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Cover(s) of the Week
Evie's pick, from Secret Six #21, cover by Daniel Luvisi:
Aaron's pick, from Sweet Tooth #9, by Jeff Lemire:
Panel(s) of the Week
Aaron's pick, from Captain America Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers #2:
Evie's pick, from Hellboy in Mexico by Mike Mignola and Richard Corbin:
23 comments:
TWO EVIE SHOWS! W00T!
Twice the Evie but only half the Aaron. My ears really could have used more Aaron. Not just his smooth calming radio dj-ish voice, but his audio mixing skills. iFanboy seemed like a nice enough show, but it kinda hurt my ears.
Hi, this is my first visit, but having heard Evie review Secret Six in iFanboy, here I am. I love that book too.
Can't wait to listen to your podcast on my way to work.
After a year of listening, I finally got my Bobby Brown reference
Mart: Welcome, and hope you enjoy! I suggest perusing the archives as well.
Derrick: I find it impossible to believe we have never made a Bobby Brown reference before.
"What can the Joker do?"
If you paid attention you'd know that he's been killing all of the Black Glove's underlings. All of the people in the newspaper clippings, on the map? Remember how those were all Black Glove members? They were in R.I.P., working under Dr. Hurt, and in Batman & Robin #10 "Oberon" reminded you that they were Black Glove members being murdered.
So that was the reveal: not only was the Joker "Oberon" the detective, but that identity has been his cover while he actually went around killing all these bad guys who were working under Dr. Hurt/El Penitente/Thomas Wayne/The Devil/whatever-you-want-to-call-him (the Big Bad who's reappeared in the last two issues).
And in this same issue, a few pages before the reveal, Dr. Hurt suggests that there's going to be an imminent fight between his forces and the Joker. So while Bruce has been gone, behind the scenes the Joker has been helping Dick and Damian out against the Black Glove, and now the battle lines are out in the open.
This stuff is JUST beneath the surface. If you read even a micrometer beneath the surface of what you read, then at least SOME of this would be obvious to you, but sadly you guys seem to have missed ALL of it.
The Joker's been at odds with Hurt and the Black Glove since the end of R.I.P. (We saw this in Batman #681.) Now in B&R #12 it's suggested that he may be the "Domino Killer" too. Remember in the first B&R arc when Toad was killed in his cell? It's suggested that the Joker might have done that. Professor Pyg also used the Joker's old circus (seen in The Killing Joke) as his hideout. So the Joker may be behind almost everything.
Here's some advice: You shouldn't be so hung up on whether or not you "like" a character. If that's all you're reading for, then your reading is stunted and immature. You "like" Damian? You "don't like" Damian? You didn't like him but now you might "LIKE-like" him? Is reading comics supposed to be a junior high dating rumor-mill? If you'd stop trying to fall delusionally in love with fictional characters like a child does with Disney cartoons, then you'd get more mature, worthwhile, substantive appreciation of comics.
By the way, I'm not a Morrison homer. This recent issue, I think it was a bad idea to bring Talia in--that felt clumsy. Overall I'd give Batman & Robin a B-. I'm not a Morrison nut, just a fan of comics that actually reward thinking.
Pity that came after you did War Rocket Ajax, when you could have used in for the "Big Ups to All My Haters" section.
Great show, I loved the way to handled the forgetting the joke/outtake thing.
I'm all for comics that reward thinking.
I prefer comics that inspire caring.
Here's the thing - our seeming disdain for Batman and Robin comes from the fact that it's setting up a MASSIVE event in one of the two main comics universes, and is talked about by virtually everyone in and around the comics world, and we've both felt for the last year that we should try to follow it. So we have.
The problem we both have with Batman and Robin is similar to the problem we both sort-of had with Iron Man 2. They both concentrated so much on hitting specific bullet points (fight scenes and Avengers setup in IM2, puzzle pieces and Return of Bruce Wayne setup in B&R) that they haven't really bothered to hit any emotional or character points.
The reason we both have come around on Damian is that we finally saw some growth in his character in this last issue. Dick hasn't budged an inch character-wise since this thing began.
We had the same problem in Secret Invasion. It felt to us like it was all about dispensing information TO the reader, not engaging WITH the reader.
Unless you are Grant Morrison AND you've been writing Batman and Robin SPECIFICALLY so that Evie and I would enjoy it -- you shouldn't take it personally that this book doesn't speak to us. Ditto people who liked Blackest Night or Secret Invasion, or Image United or Savage Sword of Conan or whatever other books are out there that WE FEEL are concerned more with being an infodump than with creating and developing a relationship between the reader and the characters.
