Jimmy Olsen’s Blues

Non-Book of the Week: Amazons Attack #3 -

This is the third issue?

The art of underrated Pete Woods isn’t enough to make me care about this odd little pocket event. That I place Countdown ahead of this in terms of my interest is your first hint that it’s probably not worth $2.99. That DC isn’t inserting Amazons subplots into every single one of its books tells you they don’t think it’s worth it, either.


Other Non-Worthy Non-Books for June 27th:

Countdown #44-

On Earth 38^[1], this series is titled DC’s Four Color Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and too much of a bad thing is staying on the racks, unsold.

X-Men: First Class, Volume 2 #1 –

I’m a numbers geek. I’ll own it. I just can’t get past this numerically awkward title, and I hope it overcomes the psychology of “selling more of a new #1 than you would’ve of plain #7″ and sells about 7 copies.

World War Hulk: Frontline and World War Hulk: X-Men –

As discussed in our reviews of WWH #1, we here at JOB are excited at the possibility of a self-contained Big Story. And while it’s nice of Marvel to offer supplemental books (from House of M through Civil War, and Civil War, and Civil War…), until it commits to making them at least minutely effective as stand-alone pieces and to not making them essential pieces of the main storyline, we’re ignoring them.

Two and a Half Brubakers: Daredevil #98, Immortal Iron Fist #6, Criminal #7 –

…

Just kidding. We do like comics here. Especially really good ones.
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[1]I claimed this DC Earth as mine between the events of 52 #52 and Countdown #51. You snooze, you lose, suckers.

I don’t really pay attention to these things much anymore — most of my toy buying is comics-related rather than movie-related (and, every so often, kid-related) — so I have absolutely no clue if this toy is indeed the single worst movie tie-in ever, as Wm. Steven Humphrey of the Portland Mercury posits. But I think the man’s certainly got a valid point:

The Human Torch has no need for an “All-Terrain Vehicle” — because the last time I checked, the Human Torch can f&@$ing FLY.

Point well made, sir. Point well made.

Co-Book of the Week: Flash #13
Now that I’m free from the time-wasting chore of y’know, being alive, I can finally catch up on my blogging. I’ve got a few things to say, starting with this week’s Flash.

To the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Teen Titans, the Outsiders, Checkmate, and (coming soon) Infinity Inc.:
Thanks for the invites! And more importantly, thanks for all that help back there in L.A. where I was making my final stand against EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE OF MY ROGUES while simultaneously trying to keep the city from exploding. Oh yeah, and WITHOUT MY POWERS.

To my Granny Iris and to Valerie:
Of all the times to listen to me, you pick now? You didn’t think to call anyone before I was kicked to death, but afterwards, you were more effective at spreading the word than TMZ.com. I assumed some of that “Fastest Man Alive” juice would’ve rubbed off on you two.

To whoever picked up the phone at JLA headquarters:
Now I get it! Ha ha ha! “Sorry, only the Flash could get to you in time. If only we had a Flash on the team…” Hilarious! Kiss my now-burned, frozen, and electrocuted ASS!

To writer Mark Guggenheim and artist Tony Daniel:
Nice job overall, but could you have presented the events leading up to my death a little more clearly? It’s going to be awfully hard for my friends to exact vengeance (and while there was apparently no time to save me, there’s always time for vengeance) if we can’t decipher who did what to whom.

To DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio:
You’ve finally painted yourself into a corner. You spent all this energy and soaked up a year’s worth of negative response and kept my book around, only to “Black Flash” me anyway. Good luck finding the next Flash, smart guy…





Co-Book of the Week: JLA #10 -



…God damn it.

Just in time to not save me, Wally’s back. Maybe if the Legion of Super-Heroes hadn’t spent so much time keeping their plans secret for no good reason, they could’ve brought him back a little quicker and I’d at least still be alive. Mark Waid would never have gone for this kind of shabby treatment of any Flash. If he was writing the book, I’d be back as the Fastest Man Alive any month now…


DC News of the Week: Mark Waid Returns to Flash; Wally West on Cover of First Story -

…God damn it.

To hell with this, what’s Marvel doing these days? Their resident speedster’s off his rocker again, maybe they could fit me in as a temp. Ex-freakin’-celsior!

