all bad. The "Desaad" special was actually a poorly re-branded issue of "World's Finest". And, the "Solomon Grundy" special would have been fine as a back-up spread out over two or three regular issues. But, I am still kind of peeved by the hype and fancy covers stunt that DC pulled.) The narration jumps around more than I would like in this issue. (Properly used lettering makes it clear which characters are talking/narrating. But, the lack of focus is bothersome.) The big reveal on the last few pages confirms the speculation that has been floating around the net for the last few months,
Spoiler
Brutaal is the E2 Superman
. I am going to avoid judging this development until the arc plays out. (I am trying to read "Earth 2" as much like a "normal old comic" as possible, and am willing to wait and see what the writers have planned before complaining about a plot point. But, I am not going to say that I am wholly okay with
Spoiler
Superman not being dead
, especially considering how much
Spoiler
the premise of the book is defined by the big 3 being dead
.)
Grade: pending


Iron Man #16:
Despite ending on a "to be continued", this issue is more or less the end of the "Tony goes to space" arc. There are no real suprises. Stark gets back to Earth. The God-Killer armour is shunted off to another dimension along with Death's Head. It is pretty clear that Gillen was clearing the board, but there is nothing to rule out either the GK or DH returning later. (In fact, we can more or less assume that GH already came back due to time-travel, but you know what I mean.) It also looks like Gillen is forshadowing the theme of the next arc. Recorder 451 saw Tony as part of a series of terrible mistakes that were borne of the best intentions. This issue makes clear that Stark has some really good, and ambitious, intentions that involve the remains of 451. Despite the last issue being predictable and the less than stellar resolution in this issue, I will be sticking with Gillen's "Iron Man".
Grade: B/C


-Discerning Dom.....
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Shockwave
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Death's Head is coming back, I read over on TFW that there is going to a DH graphic novel or something. They had a pic of a new design for him.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Earth 2 #16

Since this is Robinson’s last issue, I wanted to see where his storylines ended up. I sort of regret spending $3.00 on the book, but I’ll live. I’ve read issue 1 of Earth 2, and then the first hardcover collection of issues 1-5, and my opinion has not changed a year and a half into the series. I hate what’s been done to the Golden Age/JSA characters. They’re unrecognizable. They’re so different that they might as well be new characters, and in fact they really are. Jay Garrick’s New 52 Flash costume still looks terrible. Alan Scott looks like Parallax when Parallax was just Hal Jordan gone crazy and not a giant space bug. I wish I was reading about the good old familiar Sandman and Doctor Fate and the Atom, not these vastly inferior versions. To be fair, at least one aspect of Alan Scott has carried over from the modern JSA… he should be the most powerful character on the team, but he gets taken out by the bad guys in under a minute.

Admittedly, there isn’t much characterization in this issue. There is a glut of characters, and a lot of plot. Character moments take a back seat to the story, which boils down to Steppenwolf ("Born to be wild…”) and Brutaal slaughtering everyone in sight and all the superheroes reacting and trying to get people to safety. Except for Green Lantern who tries to beat on Steppenwolf and gets double-teamed and taken out.

And the big reveal of the book is one I had guessed some time ago without even having to read the book, because it was so obvious. Brutaal (which is an absolutely stupid name) is… surprise… Superman. I liked this plot better when it was the last episode of Superman the Animated Series. This corrupted Superman is of course the same one that was supposedly killed in issue 1, only all we saw was him being overwhelmed by Parademons and vanishing. No body=not dead. And it’s blatantly obvious that he’s only been flying around in another costume for a few issues since his introduction so he could rip all of that off this issue for the shocking ending. It’s so ridiculous, he’s still wearing some version of his Superman costume underneath. I guess it really is long underwear.

What does Earth 2 amount to? It seems plain that Robinson was trying to use the war with Steppenwolf as a World War 2 analogue, and indeed the Flash explicitly references WW2 in this issue. The world army's attack on Steppenwolf is the D-Day invasion analogue. The invasion in which Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman were supposedly killed is WW1. What we have is the rough equivalent of the era in which the original version of these characters existed, i.e. the 1940s, transposed onto the fictional Earth 2 storyline. In the real world, the Golden Age characters appeared in the run up to WW2, while in the fictional Earth 2 timeline, they appear in the run-up to the second big war with Steppenwolf.

But Earth 2 has none of the charm or creativity of the Golden Age books. It’s just a book where bringing characters into the modern day = making them flat and angry and setting them in a grim, violent world. If you're reading this for the characters, you'll be disappointed. If you're reading it for a big, dark war story, it might be right up your alley. Clearly I haven’t missed anything by skipping this book, and I will continue to do so in future.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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andersonh1 wrote:Alan Scott looks like Parallax when Parallax was just Hal Jordan gone crazy and not a giant space bug.
How do you think he looks like Parallax? I can see his costume looking a bit like Sodam Yat's Ion costume, but I don't see Parallax at all.
But Earth 2 has none of the charm or creativity of the Golden Age books. It’s just a book where bringing characters into the modern day = making them flat and angry and setting them in a grim, violent world. Clearly I haven’t missed anything by skipping this book, and I will continue to do so in future.
I think you have missed something if you think Earth 2 has none of the charm or creativity of the Golden Age books, although it's a different kind of charm I'll grant you. And there is certainly more to the characters than you're giving them credit for. But to each their own.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

Post by Onslaught Six »

Shockwave wrote:Death's Head is coming back, I read over on TFW that there is going to a DH graphic novel or something. They had a pic of a new design for him.
Nick Roche is drawing it, too!
BWprowl wrote:The internet having this many different words to describe nerdy folks is akin to the whole eskimos/ice situation, I would presume.
People spend so much time worrying about whether a figure is "mint" or not that they never stop to consider other flavours.
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