Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

OK, so — not all of these came out this week. Yes, one or two were from last week. Dude, I’m way way behind on buying comics. Give me a break, OK?

Prince of Power #1 (of 4)

BEST OF THE WEEK! (Er, well, last week, technically. But I just read it today.) Man, thank the heavens above Amadeus Cho, angsty billionaire super-genius, isn’t a DC character — I’d hate to see him get offed in an undignified manner as soon as Hercules inevitably returns to reclaim his “Prince of Power” title. Writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente copy and paste the sense of fun and mythological underpinnings from their run on The Incredible Hercules into this new Cho-focused mini (yes, whimsical sound effects included). They had me laughing by the end of the recap page, people. If you want fun instead of grizzly murder, this is the book for you. Grade: A-

Legion of Super-Heroes (Volume 27) #1

I should be thrilled with this book: the writer of my favorite era of the Legion is back writing the newly-restored original version of these characters. This new LoSH should be a slam-dunk, but it’s just… not. I don’t remember the Levitz Legion feeling quite so choppy in its storytelling or stilted in its dialogue. The art from Yildiray Cinar is gorgeous in some parts and amatuerish in others. And there’s too much focus on a character I have no reason to give a shit about yet. I’m not giving up on it yet, but this wasn’t the strongest start. Grade: C+

The Avengers #1

If you dig Bendis’ overall take on the Avengers — and from the sales numbers, it seems you probably do — you’ll dig The Avengers #1 as it’s a quintessential example of Bendisy Avengerism. This one’s mostly a team-building issue, but sets up this first arc as being time-travel-y (a concept for which I am a big sucker) and pulls in characters from a direct-to-DVD movie and a classic mid-90s limited series. (For the record, I still disagree heavily with having Wolverine in the Avengers. Do we really have to have all of the hot movie properties in one book?) Grade: B+

The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 (of 6)

(Yes, another last-week book. Deal.) An interesting beginning, but I’m more excited to see where Grant Morrison is going with this series than I was in the particulars of this issue. I always love seeing artwork from the underappreciated Chris Sprouse, though, and he doesn’t disappoint with Hairy-Chested Batman Amongst the Clan of the Cave Bear; I wish he were drawing all six issues of this series rather than just this first one. While it’s not absolutely required that you have read Final Crisis before reading this book, wow would it ever be a good idea if things like “context” are something you’re into. Grade: B+

Brightest Day #2

I missed the first issue and my local shop didn’t have any, so I know I’m coming in a little late — but I shouldn’t be this lost after missing one issue. I have no idea whatsoever what’s going on, since (much like 52) this isn’t one story, but rather a whole bunch of stories (hopefully related, in the end) which each get advanced just a touch in each issue. It’ll probably read just fine when collected, but right now it feels like I ate the individual ingredients for a recipe instead of waiting for the meal to be cooked. Grade: C

Well, they can’t all be winners.

-Billy Bob Thornton, from his documentary Bad Santa.

10. Nomad’s baby.

This is strictly hand-me-down bling, borrowed from Lone Wolf and Cub and now passed on to Cable. Is there a more foolproof comics move than kidnapping yourself an infant sidekick from her crackhead mom? And what was that kid’s name, anyway? Mary Plot Device? Fake Suspense, Jr.? (It was actually Bucky. I’m not kidding.)

9. The Vision’s Cape.

This is one of the few capes seen on a Marvel hero, for good reason. Aesthetically, it makes little sense given his skill set. While a ghostlike cape seems cool, a cloak as hard as diamond… does not. (But Marvel sticks to its guns, though; the cape itself is treated like a big deal in one 70’s Avengers storyline featuring Attuma, who actually steals it like it’s some fabulous prize. For some reason, the Vision forcibly reclaims the stupid thing.)

8. Dr. Doom’s tunic/dress/skirt.

You’d have to rule your whole nation by fear to get away with this getup. “How can I be even less attractive to women than that bunsen-burning, prematurely gray, socially retarded Reed Richards? I’ve got it! Witness the Renaissance Faire drag of DOOM.”

7. The Son of Satan’s “Wicked” Pitchfork.

Or as everyone else calls them, tridents. Are you the Son of Satan or the Son of the Red Lobster? What, were horns too on-the-nose for your desired image, Daimon Hellstrom? (You might want to take a moment before answering. Because you have a pentagram on your chest.)

