…after a long day and a longer evening and seriously, folks, I’ve got nothing. I have nothing I particularly want to write about, nothing to scan, nothing happening at work that’s particularly interesting to talk about…
…so let’s instead wish Employee Aaron a happy birthday!
This is where I keep Aaron between his 14-hour workdays at the shop, by the way.
Happy birthday, Aaron! Here’s to at least a half-dozen or so more!
Our shipping company sent one of the boxes from our comic book distributor on a free trip to the San Fernando Valley, so we were out 60 lbs. of new funnybooks today. SIXTY POUNDS. No Punishermax. No Chew. No Buzzard. No Uncle Scrooge. Not a single luxury.
Thankfully, our customers were understanding about it, and the box should be at the shop Thursday, but this still means I essentially have to do the comic saver pulls twice, and frankly I’m not all that good at doing them once a week, so we’ll see how this goes.
Some of the things we did get in this week:
Batman #700 – fun story from Grant Morrison with multiple Batmen, multiple artists (yay, more Frank Quitely!), and time travel. The $4.99 price point for this Extra! Special! Big! Issue! is a damned shame, and if they’d cut the pin-ups and the Guide to the Batcave that I’ll probably never get around to looking at, maybe this could have been $3.99, which is still an ol’ kick in the pocketbook but then I wouldn’t be paying and extra buck for a bunch of stuff I really don’t care about and you know I think I probably have a period around here somewhere, oh, look, here it is.
Wednesday Comics HC – which I know actually came out a couple of weeks ago, but the copies we first received weren’t packed properly for shipping and had crunched corners…and given these were $50 books, I didn’t feel right charging full price for ’em. Anyway, we received replacement copies this week, and they were pristine, and all was right with the world.
By the way, pal Sean bought one of the tweaked one, which he got with his Former Employee Discount so he didn’t pay full price for it, at least. He popped it open to let me take a look…and surprisingly, the unpleasantly difficult-to-read Wonder Woman story had been relettered from its original printing in the newspaper format, making it slightly less unpleasantly difficult-to-read. The rest of the book looks nice, too. This has been Mike’s In-Depth Review.
Doom Patrol #11 – I finally really enjoyed a Doom Patrol story in this comic, which is probably a terrible thing to say eleven issues in, but Doom Patrol is one of those titles/groups/concepts that I’ll buy regardless, which probably makes me a bad comics fan that’s hurting the health of the medium, but screw you, it’s my money. I mean, Doom Patrol has never been really bad…well, okay, the Byrne issues were at least enjoyable in a “these are really dopey and amusing” sort of way. At least for me. Don’t look at me like that. But this new series was…interesting, but never really grabbed me, especially when we were forced to compare the lead DP story with the excellent and sadly missed Metal Men back-ups. But this issue everything finally clicked with me, I guess, what with the usage of that one Giffen character, and a few more Morrison concepts creeping back in. Really got a kick out of it.
Star Trek: Leonard McCoy #3 – This is the one with Larry Niven’s Puppeteer alien on the front cover. Well, one of the front covers, since this needed to have a 50/50 split of variant covers, for some reason. The Puppeteer is not on the inside, sorry. Anyway, Niven fanboys, be on the alert. The red alert! I have no idea what I’m saying.
Ooh, ooh, Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom #1 – I really liked this comic. Yeah, it’s not Alan Moore writing it, but it is Peter Hogan writing, and Chris Sprouse drawing, and it fits in perfectly well with any of the Moore stories. Great set-up, can’t wait to see how everything plays out.
X-Men Forever 2 #1 – Oh, I’m sure this totally needed restarting with a new #1.
Jonah Hex #56 has a Darwyn Cooke cover and comes polybagged with a Jonah Hex movie poster. Man oh man, this movie. I suspect it won’t be any good, but it’ll be entirely entertaining. The comic’s always good, though…you should read it.
Justice League: Generation Lost #3 – Entertaining, but I’m already getting the feeling that this 26-issue biweekly series will be about 13 issues too long. Too soon to really say, I realize, so I’ll update my reaction here in a few months. Pretty sure it’ll be better than Trinity.
Red Sonja #50 – Number fifty? Really?
• • •
In other news:
There’s some kind of rumor that Swamp Thing will be making his reappearance in the non-Vertigo DC Universe in the forthcoming Plastic Man series, to which the creator of said PM series said “uh, no” so I guess that’s not happening. Anyway, you’ll just have to take my word for this because over my dead body I’m linking to the site where all this is going on.
In lighter Swamp Thing news, there’s this discussion where the main concern is apparently the number of times Batman has taken a beating from Swamp Thing. Sez one gentleman, he sez
“The Vertigo community which I’m part of feels this is just a ploy so that they can pit Batman and Swamp Thing back together and rectify, two of Batman’s very few losses.”
…which not only indicates that there’s two places on the nerdinet where Swamp Thing beating Batman is a point of contention, but that it’s felt this is the reason that Swampy was moved away from the mature reader Vertigo into the slightly-less mature reader DC Universe. And not, say, that the Vertigo-ized Swampy was a bit played out and needed to be retooled, or that one of DC’s more recognizable characters needed some rehabilitation for marketing exploitation, or something. Actually, I don’t care about the reasons, just bring me more Swamp Thing comics. Of any kind. And make it snappy.
Pal Dorian presents…Previews for Gays. BONUS: Dor breaks his Archie silence to comment on the imminent arrival of Archie’s first (openly) gay character.
War Rocket Ajax copilot and fellow Bureau Chief Eugene has gifted you all with a swell new song that you should all go listen to. Its “beats” are very “phat,” I believe you kids would say.
(TONY STARK is at the congressional hearing, being grilled about the Iron Man suit by Senator Stern.)
