Thor makes a funny

Woo! I'm back at school with access to my Photoshop and scanner and other lovely things. Which means you get to see awesome out of context panels like here, with Thor:

Friday Night Fight!

Wasp gets smacked, cause Bahlactus Demands It!
Ok, I lied, it's cause I hate the Wasp...

Huzzah! i am finally home in order to make a FNF post. Apparently am having a "beat on Jan" week going on. Here she is getting beat up by a small child. Truly she is a force to be reckoned with.

Jan be Liberated!

Sorry about the sporadic posting, but I've pretty much run out of things to write about without some fresh scans, as you can see from my previous, scanless, post.

So here's a very special installment of "How to treat a woman": how to BE a woman, with the lovely Wasp:

Watch closely as she demonstrates the proper way to resolve marital disputes!

(as i recall, this comes just a few issues before the infamous backhand of assholeishness is administered)

Step one: dress like a hooker

Step two: denigrate yourself to make him look better

step three: declare that you are useless except as an accessory to him!

step four: offer sexual favors!

unfortunately for Jan, she didn't simper enough in panel two, and so the dissolution of their marriage is TOTALLY her fault.

Ok, time to throw up from the horror and an OD of sarcasm.

Comic Review: Marvel Adventures Hulk #7

This kind of story is what made Marvel great. Bruce Banner, Rick Jones, and their sidekick, Monkey, have been attempting to fix Bruce's "little" Hulk problem. This time, they are confronted with some good old smackdown between the Silver Surfer and Terrax, and our man shiny-boy isn't doing too well. Bruce is obliged to turn into Hulk to help out. But wait! Surfer is unable to persue Terrax after he steals his board, so he must give his power cosmic to hulk! and rick! and Monkey! although with the power cosmic, Hulk is in control of his actions, and can switch back to Banner at will, he still gives the power back to the Surfer at the end, cause it's what's right.

Also, there's a lot of hilarity in between.
I wish i was at school with my scanner, but here's some choice quotes:

Silver Surfer: Hulk! If.. we fall... Earth... d... Devastated!
Hulk: World break?

Silver Hulk: You want a lesson, Terrax? With great power comes great smashability!


{I shall insert awesome scans here at a later date}



The storytelling in this series is concise and amusing and filled with some good old fashioned punchination. If you are not reading the Marvel Adventures Hulk series, I suggest you start now, or risk missing even more Monkeytastic awesomeness.


WHO POKE HULK?

Lazy today

I had to endure one of those lovely five-hour-courses for the driving today, so I'm not up to a full post. Here, Have some Lulz:

Ugh, that was me all day.

Out of context day!

Really, anything I say can only spoil this lovely moment.

Yes, that is Black Knight smacking the hell out of a toddler.

GOOD NIGHT!

How to treat a woman: Iron Man

Dear Iron Man,

What is the best way to get out fast after a one night stand? I want to avoid uncomfortable questions like "when will i see you again" but I don't want to be rude! what should i do?

- Don Juanito in CA

Dear Don,

I've found the best way to get out is through the window, with some rocket boots!

Click For Bigger

Be sure to send over flowers and a sandblasting crew if you want to avoid seeming rude. Women love a man who helps clean up!

Bone for the kiddies

The complete Bone has been available for, like, forever. Or at least since 2004. However, it is now being released in smaller paperbacks for the kiddies, which is awesome. No parent is going to shell out the forty dollars the massive volume starts at, and no kid is going to think a brick of a book is appealing to pick up sight unseen. However, book seven just came out about a month ago. There have been massive pauses in the publication of each smaller trade, the first one arriving all the way back in January 2005.

As I said shortly before, I work in the kids department of a bookstore, and you have no idea how many kids have asked me when there's going to be more Bone. It's absolutely idiotic to print these books so far apart when the material is long finished! It's only making it less accessable to the kids who want the whole story right now, and will probably forget about it when there's almost a year between publications. I hate telling them that, although the story has been published, we won't get it in "their" format for another few months, at least.

I have the power!

Well I took an unexpected break there, as a rather nasty storm came and knocked out our power. It's back now, but I'm off for an expected break as I visit family. For now, i leave you with Lols...

Book Review: Hero

Hero by Perry Moore

I've been meaning to review this book since it came out in August, but my blog was on hiatus then. I absolutely jumped for joy when I saw it on the shelf, as I had recently enjoyed Soon I Will Be Invincible so I quickly scooped it up for later reading. Since, I have seen many reviews on other comics blogs, and almost all of them were nothing but good. I have to wonder why, as to me it fell way short of what it could have been, and suffered from an overabundance of plotlines and minor characters, as well as sloppy storytelling.

Let me take a minute to "establish my credentials" as it is, as a conossieur of young adult literature. I'm currently working in the children's section of a bookstore (which is how I got my awesome advance reader copy of the aforementioned Invincible) and have also worked in a middle school library. Also, I read YA literature like a madwoman. It's because they're like candy. I can easily read two novels in a night, and I'd say I read about fifteen teen books to every adult novel. However, one thing about teen fiction is that most of it is absolute trash, but there's still a lot of great books mixed in.