6. The Cosmic Cube.

I just don’t why everyone who possesses it insists on keeping it as a cube. Why work so hard to keep it in your grasp? Eventually you either drop it or it gets knocked out of your hand (usually by someone you should’ve turned into ranch dressing about 18 pages ago). It’ll do anything, so the first thing I’d do is make it a Cosmic T-Shirt that never needs cleaning. or better yet… The Cosmic Thong. “If you want the cube that bad, Captain Marvel…”

(cue disco ball and What is Love.)

(And keep your terrific “I’ve already got cosmic boxers… in my pants” quip to yourself.)

5. Speedy.

Even if the Seven Soldiers of Victory were storming a medieval castle, I doubt they’d need two archers shooting boxing glove arrows, so Roy Harper makes this list as the only accessory to have tried heroin.

4. The Eye of Agamotto.

The Ancient One didn’t have the heart to tell his apprentice that the Eye he cherishes was actually purchased in a Tibetan head shop, along with a Strawberry Alarm Clock album, some wicked herb, and a black light poster of Buddha. It only matters that the Sorcerer Supreme believes in it, right? Really, Doc, how do you screw up a kick-ass Cloak of Levitation with that swap-meet crappery? Even Baron Mordo had to fake-like it, for appearances.

3.Aquaman’s Harpoon Hand.

Of all things to replace his missing appendage, why use a fisherman’s tool? It would seem to be contrary to his mission statement. I understand that even if you’re in the Justice League, John Henry Irons or whoever can’t just whip out a custom waterproof robot hand. But was that the only loaner they had in the whole shop?

2. The Loin-Diaper of Fin Fang Foom.

No need to be modest, FFF; we can all tell you’re packing.

1. The Plentiful and Pointless Pouches of Cable.

Hey, Nathan Dayspring A’skanison Pufnstuf, call us when you’re going by “Batman” and all those pouches are on a utility belt. Because the Utility Belt, as science shows us, is undeniably great.

When did Sam Mendes and John August get attached to a potential Preacher movie?  Last I heard, it was still in the muck-encrusted hands of that hackiest of hacks, Mark Steven Johnson — the “director” who blessed us with the atrocious Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and shat all over my favorite novel of all time.  If Mendes and August are attached — and they’re already talking sequel before the first script is done — man, that might conceivably become — gasp! — a really good movie.

It might actually be time for me to get excited about this project…

(I originally posted this at my personal site, but I realized that it fit in here at the JOB, too!  Enjoy!)

Now this is what I want out of a summer blockbuster. Star Trek delivered all of the action, all of the spectale, all of the emotion, all of the characterization I could have asked for and then some. [1]  I found myself immersed in the world, in the stunning visual design and the engaging characters, in a way I’ve never been before with any of the previous Trek films or TV shows.  Star Trek truly managed to do something new with these characters and ideas that have been around for forty years:  make me care about them.

I truly loved the fact that, unlike other recent reboots and reimaginings which simply restarted their stories from scratch, Star Trek managed to explain its own revised continuity as part of the story itself — admittedly, the world of Trek is much more suited to such meta-shenanigans than other series. Director J.J. Abrams and screenwritersRoberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were able to utterly reset our expectations of this world and these characters while still letting the previous stories stand. And wow, do they up the stakes in a big way; there’s one event in partiular in this newly-reimagined universe that would have seemed unthinkable in the original series. When they say “everything you know is wrong”…well, it’s still hyperbole, perhaps, but it’s not as far from the truth as you might think.

Not Exactly Spoilery But Certainly Geeky Digression: I read a comment on a well-known science fiction author’s site today from a commenter who was pissed off because, he said, the new movie threw out all of the previous continuity, rendering moot all of the stories we’ve experienced before.  I took away the exact opposite idea:  to me, the new movie said “everything you’ve already seen still happened, but now this is happening, too.”  But maybe it was a little bit easier for me to take that particular bit of continuity shuffle from all of my years of reading comic books, where this sort of thing is far from a novel idea, especially for readers of DC Comics and/or Grant Morrison.

Anyway.