STERN: “Mr. Stark, it is of utmost importance that the Iron Man suit be turned over to the military immediately.”
STARK: “Sorry, that’s not going to happen –”
(STARK is interrupted by a beeping from his super high-tech phone thingie.)
STARK: “Whoa, Ultimo is tearing up downtown. Gotta go. Hold that thought.”
(A couple of minutes later:)
(A few minutes later, back at the hearing.)
STARK: “Whew boy, that was somethin’. Okay, where were we?”
• • •
(NICK FURY and STARK are seated in the patio area, HOWARD STARK’s storage box between them.)
FURY: “Now, this box might be of interest to you. It belonged to your father, and inside….”
STARK: “Hey, hold on now…is that Blizzard out there over the ocean? Man, that guy really cheeses me off. I’ll be right back.”
FURY: “Stark, don’t you dare–!”
STARK: “Okay, that was taken care of. Sorry about that. …What were you saying?”
FURY: “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
• • •
(STARK and JIM RHODES are in their respective armors, waiting for the arrival of Vanko and his drone army.)
STARK: “Oh, hey, Rhodey, just received a message that the Blood Brothers are back in town. Can you handle Vanko and pals while I take care of this?”
RHODEY: “Wait, what?”
(A couple of minutes later:)
(Cut to RHODEY fighting Vanko and the drones.)
RHODEY: “Hey, Tony? Where are you, buddy? Could use a hand here! …Hello?”
images from Iron Man #87 (June 1976) by Bill Mantlo, George Tuska & Vince Colletta; Iron Man #88 (July 1976) by Archie Goodwin, Tuska & Colletta; Iron Man #96 (March 1977) by Mantlo, Tuska & Jack Abel.
Found via my favorite Star Trek-related (and Big Bill Shatner-specific) weblog/podcast, Look at His Butt, a test for a since-abandoned CGI series:
And here’s the Spock test, which uses Joe Pesci’s Not Safe for Work dialogue from Goodfellas. I would so totally have watched a Star Trek animated series with Pesci playing Spock.
If you still need to get your Shatner on, the Look at His Butt girls have this post collecting together YouTube clips of one of his Match Game appearances.
Man, I really do miss watching ’70s Match Game. I probably watched too much TV as a kid, but I don’t regret a single moment watching Match Game (sound at link). That show was fantastic.
• • •
In almost completely unrelated news: Dr. Polite Scott has put together an index of psychic nosebleeds for your perusal. You know, some dude in a comic book or movie starts using his, I don’t know, telekinesis or something, and he’s doin’ it really hard, and you can tell he’s really straining because suddenly there’s a trickle of blood from his nose. Well, Dr. Scott tells you the rest of the story, explaining just what the problems with this particular storytelling shorthand are.
That series of posts is one of the greatest things ever, by the way.
• • •
I apologize for the dependence on link-blogging over the last couple of days…it’s been one of those weeks. Hopefully I can generate a little of my own content soon instead of pointing at stuff done by other people.
Rich Handley, keeper of Roots of the Swamp Thing, talked to the writer of the aborted Vertigo Swamp Thing series and reveals a few tantalizing details of what could have been.
I know I’ve already plugged Bully the Little Stuffed Bull once this week, but seriously, this new post is amazing.
I forgot to link this when I saw it, but Reader Erik was good enough to remind me: When Batman Met Nancy. (And now for some reason I’m picturing an angered Sluggo seeking vengeance upon the Caped Crusader…with Sluggo all done up like the Joker. …ONCE SEEN, IT CANNOT BE UNSEEN.)
Swanderful celebrates the wonderful art of Curt Swan, and I haven’t plugged it here in a while: here’s a good recent entry focusing on a ’70s splash page by Swan with no Superman costume to be seen.
I’d pretty much decided that I’d been reading the Justice League titles too long when this character showed up.
Here is a permutation of the “Got Milk?” campaign that I never quite expected. (But you can have Batman Beyond right now, in the current Superman/Batman annual, now on sale!)
What the hell is Killer Croc wielding, there? “BEHOLD MY CLAWED PERISCOPE OF DEATH, BATMAN!”
I have to say I’m very disappointed in the search results for Batman in the Specialty Services category. “WINNING BIDDER WILL HAVE ME AS THEIR PERSONAL BATMAN FOR THE DAY.” That’s what I was hoping to see.
I would so totally lose fingers on this double-bladed Bat-knife. I like how “Batman” is just etched on the belt clip.
I don’t know why offering just a single Joker’s Henchman Lego figure makes me laugh, but it really does. I mean, it could be a rare item for all I know.
…since I’ve been getting e-mailed, messaged, and otherwise contacted about the rumors of a possible reintegration of Swamp Thing into the main DC Universe, and away from the mature-readers Vertigo line. Given the story’s initial source, I’m going to wait for some confirmation before I get my hopes up, but I think it would be a nice change of pace after the last handful of attempted relaunches. Frankly, I was just a bit Vertigo-ed out on that particular interpretation of Swamp Thing. If you want to read a summary of what’s supposedly going on, I direct you to the main page of Roots of the Swamp Thing, where proprietor Rich H. has a few words on the matter, and Comics Alliance has further commentary on what this could mean for the Vertigo line in general.
Anyway, if true, I suppose having Solomon Grundy fill the Swamp Thing role didn’t work out as planned (even though that recent Grundy series was pretty good). Maybe we can get a couple of titles out of this…hey, if Deadpool can have, what, seventeen different series, we can have two Swamp Thing titles. A regular solo book and The Swamp and the Bold, with Swamp Thing teaming up with a different character every month. You’d totally read that, don’t you lie to me.
• • •
In other news: Bully the Little Stuffed Bull explains the Marvel Universe in a tour-de-force that must be seen to be believed.
