NCD #2: The good and the not-so-good

Green Arrow\Black Canary #7

Despite all the hate that Judd Winnick seems to inspire whenever he puts pen to paper I honestly don’t mind the majority of his work. Every now and again he can write a real clunker but for the most part he’s a capable writer.

Except for this week.

GA goes to London may have sounded great in theory put in terms of practical application Winnick blows it. The story is dry and dull. And except for an oh to short conversation between GA and Hal the humour is completely lacking.

Green Arrow is one of those characters that I have a blind spot for. I’m willing to give his title a lot of latitude. And over the years that flexibility has come into play, a lot. Unfortunately this week pushed my tolerance to the limit.

I found it incredibly difficult to get past the flat art and the muddy colouring. The solicitation may have said art by Cliff Chiang, but that sure as heck wasn’t Cliff manning the pencil. But it was the colouring that I really disliked. All the interior colours were either mud brown or pea soup green. I don’t know if they were in a rush to get this out the door, or if they were just doing it on the cheap, but there is no shading in this comic. It’s like the colourer put away his box of 64 Crayola crayons and decided to colour with the 8 colour econo-pak instead. And unfortunately, it shows.

This comic was a chore to read.

Booster Gold #8

I feel the need to add my voice to the chorus of disappointment that Geoff Johns is leaving this title. Hell, if Johns ever left DC the sucking sound that you’d hear is the utter implosion of half of DC’s current lineup.

But making me like perennial backup character Booster Gold is a feat worthy of celebration. Johns has completely revitalized this character in a way that keeps Booster true to his roots and doesn’t involve a complete re-think of his origins.

This week’s title is just as solid as the 8 that proceeded it, with appearances by Zero Hour era Green Arrow and Hawkman as well as Wild Dog, Anthro and Pantha. It says something that I’m actually curious as to how Anthro ended up in a modern era DCU story. How did that happen? Perhaps Johns just wanted to give a nod to his upcoming appearance in Final Crisis.

Only three issues left, so savour each one as it comes. It won’t be long for this world.

Green Lantern Corps #23

Finally, back in the saddle again!

Peter Tomasi returns to the Mongul\Sinestro plotline that he started just before we got pulled into the Alpha Lanterns arc.

The Guardians decide to send off a select group of Lanterns into a previously off-limits sector of space in search of some wayward Sinestro rings. While Mongul is out doing some recruiting of his own for the Sinestro Corps, with a coffin full of Black Mercys in tow.

Its always nice to see the Black Mercys being used, even if they are on the verge of being overused. It’s great to see that a one-off story concept by Alan Moore is still relevant to the DCU, some 25 years later.

Anyway, this is a long overdue return to form for this title with Tomasi and Gleason helping the Corps do the two things they do best, kick ass, and take names.

Fantastic Four #556

It may be Ultimates-lite but its still head and shoulders above what is actually being printed by Loeb and co. over in the Ultimates.

Essentially this story is all about Hitch doing what he does best, giant splash pages of fight scenes. Hitch throws in just about every major character he can think of currently knocking around Marvel these days.

There’s just enough ‘plot’ in this issue to justify the wall to wall face stomping that occurs, but I get the feeling that Millar is simply following his standard plan of attack, hinting at a greater plot just below the surface and hoarding all the cards until he plan his big reveal.

When Millar and Hitch are on their game, there’s nothing else I like to read more.

Longshots? Shuffle Monkeys.

So.

The Longshots are dead.

Long live the Longshots!!!

In their place? The Shuffle Monkeys.

That’s right I’m folding the Longshot team name for Ultimate Frisbee. Too many of the people I first started playing with have left the game.

One couple had a baby, half of another couple now commutes between Canada and Oz (not the country, the mythical land) and half of yet another couple has been racked by injuries and can’t afford to take the risk of injuring themselves again. Even S has hung up her cleats for the summer, not wanting to risk an injury herself with the upcoming wedding. Essentially the core is has broken up and only a handful of original Longshot-ers remain.