Also, FYI, my secret word is "Eyenests."
Dude, nobody thinks Evie and Aaron are more wrong about Batman and Robin than I do, but you're just being a jerk.
Mr. Anonymous:
I'm not reading "Batman & Robin," but it cannot possibly be as tedious as you make it sound.
Well, isn't Mr or Ms Anonymous patronising? I generally enjoy Batman and Robin but the revelation that the mystery man was the Joker had me yawning after an otherwise great issue. The Joker ... it makes perfect sense, because Deathstroke and a member of the Al-Ghul family had already been used this issue. I do get tired of the same old people.
Also, I want the Joker to be either insane or not - he shouldn't be able to take on a temporary new shtick in order to take down rivals in some masterplan. And why would he bother, he's the bleedin' Joker - he's already number 1.
I enjoyed the Secret Six talk and if you click on my name you'll see that I agree (don't feel you have to, life is short!)
As for Blackest Night, yup,I thought it was something new, not Blackest Night Continued. And I had other objections, basically the amount of spatter on display (again, views on me blog so I'll not take up space here).
What does that word beginning with L mean that kept coming up re: Hellboy? Lucerne? Lorgnettes. Lambada ... I forget, soz!
Loved the show, I'll be back.
Oh I just love you all.
And Mart, the L word was "luchadores"--Mexican wrestlers. The guys with the awesome masks. But yeah we didn't really explain :).
My captcha word is "burstie".
Aw, cheers. I'm so unworldly.
Mine is movet, but last time it was SuBo!
Oh, also, you wouldn't believe how painful the lead-up to the Irredeemable/Absolution (similar concepts in the titles too) reveal was if the listener figured out before you two what was going on.
This post wasn't really worth making, but my captcha word was "psionove" so I sort of had to. That's definitely a Rob Liefeld character name.
We considered cutting out that very embarrassing exchange, but decided it would provide the kind of entertainment/pain you all expect from us.
I enjoyed it, and was expecting the revelation that Aaron had been replaced by a Skrull. It happens.
The whole Black Widow multi-lingual thing in Iron Man 2 actually was brought up in the boxing scene. Tony brought up all the languages she spoke, including Russian and Latin. So they did address it, which speaks to the particular plot point you guys were talking about...but I do think that they should have mentioned her KGB background to help flesh out her character (which desperately needed fleshed out).
And, as for Batman and Robin, I really liked this issue, but the reveal was actually my least favorite part about it. Morrison pretty much recycled a New X-Men plot here. I mean, the whole "a new, bizarre masked ally appears and helps the hero until the eventually reveal that they are the hero's greatest adversary" bit was much better done when it was Xorn. The Xorn reveal had much more build-up, and more actual "Wow, that makes a lot of sense" evidence that Morrison laid in the groundwork in all the appearances of the character, which I think the Oberon Sexton reveal was lacking. But that Damian/Talia scene was pretty awesome!
Great point about Xorn, Kevin. I am officially awesomed by comments.
Although "Anonymous" could have phrased it a little more gently, it doesn't really help to be dismissive as many of the comments are. Thanks to Aaron for actually engaging his criticisms.
I haven't been a fan of Batman and Robin, but I would never expect it to be an ABC favorite given their 92-show (!) trajectory. Evie and Aaron have a weakness for particular kinds of books and artists (funny and/or cutesy comics often get more leeway than a book like Batman and Robin might). That's fair, it's their show.
Cutesy!?! You say that as if I would give Book of the Week to something like, I dunno, "Owly and Friends". Oh wait.
But yeah, we've certainly given plenty of props to more complex, serious books (see the constant attention to 'Sweet Tooth' and 'Unknown Soldier'), but our weakness for dark and/or absurd humor is undeniable. I do love Batman and read all of the Bat books, they've just been hit or miss to my tastes lately.
Aaron, Evie, loved the music coming in at the end of the show, I couldn't help but imagine you two (A&E, what a terrific combo of initials, if you know UK hospitals) coming together for a slow dance at the end of the School Prom.
Maybe that's just me ...
The end-of-show song is an instrumental version of a track from my band's upcoming second album, which has yet to be titled. Or finished.
It's a comparison of a relationship to a disupted territory during the Franco Prussian War.
Yes it is.
For more on my great band, The Ampersands, see the blog post right below this one!
"Shit. Man, Fuck me!"
"Later."
That has to be the greatest comeback in a comicbook podcast EVER.
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