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Editor’s note – Bart would later apologize for his bitterness; he has since come to grips with his untimely demise and is comforted by the fact that any comics writer of any skill level could return him to comics in about three panels.

While there’s several things I’d like to discuss about the news coming out of the conventions in Charlotte and Philadelphia this past weekend, it’s one tossed-off line reported in CBR’s wrapup of the DC Nation panel in Charlotte Friday that irked me a bit:

Will any Vertigo characters like Swamp Thing or Constantine appear in the DCU? DiDio said that he didn’t want any mature reader books to cross over, because of the all-ages nature of the DCU’s audience.

I agree with this sentiment — in part. I do believe that the DC Universe should be, for the most part, all-ages territory. If we want to get kids hooked at an early age, like so many of us life-long readers were, then the comics need to be something their parents feel comfortable buying for them or at the very least feel comfortable with their reading. There’s plenty of places for comic with more adult content, both in other avenues within the Big Two and from other publishers. But I think in general, the main books with the iconic superheroes should be somewhat kid-friendly — and by that I don’t mean that they need to be “kiddie books,” but kids should be able to pick them up and not be subjected to graphic sexuality and violence.

The problem with DiDio’s “all ages” statement is that it does not represent the DC Universe as it stands right now. Not as much as the statement might imply, anyway.

Case in point, or case which is pointedly on my mind: Justice League of America #6.

You can certainly argue that Brad Meltzer isn’t writing this book with kids in mind. For one, he’s a novelist more used to writing fiction geared toward adults, but even more to the point, with this series he’s writing for himself and people roughly the same age he is. The current JLA is aimed squarely at the people who grew up reading comics (specifically DC comics) in the seventies and eighties and who now are thirty- and forty-year-olds with (theoretically, debatably) more sophisticated tastes in story theme and structure. But what that means is the current JLA is not friendly to kids. (I don’t believe sophistication or maturity has to equal kid-unfriendly, but in this case it does.)

At that point in the story, the Red Tornado had achieved his long-held desire to be human. His robotic consciousness and powers had been transferred into a human body, so he was able to experience all the sensory highs of being human — and, of course, the sensory lows. And it’s in JLA #6 that Meltzer lets Reddy really feel those lows. Solomon Grundy beats the holy hell out of the Tornado, pummeling him nearly to death, breaking his ankle and other body parts…

…and then he rips the Tornado’s arm off just below the elbow. Very, very graphically. We get Ed Benes’ lovely depiction of de-meated and de-handed bone stuck out from the stump of Red Tornado’s arm as he (Reddy, not Benes) screams in agony. (For bonus points, Grundy then eats the hand, though at least that act happens in shadow.)

This, in Dan Didio’s “all ages” DC universe.

(Also, good times in Justice Society of America #3: as neo-Nazis tear apart a family reunion, little kids included. Not quite on par with the hand-eating in JLA, but a bit disturbing nonetheless. And let’s not even touch on the amount of gratuitously graphic violence in Infinite Crisis.)

Look, I’m not squeamish when it comes to violence in comics — Preacher is one of my all-time favorite series, and the sorts of violence routinely featured in that book far, far outpaced the recent events in JLA or JSA. But Preacher was in no way intended for kids and it didn’t feature the big recognizable DC icons. Books like JLA and JSA should be treated as gateway books, comics that new readers (including kids, especially kids) interested in mainstream superhero books can pick up and get hooked by. Same goes for the main Avengers books, Teen Titans, the main X-Men books (just to touch on teams). There’s plenty of places for the more mature, more graphic storytelling, even within the mainstream Marvel and DC lines.

Also, I’m not saying that violence shouldn’t be part of JLA and its ilk. Violence is a large part of the tapestry of mainstream superhero comics and always has been. But the violence can certainly be treated a little differently, can’t it, in certain books? What Grundy did to Red Tornado was thematically central to what Meltzer was doing with that story — that scene might have been the central point of “The Tornado’s Path.” I believe, though, that the theme would have been as well served with, say, a shot of the Tornado on his back on the ground, Grundy clearly having him pinned and gripping his arm; appropriately disturbing sound effects; later shots where it’s obvious that Reddy is missing part of his arm. The same events, the same meaning to Red Tornado (and therefore to the audience), but done in such a way that’s at least closer to being truly an all-ages book. Less visceral, perhaps (in more than one sense), but still effective.

