Yeah, fine, new comics day.
I have a cracked filling that’s driving me to distraction (and hopefully will get taken care of today), so I plan on taking out my irritation on all of you. Thanks for reading!
I’m so distracted, I almost forgot my SPOILERS AHOY warning!
Well, first off, a full third of our order on Seven Soldiers: Zatanna showed up damaged, with tears and holes in the spines. Given our sales on the Seven Soldiers of Victory books, I had upped the orders on this particular book to take advantage of the current interest…and, of course, they show up unsellable. Rats. Nice book, otherwise, with some slight nods in the direction of Alan Moore-era Swamp Thing continuity.
I’ve lost track: do we all hate Green Lantern: Rebirth or do we like it? I think I’ve said before that, if we’re going to have to have the return of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, then this comic probably does it as well as can be managed. Geoff Johns has a thankless job here, trying to paste back together Green Lantern continuity, while pro-Hal fans and pro-Kyle fans watch, waiting to get pissed off about one thing or another. I’ve been enjoying it, even as super-fanboyish as it is. And hey, Ethan Van Sciver draws an evil looking Sinestro, doesn’t he? I think I’m happier about Sinestro being back than I am about Hal.
Superman/Batman #18 has a surprising callback to a classic mid-80s Superman tale. I don’t want to go into more detail than that, except to say it was appreciated.
Oh, and if you’re a Will Eisner fan, grab the new issue of The Comics Journal, if only for the complete reprint of “A Medal for Bowzer” – it pleased pal Dorian to no end to see this comic. Of course, the rest of the mag is quite full of fine Eisner material as well.
Identity Crisis #1 & #2, final printings: okay, remember the movie River’s Edge? Well, in the late ’80s my old pal Rob had a copy of this on videotape, and I swear, every time I went to his apartment he had it playing. He and I must have seen that movie…well, I’m not going to say “hundreds,” but by God it was a lot. We saw it to the point of memorization. We also saw it to the point that, though nominally a tragedy, it became a comedy. Of course, having both Dennis Hopper and Cripsin Glover in this film helped push it in that direction, but I swear, we would watch this movie and laugh and laugh at each new completely bizarre thing we noticed. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about Identity Crisis. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoyed IC, but seeing the continuing debate and interminable histrionic dismay over this series and related tie-ins…well, that’s why there are words like “schadenfreude.” Yeah, I know, I’m a bad human being. I don’t like puppies either.*
(Okay, I will concede the red covers on the IC reprints are a bit much. Hokey smokes. But they sure stand out on the rack.)
Whenever my faith in my fellow man is at its lowest ebb…out comes a new issue of Deep Fried and all is right with the world again.
And there’s a new Swamp Thing out this week…it’s completely wacked-out, and I’m not sure I buy the ending (oh, well, there go a bunch of people off to their doom…hope they enjoy it!) but it did evoke, for a moment, some of the weirder post-Wrightson issues of the ’70s series.
* I lied. I love puppies. I think they taste great.**
** I’m joking. Save the hate e-mail.
