We Regret The Error

Corrections from Episode 33:

Item: Rich Johnston of Lying In The Gutters reports that 1st/last winner Legion #50's writer "Justin Thyme" was not Jim Shooter writing under a pseudonym (due to his being upset over the book's cancellation and not being able to finish his story the way he wanted, as Aaron speculated) and seems in fact to have been several other writers/plotters/scripters.

Item: Terry McGinnis and the various incarnations of Bruce Wayne are not, in fact, Evie's only two cartoon crushes. A third (and her first) was Goemon Ishikawa XIII from the Lupin III anime.





Item: When Evie compared Final Crisis to a David Lynch movie, Aaron said it was more like a David Lynch movie stuck on fast forward. What Aaron should have said was that it is like several hours comprised of 30-second clips from different David Lynch movies.

ABC Podcast, Episode #33 and visual aids

This very special episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Hilarious Reasons That It's Better To Be a Woman than a Man, am I right ladies? Abnett and Lanning hit one out of the space park with Nova #21, we say farewell to the Legion, Terry Moore quietly excels and Wonder Woman makes a move. Last but certainly not least, DO NOT miss our EXTRA SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE interview with the God of Sea Mammals of Comics, who answers ALL of your undoubtedly many, many, many questions about Final Crisis #7.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Aaron's picks, from Runaways #6, cover by Humberto Ramos:


And Greatest Hits #5, cover by Glen Fabry:


Evie's pick, from Legion of Super Heroes #50, cover by Francis Manapul, John Livesay and JD Smith (note: in the podcast I say something idiotic about not knowing who "Livesay" is, but that's because I didn't look two lines up to see that he was the inker for the book and in fact does have a first name. This is one of about six incredibly idiotic things I say during this episode, it's one of those days):


Panel(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Wonder Woman #28 by Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti:


Aaron's pick, from Daredevil #115 by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark

Huh?

I have a sneaking suspicion that Grant's going to have to join us on the podcast this weekend to explain exactly what the hell just happened.

ABC Podcast, Episode #31 and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by the Forkies, who are enraptured. In a week where the Big Two fight for easy press, the biggest story for us is the beautiful conclusion of I Kill Giants, which made Aaron cry even harder than the end of Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Captain Britain and MI13 turns in another fine chapter, and two series starring kick-ass ladies come to a premature end. SPOILER: Batman died. SPOILER TWO: Batman will be alive again soon enough. Happy new president week!

ALSO: Because we got a lot of follow-up questions to last week's show--here is the link to the iTunes store for Aaron's band, or search for "The Ampersands" (album called "And") at Rhapsody, Napster, eMusic, CD Baby, or wherever you get those things.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, Anna Mercury #5 painted cover by Paul Duffield:


Aaron's pick, Final Crisis #6 by JG Jones:


Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Captain Britain and MI13 #9 by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk (context: Pete Wisdom is destroying a corridor of dreams where people are falsely living out their hearts' desires):


Evie's pick, from Final Crisis #6 by Grant Morrison and 600 artists:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Heh heh, just kidding, like Bruce Wayne is actually dead for good, as fucking if.

(I was thinking of reviewing Final Crisis #6, but then I read Caleb's review here, which is pretty much exactly what I think. And of course we'll talk about it on the podcast this weekend, over the next 48 hours I'll practice not being excessively shrill).

You know what's a terrible thing to do?

A terrible thing to do is to fall asleep while reading Final Crisis. Seriously, you will wake up and not even know what hemisphere you're in. Particularly since you won't have fallen asleep all at once, but in fits and starts, while sort of reading two or three pages that shift transitionless between context-free scenes, characters you forgot existed and Mary Marvel scalp-stubble. It's horrifying.

Ok but seriously

I'm not really a giant fan of Superman, for all the reasons that anyone who isn't a giant fan of Superman isn't a giant fan of Superman. He's a little too too, you know? I like me some baggage, and failure, and character flaws other than being too nice. But I still appreciate the scope of his importance, and read his various titles, because no self-respecting girl who follows the DCU and was a toddler in the late 1970s* would do otherwise. In general I don't get overly invested in the Superman stories beyond their importance to the big picture. Which is why this New Krypton thing is, how shall I say it, a triple helping of whack.

100,000 Kryptonians. With the power of Superman. And naturally without his values and loyalty to humans. Let's put it this way: if Geoff Johns and James Robinson manage to think up an escape from this situation that is not totally devastating or totally preposterous, I will be stunned. Either the world ends, or they all die in a General Lane Kryptonite attack, or Superman improbably convinces them all to behave forever, or somebody finds them an empty but perfectly inhabitable planet orbiting a yellow sun that they can all go be powerful and autonomous on. Ok, that one is probably the most plausible. But that seems a little anti-climactic.