I’m a parent. I want my kids to read comics. I’ve already gotten my girls hooked by buying them their very own issues of Krypto the Superdog, based on the animated series. My older daughter loves to try to find comics from my stack I can read to her, but I’m very careful about what I let her look at — y’know, one of my main responsibilities as a parent. When I was a kid, probably eight, nine years old, Justice League of America was one of my favorite books, one of the few I bought every month without fail. I don’t remember anything in those issues my dad would particularly have objected to. But no way in hell would I want my kids reading something like the current JLA #6 until they were teenagers, and I think that’s a shame and a disservice to a book which I think should be a way into comics for younger readers.

Am I wrong here? Am I being entirely too old-fogey for my own good? Do we just say “Well, there’s the Johnny DC line and the Marvel Adventures line for the kids — let us adults have our bloody arm-severings in our mainstream superhero comics?” Or are we assuming that kids aren’t reading these books anyway, so we don’t even have to worry about making them kid-friendly? Would all be made well if Dan DiDio just gave up on the myth that the DCU is truly all-ages and admitted that DC’s mainstream output is geared toward adults? I’ll readily admit that I could be wrong on this topic and that my views could be outdated or outmoded — I’m really curious to hear what all seven of our readers have to say on the subject.

In lieu of the actual new content I’m still working on, I’d like to point out that I was the “Celebrity Guest Blogger” (for some bizarre definition of “celebrity”) over at Doomkopf.com this last weekend. What that meant was that I got to throw my opinionated hat into the Doomkopf ring and give my take on last week’s Sub-Mariner #1. Did I love it? Did I hate it? Did I think it had far too few mostly-naked Atlantean kings on display? You’ll have to hop over to Doomkopf.com to find out for yourself!

(Hint: it had exactly the right number of mostly-naked Atlantean kings.)

I’ve gotta tell you, I absolutely was not looking forward to World War Hulk. I’ve been less than ecstatic about the state of the post-Civil War Marvel Universe in general, and the prospect of yet another Epic Crossover, one which had been hyped and teased since last summer, didn’t exactly fill me with glee. I’m not a tremendous Hulk fan to begin with, and the whole “Planet Hulk” storyline didn’t look all that interesting to me. So all the ingredients were there for me to bake up a big ol’ Hulk-sized batch of apathy cookies for this series.

But I grabbed it on the spur of the moment based on the couple of positive previews I’d read. And I’m really glad I did.

I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong about something, and yes, I was wrong about World War Hulk. Very wrong. This book kicked my ass almost as thoroughly as the Hulk kicked Black Bolt’s. (Well, OK, maybe not that thoroughly.) WWH #1 had exactly what I want out of a Big Event Superhero comic: big fights, posturing, lots of property damage (always bonus points for property damage to recognizable locations, fictional or otherwise), and, in this case, some characters getting some long-awaited schadenfreude.

This book had several quality “oh, shiiii–*” moments in it, moments where you just knew something big or something awful (or something hugely awful) was about to happen. Greg Pak wrote both the big violent moments and the smaller, personal moments in this story well, almost like a “widescreen” story written by a Mark Millar who actually gave a damn about characterization. Pak has a great match here in John Romita, Jr., an artist long known for his ability to both the big and the small, and Pak’s script gives JRJR plenty of opportunities to show off (I love the design of the “Hulkbuster” Iron Man armor).

Also, it was nice to see Iron Man acting heroically, which it seems we haven’t seen much of lately during his guest appearances in every single comic Marvel publishes. (I think he was even in the latest issue of Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.) I’m not going to say that his actions in this issue redeem the dickishness he’s displayed over the last year or so, but they certainly help.

Even though I’ll definitely be picking up the rest of this series, I’m not planning on buying any of the ancillary World War Hulk titles with the possible exception of The Incredible Hulk, since that seems like the most logical place to assume other Big Stuff might happen. That book also has the advantage of also being penned by Pak, and after WWH #1, that means I’ll give it a shot.