Hero is neither teen trash nor a great book. It is OK. The main story is of Thom's discovery of his healing powers and his desire to join "The League," against his ex-hero father's wishes. That story is the best handled one, and so it's what would make me reccomend the book for all it's failings. Said failings are the ten bajillion other plots, all of which are intriguing, but none of which are satisfyingly dealt with. There's the mystery of Thom's disappearing mother, the public hatred for his father (Hal), the story of the "old" league and Hal's career, the story of Justice, or Uberman, two of the established heroes of the book, all of whom are interesting, but put in as two-dimentional throwaway characters. The main supporting characters also don't get enough attention, so even Thom's teammate, Typhoid Larry, is never really developed beyond his joke powers.

There's a lot right in the plot too. Thom's superteam is great fun in their interactions, and Moore writes the fight scenes quite well, they move quickly and contain great turnarounds and banter. Also the romantic subplot is excellent, with just the right amount of presence in the book that it didn't turn it from a book about a gay teen superhero into a book about a GAY teen superhero. There are a couple of moments where the book does threaten to lapse into that, but it avoids it well. There is a very odd concentration on the superman-analog's nipples at the beginning though, I'm not quite sure three pages were necessary for that analysis, but Thom's crush on Uberman (the Supes of the tale) is great in the book, even if we never really find out what he's really like after Thom meets him, except that he's all publicity and show. Most of the heroes are, which is a novel part of the book.

As much as I'm complaining in all this, I would have been much more forgiving if the resolution to the book hadn't been so horrid. Deus ex machina! Thom turns into a "Gary Stu"! Conflicts resolved instantly! Plus, the climax event wasn't even hinted at before, bringing out a "yabuhwha?" response.

All in all, I'd say it's a good light read, but don't expect too much out of it. It's nice to see teen novels with gay main characters where the main story is not about their gayness, and this book fits that bill. It's the only one I've read so far (that I can recall), so hopefully others will follow in it's footsteps.

One More Annoyance

"Waaagh! Quesada hates Spidy & MJ's marriage! he is out to get them!"
"One More Day is a transparent editorial mandate to get rid of their marriage"
"I won't buy another Marvel comic until they fix this!"

Kiss my Vision & Scarlet Witch lovin' hiney.

Newbs.

Why do you build me up?

There was really only one reason I was reading Countdown at all. Well, actually two... I was reading mostly for the Piper & Trickster storyline, skipping over the rest of the bits, which were, to me, confusing and uninteresting due to having no idea who the characters were or what they heck they were doing. The Rogues' story was easy to get into for someone who had really no idea what was going on, and it introduced characters that immediately were appealing, although in some cases I've really no clue why. By some cases, I mean Trickster. Honestly, he's a total dick, but he's a likable dick... so I guess that's ok.

It says someting about the storyline that I remained interested when the story went from "Flash's Rogues are squabbling" to "Flash's Rogues killed him" especially since I only started reading because I love Bart so much. In any case, I kept following the exploits of the innocent(ish) rogues despite my great sadness regarding Bart. And I was rewarded with a most excellent story of Piper and Trickster running from various forms of authority while chained together. Oh So Classic. Hilarity ensues and I'm now caught up in the story of two quite minor characters who have been bumped to higher status by the inclusion of their story in the company event of Countdown.

Huzzah! minor characters have been elevated to a position of popularity in which they can now carry a story on their own and have an actual fan following. Now what should DC do with this? Spin it off into another book they can sell for more money and greater appeal? Nonsense! They should kill one of them off!

I forgot, the purpose of building up minor characters is actually so you can kill them off dramatically later, to artificially bump sales without having to do something inconvenient like killing a "real" character. How silly of me. Just like the "Death of the New Gods" bonanza, killing Trickster is a way for DC to show that they are oh so serious about changing the status quo without actually changing anything. No one cared about Trickster's story before, but they certainly care now.

Why would they want to keep writing that interesting story when they could sacrifice the character to boost an otherwise totally sucky event? Why bother building up new characters anyway? Certainly not to gain new readers or expand their current appeal. Who would want to do something like that?

Friday Night Fights: Backhanded with a Vengeance!

Spidy getting both backhanded and fronthanded by "The Queen," because Bahlactus Demands It!

Comic Review: Spiderman Family 6

Let us take a moment to talk about covers. Comic book covers are what grab the reader, and make someone who has not previously read the title pick it up. Unfortunately, the attention-grabbing and witty style of comic book covers has been replaced by "iconic" covers; Pinup images of the characters with absolutely no relevence or little relevence to the inside story. Furthermore they're not even that interesting, or standout. This week, however, there was something that did stand out.

What would I do if I only had one frog? Man, that question will plague me forever...

Anyway, I'd spend time telling you about the first story in the Spider-Man Family book, but there's really nothing that can't be deduced from the cover, such as a) Thor is turned into a frog, b) the story is hilarious, and c) Frog-Thor is SO CUTE.

The second story involves Spidy kitty-sitting for Ka-zar's sabertooth tiger, in a story that is also SO CUTE, and funny.