I thought the time was right to start from scratch. So for the upcoming Speed Point tourney and regular season we’re getting new shirts with new logos.

I’d post our old logo, but it’s buried somewhere on my hard drive.

I’ve got Scottie W. working on a new logo which I hope to have sometime in the next couple weeks. I’ll post photos when I have them.

Wild Weddings

So.

We hit up the florist on the weekend. We knocked boutonnières, bouquets and corsages out of the park in no time flat.

We're going with a red and white theme. Original we're not. But as long as the tableclothes don't look like a cheap pizzeria we're good with it.

Unfortunately the one thing we have yet to agree on is centerpieces. I like a simple flower arrangement and S wants lanterns. We couldn't be more diametrically opposed to each others preferences if we tried. But while we were at the florist she showed us some possible floral centerpieces and I saw a couple I really liked.

It's funny, when we were outlining which designs we liked the best, I found they were really indicative of our personalities. I preferred to just let it all hang out. I liked the arrangements natural and unforced, a little messy even. While S preffered a more subdued, artistic take on them. It was eerie just how easy it was to match each arrangement with each person, personality identification through floral arrangement.

The Great Purge

So.

The great comic purge continues.

I gave a friend of S's about 20 or so comic books today. Apparently her kids love comics so much that at recess they write their own.

Damn.

That's a comic book fan.

If they're drawing their own comics I almost feel kinda bad that I unloaded a buncha mid 80's Marvel on them. If anything will crush the creative spirit it's Big Two corporate greed. I'm taking unbridled creativity and hemming it in with form and structure.

But these kids will probably appreciate them a lot more than anyone else. And I'd rather give them away to them, than make a couple bucks for on Ebay. They strike me as the type who'll read em to pieces about a million times, lose the covers, cut'em into pieces and remember
em forever.

So the next time I come back from Port, these kids are going to hit the jackpot.

NCD #1: What I dun read...

ACTION COMICS #863

The story thus far. Superman’s friends from the future, The Legion of Super-heroes, need his help in stopping a xeno-phobic 31st century Justice League. The only problem is, Earth’s sun has mysteriously turned red, meaning Superman is far less super than he normally is.

This issue wraps up the whole arc and the whole thing wasn’t too shabby. On the whole, I’m fairly clueless as to who\what the Legion are. Although with all their exposure recently in the DCU I’ve picked up enough by osmosis to follow a conversation, even if I can’t chip in intelligently.

Geoff Johns is a capable writer, so he’s able to keep things moving at a fairly decent clip, despite the burgeoning amount of heroes on the page that he needs to make time for.
Gary Franks’ art was solid and I enjoyed seeing him sneak in a DCU version of Doctor Zoidberg, a la Futurama, strappy sandals and all.

Only one thing bothered me in this issue. Johns split up the first act of the story, having the Legion attempt to ‘fix’ the sun, while Superman and Earth man duke it out in orbit. Even though it doesn’t say so explicitly it’s strongly implied that these two events are taking place simultaneously. The problem is that when they fix the sun Superman is instantly re-powered, despite the fact that it takes 8 minutes for sunlight to reach Earth.

This may not have bothered me as much if I hadn’t watched Sunshine recently and had that little fact re-inserted into my brain. It’s an easy fix, with a text box to label the Legion story has happening “Eight minutes ago” and the Superman one as taking place “Now.” I’m pretty sure I’m just quibbling over details.

On the whole, I approve.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #4

I stopped reading this series about a month after it first started and I only picked it up again recently because I want to know how they’re setting things up for Morrison’s upcoming Final Crisis.

It says nothing good about me as a fan that I’m reading a terrible comic book only so I can understand what else is happening in an entirely fictional universe.

In all fairness the art wasn’t as bad this week, as it has been in this title’s recent history. But the writing and dialogue is just atrocious. I won’t bother with repeating any of it here, mostly because I don’t hate myself enough to read this issue again.