Got so lucky this Wednesday–walked into the local Slipperworld to use the mens’ room (some undercooked KFC did me in) and who did I run into? Danny Rand, wielder of the Iron Fist, current New Avenger and principal player in the Book of the Week. Surprisingly, he wasn’t too busy to sit down and peruse my comics haul for the week…

Book of the Week: Avengers #31–

Tim: After a few months’ advance warning, Bendis springs his latest internet-cleaving plot twist. And because he cares enough to spell things out to you, Bendis has this week’s special guest give your confusion focus and deliver the Line of the Year…

Um…

(Danny, that’s your cue.)


















Tim: Here’s what it means. It means I’m going to be buying many, many more issues of New Avengers. Dammit.

Justice #12 (series finale!) –
You first this time, Danny.



















Tim: It means that Justice is completed, after 2 years. With that much time invested, you’d think there’d be a more memorable story told. With no real issue-by-issue cliffhangers, it seems pretty obvious that this story was always intended to be read as a single collected work. So why not just sell it that way? Probably because suckers like me will invest $40 in the singles, then turn around and blow $60 on some Absolute Justice hardcover too.

As series closers go, Justice has its share of good moments: a Wonder Twins reference, yet another addition to the surprisingly large collection of cool scenes involving Batman and Lex Luthor, and a Joker sequence that you can just tell Alex Ross has been waiting to use since he first formed his religion, Superfriendsruledology.

Punisher War Journal #8 -

Tim: Writer Matt Fraction continues to give us the Charles Bronson/Jan Michael Vincent/Tom Laughlin Punisher that you’d think we’d always had. As a 70’s child, you’ve got to dig this action, right Danny?



















Tim: (sighing) It means that with Super Nazis besmirching Captain America’s legacy and terrorizing an entire town, Frank’s going to be shooting a lot of people in the face soon (as we were promised at the arc’s opening). And Fraction’s villains are so edge-of-preposterous loathesome, you’ll hope your $2.99 goes straight to Frank Castle’s bullet fund.


That’s all the meaning I can dole out for now, true believers. Watch this space next week, as I hope to sit down with Black Lightning, so he can explain whatever the hell’s just happened in Justice League of America #10. (And I’m going to check IDs this time–I’m starting to think that I didn’t just talk to Iron Fist at all. I think it was just some dude, trying to score what was left of my Chicken and Biscuit Bowl)

It’s possible for a grizzled capes-vet like me to accept and enjoy a new status quo or a “perfect jumping-on point”, even if on occasion these result from varying levels of contrivance. I get that the Big 2 want to actually publish comics for money and promote series like Civil War or Infinite Crisis/One Year Later/52/Countdown as Giant Events Laden With Ramification and Consequence. But, after what seems like endless universe-shuffling, I’ve gotta ask:

When are we going to get there? When are we going to get somewhere?

Marvel may be answering me with World War Hulk. Finally, a Marvel comic that breaks free of the Civil War Fallout Inertia that most of their other books are still locked into. I haven’t cracked open many Marvels lately without having whole sections grind to a halt so that two super-powered beings can debate Registration and whether Tony Stark is evil or not.

When is someone gonna try and take over the world again? When are we going to see someone throw a building on someone else again? And most imporantly here… when am I going to discuss the comic in the title?

Okay, fine…

If #1 is any indication, then World War Hulk might just be the blockbuster epic Marvel’s been promising all this time that satisfies us without requiring 12 titles a month to follow or explain.

Blissfully absent from Civil War, a supremely pissed Big Green has finally returned to Earth, apprarently traveling through space on grudge alone. Greg Pak appears to be a very smart cookie, playing to artist John Romita Jr’s strengths and cramming this first issue with action, and even the opening recap pages have movement in every panel. Yeah, there’s some stray Civil War-speak, but only to illustrate that there’s something way more dangerous out there than unlicensed superheroes.

Hulk’s agenda is far simpler: smash the Illuminati members who shot him into space and into horrible tragedy that cost him nearly everything. He intends to point out that it’s not the smartest move to anger anyone whose strength feeds on that rage (as Black Bolt finds out very quickly this issue). The smashing is all there is to see (and all you need to look forward to) in World War Hulk.

Don’t know who snapped this photograph, but it wasn’t any of us. (Perhaps Patron Saint Jimmy Olsen?) At any rate, we refer any thoughts of litigation to the very bottom of this page.