One of the things I never quite understood about the original Enterprise crew was exactly why this crew was supposed to be special. Yes, Kirk and Spock in particular were compelling characters-cum-icons — there’s a reason they’re still part of the pop culture landscape after forty years — but to me the original Trek always felt like “Kirk and Spock and Those Other Guys (Oh, and the Woman, Too).”   (This isn’t a point I’m interested in arguing — it’s just my relatively uninformed opinion as someone who was never much into Trek.) But in this movie, Abrams and company show that each of these people is indeed special in his or her own way and adds his or her own special brand of brilliance and ultra-competence to the crew. Abrams gives each of the main crew a chance to show off their various skills, and it works spectacularly.  I felt like I was watching these characters for themselvesand not for their (not-even-assigned-yet) Five Year Mission.

And speaking of the characters, the casting in this new movie is almost perfect, especially given the fact that none of these characters is exactly as you remember them from before incarnations. The worst possible decision would have been for Chris Pine to have attempted to ape William Shatner; except for one (I’m sure very conscious) moment toward the end of the movie, he utterly avoids any Shatnerisms. But he brings the core essence of Kirk — the complete self-conifdence, the lusty roving eye, the anti-authoritarian streak — and makes this new James T. Kirk a compelling, if different, character in his own right. Zachary Quinto’s Spock is much more at war with his dual nature than his predecessor, though he’s certainly the actor who looks the most like his character’s previous portrayer.  I especially enjoyed Anton Yelchin’s Chekov and Simon Pegg’s Scotty, both of whom were primarily played for laughs.  (It worked, too – Star Trek was quite a bit funnier than I expected it to be.)

Not Exactly Spoilery But Certainly Geeky Digression: I found it notable that while most of the secondary characters never had their full names mentioned on the show — usually that information got revealed in after-the-show sources like movies or novels or role-playing games — every one of the main Enterprise crew gets his or her full name dropped at some point in the new movie.  Just another little touch I liked.

Yes, the science is wonky and didn’t make much sense.  I truly didn’t care — some people like science fiction for the science, but I’m more into the fiction part.  And the fiction in this movie worked fantastically for me.  I was sad when the movie ended and came out of the theater already looking forward to the inevtiable sequel.

Grade: A

[1] This opinion was not colored by the fact that I’d just seen the craptastic Spider-Man 3 twelve hours before.

Today’s Question-

Dear Mr. Hex:
Recently, I’ve entered into an online relationship with a girl who lives about 700 miles away. She seems to be going through a rough patch financially, because she’s asked me for (and I’ve sent her) about $2,500 in the last three months. We’ve never actually met face-to-face, but I’m now convinced that I should quit my job as a supermarket assistant manager and move to be with her. I’ve tried to gauge how she feels about this possibility, but lately it’s gotten so hard to get even a word in with all the other people chatting with her during the webcasts from her bedroom. How can I tell if it’s time to overcome my fear and take that leap of faith in the name of love? You may be my only hope.

–Sleepless in Starkville

Jeezus H! In the time it took to finish reading your palaver, I came up with two plans.

First Plan:

1. Quit your job, go to where this “girl” lives (I’m not too savvy about those fancy computers, but… you’re sure she’s a girl, right?).
2. Ask her for your money back. If she says no, ask her to marry you and be done with it. If she refuses again, sing her Peter Cetera’s “The Glory of Love” from Karate Kid 2. I’m sure you know the words.
3. Start planning your wedding. It’s a’comin’, no doubt.

Second Plan:

1. Wire me $1,000. (Or PayPal it–didn’t say I was computer illiterate, just that I’m not that savvy.)
2. I go to see this “girl”.
3. I get your $2,500 by threatening to shoot her and her “boss” in the face.
4. $2,500 in hand, I shoot them both in the face for drawing on me as soon as I turn my back.

Only one has a chance at working–you guess which one and get back to me.

Jonah Hex is a life coach with over 140 years experience in counseling and conflict resolution. Send your request for guidance to j.hex@bulletsofwisdom.net or care of this site.

Once upon a time, DC could have announced Kevin Smith writing a new Batman miniseries and then a monthly series to follow and I would have eaten that shit right up.  I liked his Green Arrow fine and really enjoyed his Daredevil, and of course I really liked his movies up through the mid-2000’s or so.