Suffice to say if you don’t like making your brain bleed, don’t read this comic.

THE WALKING DEAD #48

I read this and you should too.

I love this comic. I love it enough that I employ passive-aggressive techniques, and flat out begging, to get my girlfriend to read it, and she really doesn’t care for comic books.

I expend a massive amount of relationship capital every month just so I’ll have someone else to talk to about it. I love it that much.

I probably shouldn’t gush this much, it destroys my objectivity.

But an open ended zombie story that refuses to let itself get drawn into making all the safe choices, yes, I’ll have some of that please.

This month? A lot of people die. A lot. Many of them who’ve been around for a very long time.

And one death that still has me on the fence.

Yah, you know the one I’m talking about.

ANNA MERCURY #1 (new pull)

I’m almost always willing to try out a new Warren Ellis comic, considering that he’s told some of my favourite stories over the last four years.

If you subscribe to Bad Signal or visit his website at all then you’ll quickly discover that Mercury is visually just the kind of protagonist that Warren would design. Smart, smart-mouthed and wearing skin light leather.

This one is pretty much Warren doing his thing.

We jump into a story already in progress, throw in some clipped techno-babble, a graphic beatdown (or two) and give readers just enough of the bigger picture to draw them in.

So yes, I’ll be reading this.

thunder, Thunder, THUNDERBOLTS! HOOOOO!!!

When Bad Signal stumbled into my inbox sometime over the weekend I was marginally disappointed to see that Ellis had decided his time on Thunderbolts had come to a close.

The only reason I picked up that title in the first place had to do with his name on the cover. His immanent departure means that I can safely drop this title with no remorse, which goes perfectly with the theme of yesterdays post.

No harm, no foul.

So I was a bit surprised to see that a couple of other blogs that I browse chose to take him to task over his decision. Apparently the recent Siegel ruling on the ownership of the Superman trademark made Warren’s whole creator ownership angle in his email particularly relevant. Some people found his tone arrogant, others questioned the viability of some of the other pro-creator rights names he dropped.

My two cents.

If Warren has the power, influence and pocketbook to be able to survive on only doing brief stints at the mainstream publishers, good on him. He’s fairly straight up when he says that working for Marvel bumped up some of his numbers on his old material. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to own the rights to your own characters in your personal sandbox and making a buck at the same time playing in the sandboxes of others, that’s his right too.

As long as there’s a market for his work and someone is willing to pay him for it, he’s free to write for whomever he wants for whatever length of time he wants to do so.

These are a few of my favourite things...

So.

I’m phasing comic books out of my life. Well not entirely. But I’m definitely going to be changing the way I read them. Over the last month or so I’ve been culling my collection. I’ve been putting the culled bits up on eBay and I’ve sold about a dozen lots or so. I’m sure that, after the posting fees, I’ve lost money. But I feel better actually taking a small financial hit if it means giving the comics to someone who actually appreciates them rather than recycling them or giving them to one of my friend’s kids who may, or may not, give a rats ass about comic books.

But with somewhere north of 4,500 comics in my collection there’s a lot of pruning still to do.

Of course the size of the collection is part of the problem. I’ve been reading comics since I was six, collecting since I was 10 and buying seriously over the last four or five years. My hobby has grown in leaps and bounds and its getting hard to contain it all.

So I’m getting rid of the stuff that I don’t absolutely love and trimming my purchasing habits. Which means some titles are going to be dropped all together, some will be purchased only in trade and the rest will be kept on a very short leash.

I’ve sort of set the upcoming Final Crisis event as my cutoff point. I figure this will be the last major reshuffling of the DCU for awhile and that a new status quo is a good time to make a clean break of things. (Of course it could also mean trouble if new series and projects start to make a name for themselves, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it) A lot titles are winding down their story arcs in preparation for FC and that will make the whole thing a lot easier.

So far so good.

Now if I could just curb my Silver Age back issue habit.