I think, though, that what's really sitting weird about this storyline isn't the crap sandwichness of the situation vis a vis homeland security. It's that it just so wholeheartedly unravels the mythology of Superman. He's the last son of Krypton, forced to cope with this responsibility on Earth. That's, like, his thing. Sure there's been the joy and drama of introducing isolated characters like Supergirl and Phantom Zone folk and alternate-universe Kryptonians, but not a whole damn city's-worth of them--I know the bottle Kandor thing has been around for a while, and I'll admit to never quite getting my head around it--but this is just nuts.

Now I realize that people who have been reading comics for decades might look at this and go "girl, this is nuthin, we've seen crazy irretrievable shit and this ain't it." Ok fine. But you understand my concern. I guess maybe this is where reboots come in handy. Perhaps Johns phoned up DiDio sometime last year and said "Dan, I'd like to use my Crisis Line please," and Grant Morrison will render this all moot. Cuz otherwise, I don't see this ending without a whole lot of martial law and broke shit and PTSD.**

*Like Aaron with Julie Newmar, I attribute my first recognition of the opposite sex and vague understanding of its significance to Christopher Reeve. I assume this also works for gay males of my approximate age.

**I know it's comics, everything will be fine.

He's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman

Anyone else hearing blaxploitation disco hooks in the background of Final Crisis: Submit? No? Just me?

ABC Podcast Episode #14, and visual aids

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by "Two and a Half Men," used around the world either for the crisp petiole or the fleshy taproot. Kooky heroes with claws get lots of love, as does a new indie book inexplicably edited by the guy who created "America's Funniest Home Videos." Special not-to-miss feature is Aaron's Secret Invasion #6 Crap of the Week Flashblast from the Backpast Old Timey Radio Comic Book Haberdashery.

Download and/or subscribe in the right sidebar, and please post an iTunes review!

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from X-Men: Magneto Testament #1, cover by Marko Djurdjevic:



Aaron's pick, from Final Crisis: Revelations #2, cover by Philip Tan:



Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Wonder Woman #24, by Gail Simone and Bernard Chang:



Evie's pick, from Patsy Walker: Hellcat #3 by Katherine Immonen and David Lafuente:

Half-assed follow-up

Oh, so I read Final Crisis: Revelations, and felt that it ruled, particularly in the way where you know things that rule are coming.

Also, Secret Invasion #5 shocked me with its semblance of a moving plot, so that was nice. And Young Avengers/Runaways #2 was exactly as good as I expected, and Molly threw a Skrull nearly into orbit, which is all I really needed.

Other than that, I haven't read anything else, because my work plate is Happy Time Buffet high. It's the 50th anniversary of the Hot 100, and I have some hit songs to chronicle (two of them Roberta Flack, making this the second Roberta Flack reference on my comic book blog this week, and that's probably an internet first). I'll cram everything else in time for the podcast, where I'll just choose "C" for every category.

Together again for the first time

I won't be able to pick up any books until later in the afternoon but I just had to mention this morning* how deeply I'm looking forward to Final Crisis: Revelations, the first issue of which comes out today. Rucka + Montoya + Allen + Question + Spectre = Yes. I have my problems with the main Final Crisis series, but I am strongly optimistic that this tie-in will slalom around many of those holes. And if it doesn't, I'm sure we can all find something external to blame it on.

*Also, I don't want yesterday's post at the top of the page.

ABC Podcast, Episode #9

Episode #9 of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by trains, because TRAINS ARE AWESOME. Aaron lauds the heroism of a topless Emma Frost, while Evie imagines a Cyclops v. Nightwing inter-company crossover wrestling match. Aaron presents the Crap of the Week Final Crisis #3 Read-Along What the Fuck. Terry Moore and Eternals win big, and also, trains are awesome.

Download this episode and/or subscribe to the podcast in the right sidebar.

This is gimmicky, but sometimes a few haikus, help me to wake up

Final Crisis 3
Feels like that one time in math
When you were real high

Echo is lucky
Who doesn't want a brassiere
That smites enemies

Mary Jane Watson
Eats EZ Cheez for dinner
And loves Spidey Kong

That Patsy Walker
Hangs with Inuit witches
And can drive standard

Robin, Boy Wonder
Is a better detective
Than Grant Morrison

While Cable escapes
Cyclops has an angsty fest
And gets some boobies

El-e-phants and kangaroosies-roosies

Jeff Sharlet, journalist and author of the new scary awesome hilarious book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, totally pimped the Awesomed By Comics Podcast today in the Revealer, a daily journal about religion and the media. How did he reconcile that obvious glaring topical mismatch, you say? Well, a)he's the editor, b)as a religion reporter who writes for Rolling Stone and other widely read cultural publications, he knows better than anyone how the mythologies of phenomena like superhero comics are deeply connected to mythologies of all kinds, and c)he totally hearts Buffy and Daredevil.