Then there's two totally awesome full-length reprinted stories, including the first Spider-man/Human Torch. Then the last story is a reprent of the Japanese manga version of Spider-man, Spider-man J, which is simple and silly, but i really cannot get enough of cute little manga-style Spidy. And lines like this:
"Spider-man J may think he won today... but he will soon learn the truth. Victory is nothing but an illusion..."
I love translations, also the fact that they kept rhyming "Spider-man J" every time they said it, for some odd reason.

All and all this book delivered exactly what it told me it would on the cover, which is awesomeness with Spidy and a frog, and then gave me a whole lot more. It's definately worth a look if you are a) a kid or b) feel like a kid.

This book isn't even going into my collection, I'm taking it over to my neighbor kid's house to give it to him, because everyone needs frog Thor in their lives. As for me, I'm going to do as the writer suggests and pick up the original Fror story in trade paper back.

That is what good covers sell.

Out of Context Wednesday: Lolvision!

Hai! hehe... I love how gleeful he looks here.

*This post takes place before issue #137

One of the things I like to ponder about most with regards to comics is the idea of what makes Marvel and DC comics different, especially in that intangible way that diehard fans of each can pick up on, but not quite define. There are some big differences that many point out, like that DC has more "iconic" characters, while Marvel showcases "the common man." I love to read Scipio's Iconic Dyansty theories over at the Absorbascon about the DC characters as heroic dynasties. V. cool stuff. There's also the old differences in writing style between the two publishers: Marvel used to do a Plot-art-dialogue progression while DC did direct script to art. Nowadays everyone does it the "DC way,"though. To me, the biggest difference is that of the handling of continuity. I'm not nearly ready to take on a large discussion on the relative merits of the continuity-restart (as in DC's crises) versus the everything-is-in-continuity approach. For now I just want to say that, although I do see the problems of the Marvel way, I like it better personally because I never have to wonder if a story I read is still in continuity (retcons aside).

These are all things I'm sure I'll write about in the future, but the comparison that has been on my mind lately is that of the "unity" of the respective Marvel and DC universes.

DC has just given it's entire multiverse a big restart, and I have to say that it's making the most of it, regardless of the merits of individual storylines. With it's large cast of characters, the Countdown special could easily fall completely outside the continuity of the individual titles it crosses over to or shares characters with. However, as far as I read, it's been able to avoid that, making countdown an addition to my normal books, instead of an intrustion. The best example of this is the breaking off of the Rogues' story from the main Fash book to Piper & Trickster in Countdown. The Flash story continued to the relaunch of the title, and the Rogues went on in Countdown. Now there's two stories for the price of one, Voila! However, DC is also hitting the snags of a "unified" universe. The big one has been cropping up in JLA mostly, and it's the little astrisk. *"This story takes place before/during/after the events of blah/blah/blah. For some reason, that little footnote always annoys me. Perhaps it is the idea that the reader should be so caught up in the story that they do not question when the story is happening that is ruined by this note. It reminds me of when I would read cruddy Fanfics that had authors notes going "BTW I know that such and such happened such and such time, but I changed it for my story!" Bleh. If the story is supposed to meld into the other stories going on at the same time, it should do so, and if it doesn't, I feel it would be better to not draw attention to the discrepency. Readers can understand that Black Canary is appearing with the JLA after she rescues Ollie from Amazons on their own. Of course, then there's the problems of storylines with different writers stepping on each others feet by having characters do conflicting things in different titles to work out.

That's what Marvel's been struggling with for years, as the "unity" of the universe used to be a big selling point with Stan the Man. Way back in the day it was quite easy to keep all the Marvel titles taking place at the same time in the same universe with no overlap, because Stan Lee was writing pretty much all of them. Couple that with the fact that old-style stories were done in one or two issues, and there was no problem with one storyline dragging on in outer space while another with the same characters happened on Earth. However, anyone who's been trying to follow more than one X-men story lately knows that trying to reconcille the different titles is pretty much impossible. the Astonishing title has been travelling separate from the rest of the pack for a while (the allowances made for big-name writers like Wheadon to tell the story their way without having to participate in the big company wide events and such). However, the X-men appear in the World War Hulk crossover while they should be in space for no good reason! It's not like there is a lack of other mutants around the mansion to use in that title. Also the fact that Wolverine's in every one of these plotlines at once... well let's just not go there.

It used to be a really cool throwaway line or two that kept the reader knowing that all these comics were interconnected. Some bad guy would show up fleeing from the scene of a crime in Avengers only to be intercepted by Spiderman in his own title. That's cool! I like that idea, and it's not like it deeply affects the intended storylines, or has to. However, there's been some major recent breakdown at Marvel with regards to this. Over in Mighty Avengers we are supposed to be shocked and worried when Iron Man's body is apparently hijacked by Ultron and turned into a woman (no lie). Within that title, everyone's fretting about what they will do now that Tony's apparently dead, and great angst is had by all. But not by the reader, who is told that these events take place before those of World War Hulk, where Tony Stark is alive and well and getting his butt kicked in by the big green meanie.

Don't even get me started on the Skrulls in New Avengers. DC, learn from Marvel's mistakes. Stop spoiling Green Lantern with the Countdown and try to keep things in your new universe, well, unified.