But then Smith blew most of his comic-writing cred with me by writing a couple of series he never bothered finishing for Marvel.  (Or Marvel never bothered asking him to finish them, maybe.)  Further, I didn’t much care for the issues that did come out.  And then he did a recent Batman miniseries which turned the Joker — in theory one of the scariest, most bat-shit (so to speak) insane villains DC has — into a Clerks-style innuendo-filled fop.  And on top of that, he had one of his cronies (Walt Flanagan, previously best know as the owner of the small priapic dog who bedeviled Jay and Silent Bob in Smith’s comics of the mid-90’s) do the artwork, which just feels a little more obviously nepostistic to me than I might care for.

So, yeah, totally not excited by this announcement (nor, particularly, the Green Hornet book he’s going to write based on his aborted film).  Even with the gaps built into the schedule to allow him to complete this thing, I have no confidence it’ll actually get done on any reliable schedule, or at all.  Note that I’m not necessarily speculating as to the quality of these books, mind you — they could be perfectly entertaining.

As long as he leaves the Joker out of it.

Today’s Question:

I once killed a girl with her own knife, but she was later resurrected by some Ninjas. Could I be tried for that crime now? Doesn’t there have to be a dead body or something? -Never Miss in Millersville Funny you should ask! Not that I need a reason of any kind to bring this up, but two of my girlfriends were murdered by the same guy. And while one of them managed to come back from the dead, unfortunately, she’s not the one who did porn. (Don’t judge me. When you work two jobs like I do, there’s usually no time for lovin’, so in that aspect of the relationship, efficiency is key.)

Oh, and you’re totally in the clear on that “kinda-sorta” murder, under that “no body” reasoning. (I like your instincts! Have you ever considered a job in law? Shoot me an email! I’ll read it with my fingertips!)

Matt Murdock is a licensed attorney who’s only been disbarred once. Email your legal queries to imnotdaredevil.really.imnot@marvellaw.com or in care of Jimmy Olsen’s Blues.

Well, so far none of you out there have responded to our wonderful do-it-yourself Mayor of New York contest thingie. So our very own Ben thought he’d show you how it’s done:

There you go. And he’s got more where that came from. Y’all’z gots to step it up, y’hear?

The Source has the full-color version of Frank Quitely’s cover for Batman and Robin #2. As much as I love Quitely’s stuff in general, am I the only one a little put off by the scratchiness/sketchiness of they style he’s using for B&R? I mean, don’t get me wrong — it’s still gorgeous stuff, but the sketchiness makes it look rushed to me, and “rushed” is never a word I think of when I think of Frank Quitely. Opinions?

So I see on @superpow3r’s Twitter feed this morning that the tabloid AM New York has an early-morning spoiler about who will be elected the new mayor of Marvel New York City in today’s Amazing Spider-Man #591.

And my first thought was: there’s only one possible person who could be elected mayor of New York which could possibly be that interesting that any tabloid would run a story on it this morning.* And whaddayaknow, I was exactly right! Just from reading that there existed a link to the tabloid which had the spoiler. I’m a pretty bright guy and all, but if I got the Big Twist from that little fact alone…I’m thinking it’s probably not quite the shocker** Marvel expected it to be. (In all fairness, whether it’s truly a massive surprise or not, this development could lead to exactly the kinds of odds-stacked-against-him stories Spider-Man is known for. I have a hunch it’ll play better than Oliver Queen-as-mayor of Star City did..)

And hey, this looks like a brilliant opportunity to kick off our DIY Humor feature which I made up right this very second! Think you’ve got a better idea for who should be the new mayor of Marvel New York than [name redacted]? Well, show us!

Take the image above and insert who you think would make a good/horrible mayor. Bonus points if it’s someone who’ll make Spidey’s life a living hell, because, well, Spidey’s just not Spidey if he’s not spouting wisecracks while suffering immensely. Post your doctored image to your own blog or site and either email us your entry at crew@jimmyolsensblues.com or just ping us back. We’ll provide a list of all entries we get, so all seven of our readers will see your stabs at humor!

By the way, maybe those of you who read ASM on a regular basis can tell me: has [name redacted for those who might actually be spoiled by this] actually been running for mayor? Or is this supposed to be the result of some surprisingly massive write-in campaign?

* Well, unless Marvel decided Norman Osborn had time to for mayorial duties as well. Or maybe Barack Obama — he seems to sell a lot of comics these days.

** Now if Spidey nemesis The Shocker were elected mayor…