We definitely need to have him on the show soon, maybe to talk about Final Crisis: Revelations. Or Buffy or Daredevil.

Anyway, we are much obliged, and will hopefully not totally alienate the unsuspecting religion scholars and such who take his recommendation.

Putting My Finger On It.

You want content, Evie? Here you go.

It has been 91 days since Marvel Comics published Secret Invasion #1, and 35 days since DC Comics released Final Crisis #1. It has been 91 and 35 days respectively, since I started trying to figure out why I don't care about either.

Both books have held the promise of being instrumental in the next several years of both Universes, and therefore a majority of superhero comics. Marvel and DC and general comic book punditry expressed the fact that these events will be prefixed in future comics discussion. Events will be described as Pre-Final Crisis or Post-Secret Invasion. These are major shakeups in two of the fantasylands I care probably too much about. So why am I so apatheic about both?

Event Fatigue

It seem like it's been a decade since either publisher has gone more than six months without an earth-shaking, world-defining, NWEBTSA.* Comics insiders, podcasters, bloggers and creators have been debating event fatigue for years. Will comic fans tire? Will creators tire? Will such a glut of must-get events turn off new readers, sacrificing the future for the fanboys?

Whatever the answers to these questions are, they're not the reason I'm not enjoying Final Crisis or Secret Invasion. While the never-ending stream of drama can certainly get cumbersome, I thoroughly enjoyed Annihilation: Conquest, Salvation Run, and World War Hulk. I'm not sick of events. Next.

Lack of a Singular Bad Guy Focus

Since I have a nearly identical meh for both of these events, my next thought was to look for similarities between the two books, and where they differ from other recent events that I liked. Final Crisis has Libra, Darkseid, and perhaps the Sheeda... Secret Invasion has a whole mess of skrulls, some of whom may or may not be apparent even to the reader. WWH had Hulk. A:C had Ultron.

However, Salvation Run didn't really have any villians at all. Odd as it may be to not have a clear big baddie, this isn't it.

No Coalition of Heroes

Events do typically begin with a gathering of the forces of good against whoever the big baddie is. Without the coalition, it doesn't really feel like the event has truly begun; it feels like prologue. This occurred to me one night on the way to the supermarket, and I really thought that this was it. But by the time I had picked up my ice cream and was headed back to my car, I had decided that this couldn't possibly account for my indifference.

Lack of Encyclopedic Knowledge

I heard the guys on iFanboy discussing this one the other day, in the context of Final Crisis #2. I'm not catching all of the references. I'm not familiar with all of the backstory. But this only applies to Final Crisis. I do have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe. I do get every reference in Secret Invasion. And I don't like it any better.

Morrison and Bendis are "Writing For the Trade"

Is it possible these two stories are not intended to be read serially, and instead digested as a lump sum at the end. Except both have been rife with the 22nd page shocker. This isn't it either.

Bendis and Morrison have not taken the proper steps as writers to define the stakes.

If this is a NWEBTSA ... I need to know what's going to change. What happens if the bad guys win? How will their victories affect me, average non-powered citizen of either universe? I swore that this was it. But it's not. I know what the stakes are. Skrulls are going to take over the planet. Libra is going to kill all superheroes. I suppose I don't know exactly what Darkseid is up to, but it's not good. So what is it?

Is it the hype?

I would have no problem enjoying either of these stories if they had not been hyped as world-changing. Final Crisis is thus far a JLA story. If Final Crisis was simply called JLA, I'd be loving it. Secret Invasion is thus far an Avengers story. If Secret Invasion was simply called Avengers, I'd be loving it. I wish DC hadn't made me feel as though I needed to read a year worth of awful Countdown and Countdown-related tales to understand Final Crisis. I wish Marvel wasn't threatening to screw with decades of stories by revealing that the characters are skrulls and didn't realize they were skrulls. (See, it was all a dream!) The hype hurts, but it alone is not what's killing these stories for me.

Predictability?

The last several NWEBTSA's done by both companies truly did change the landscapes of both universes. Civil War has dramatically altered the Marvel Universe. Identity/Infinite Crisis did similarly at DC. Annihilation reshaped Marvel's cosmic map. Even Death of the New Gods - as poorly executed as many thought it was - changed things forever in the DCU. All of these events finished with unpredictable results.

Are the Skrulls going to take over the earth? Is Libra going to kill all the good guys? Of course not. But predictablility has never stopped me from buying a comic before.

So as Bendis might say ... "The Hell?"

Truth is, it's all of this. These books started with a few strikes against them, and through mediocre storytelling (so far) have garnered even more strikes. There are many many comics readers who are feeling a high level of apathy for both of these books, due to all of these problems.

I will not quit reading either of these books, and I have great respect for both writers. But one month into Final Crisis and three months into Secret Invasion, neither have delivered on the promise of a spectacular event.

Learn from the mistakes of these two series, Marvel and DC. Don't start events like this again.




*("nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again")

Ok, um...

...Not only did Runaways #30 tie up every loose end, have some true surprises and give Molly multiple winner lines, it made me tear fucking up. This story arc has been so drawn out that I had forgotten what we were even waiting for, but Whedon managed to make it all come back and make sense, and give Chase one of the tenderest comic book moments in recent memory. Despite my spaz-out yesterday, I must remind myself that I did name this blog and the podcast after a piece of dialog that Joss Whedon wrote for this very series, and that he did have the characters pretty well nailed. Which I think made the delays and clumsiness of the set-up that much more disappointing. Anyway, there's really no doubt that this issue will be my First or Last of the Week for the next podcast, so I won't go into it all here, but suffice it to say I am relieved and now almost sad to see Whedon go. Stupid comics fans, you can't win with those bastards!

So, moving on, before the guilt of not doing the work I'm supposed to be doing takes over--as the few of you who know me personally know ten times over, I have a back issue for which I had surgery in December, and the surgery apparently didn't work so now I have the same problem in addition to residual crap from being cut open. Yeah, wah wah wah. Anyway, I have physical therapy in the late afternoon on Mondays and Wednesdays, so depending on how my work day plays out, I'm sometimes able to go straight home afterwards instead of back to the office. I was having kind of a shitty day pain-wise, so I was feeling frowny-faced and being kind of babyish with my therapist and in a general state of orneriness. The weather was unbelievably beautiful when I went outside, so instead of going back to work or getting on the train, I decided my mood could use a comic book and a frozen treat. So I detoured to Forbidden Planet on Broadway and 13th (where, incidentally, way too many dudes think it's ok to read all of their books right there in the too-skinny aisle), brought Final Crisis #2 to Red Mango on 14th and 6th, and decided pretty rapidly that I will be doing this every Wednesday this summer. Seriously, it was a substantially pleasant half hour (I don't race the clock when Morrison is involved), and lifted my spirits several notches.

I don't care who's bitching about what, Final Crisis was great--well paced, cinematic and very nearly terrifying in the right ways. I'm pretty much in the camp that thinks Morrison has been a tad of a dick in the press lately, but it's gotta be said that his storytelling is several levels above the norm. Like, startlingly so. I'm still trying to spelunk my way through Seven Soldiers of Victory with erratic success, but that's my own stupid, and I'm quite willing to read it multiple times to fully appreciate it. And Final Crisis is clearly building from SSoV quite nicely, so I am patient enough to wait for the slow, thinky unravel.

Anyway, if you happen to live in New York and wander into Red Mango on a Wednesday at around 5:00, and see a girl eating a medium yogurt with strawberries and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and reading a Secret Invasion tie-in, say hi. Or ask me how my back is doing, I love to tell people about it.

Seven Soliders of Abstraction and Ambiguity

I'm reading Seven Soldiers of Victory as background for Final Crisis. If anyone can explain this series in seven coherent sentences, I'll send you some kind of legitimate prize. I think maybe it was written in magnetic poetry.

ROFLMAO, JPHRED52

I've been roaring through my backlog of books, it's kind of acquired a homework motif. It's that idiot fear of missing an issue, and then when the next one comes, you're like "What the hey?! Who is that and why are they in that place with that other guy and isn't he dead?" The point is, there are about 12 too many Wolverine books, and I'm just not going to read them. Except for Wolverine First Class, because of the cute Kitty Pryde and the cow lady named Bova that Logan keeps calling Bessy. She finally stopped correcting him. I am an enormous sucker for anthropomorphic animals, by the way.

I have to say it, I can visualize at some point in the near future digging on Final Crisis. Sure it makes little sense now, but I was far less flummoxed than I anticipated, and any appearance of Renee Montoya is a strong courting of my favor. Essentially, if the Spectre were to inhabit the body of a talking sheep for his team-up with the Question in Revelations, I'd be the very definition of enthusiasm.

On Trinity, though, I'm going to have to agree with Doug. I'll just add an "M" to that "Eh." I've been kind of a fan of DC's bronzified version of Morgaine Le Fey since her recurring bitchfest on Justice League Unlimited, but this lady is aggravating. Bring on the examination of the complex relationship among the Big Three, but not if Bruce Wayne is going to call Clark Kent "buddy." That is not working for me.

Also. Secret Invasion is boring me senseless. Just gotta get it out there. Even the massive fight scene was drowsy, because it came out of nowhere. It's like super draggy intrigue over here, setup-free chaos over there. I'll still read every damn crossover, because I am a fool, but I'd rather not have to whine about it. Fortunately we have eight dozen more issues for it to get good.

Finally, re: Detective #845, am I alone in thinking that there needs to be more late-night IMing between Batman and Detective Chimp? I cannot be alone.