I’m all complainy and stuff.
And now…the Best Comic Cover of the Week:
And the contents ain’t half-bad either. All of Boom! Studios Muppet comics are entertaining, but The Muppet Show really is the platonic ideal of a Fun Comic Book. Cartoonist Roger Langridge knocks it out of the park, every time.
Some other comics this week:
- I was planning on picking up Vertigo Resurrected, the latest in DC’s 100-page mini-trade paperbacks, since this is the first printed appearance of the long-shelved Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez Hellblazer story “Shoot.” However, the reprints that fill up the rest of the book are short stories from Vertigo’s many anthology books from over the years, none of which I’d bought (for whatever reason…I have no real excuse), which means the entire volume is new to me. That worked out nicely.
- Legion of Super-Heroes #6 – I’d pretty much made the decision last week, when I skipped the new issue of Adventure Comics, which is essentially a second Legion title. But, yeah, after nearly 30 years of Legion-reading, I think I finally reached my saturation point. Nothing specific I can really pin down as being the last straw…it’s just a case of being “enough’s enough,” I think. The last couple of issues have been bit of a slog, I can’t get involved in the characters and plotlines…I took the hint and dropped the books.
- DC Universe Legacies #6 – …But that said, the Legion back-up in this book was actually pretty amusing. The lead story, which, like the rest of the series, is For Advanced Fans Only, retelling events from the era of Crisis on Infinite Earths through Legends, is about as good as this kind of thing is able to get. Nice art from Jerry Ordway, George Perez and and Scotts Kolins and Koblish.
- Okay, Green Lantern Corps #53 introduces a new villain…well, actually an old villain of sorts, as it’s a Weaponer from the Anti-Matter Universe of Qward, which should be familiar to GL fans, and he’s got a good gimmick, and Sinestro’s in this too and we all like Sinestro. So, it’s some good ol’ fashioned superhero stuff and it’s all fine.
But seriously, it just reminds me that there are three ongoing Green Lantern series, and…was there actually talk of a fourth ongoing? So for the first time in years, the Green Lantern franchise manages to gain some sales success, and, as always, the response to a comic selling well is the publisher doing its damnedest to dig the golden eggs out of that goose’s body by pumping out more of the same thing. Marvel did it with Marvel Zombies, they’re well on their way to doing it with Deadpool, and now DC is following suit with too many GL series. And I suspect DC is going to discover something similar with the Batman franchise, which will soon be “the one by Grant Morrison that actually sells” and “a bunch of other titles that don’t sell nearly as well,” which…well, that’s kind of where we’re at right now, anyway.
And the thing that gets me is that there’s nothing particularly wrong with any of these books…all the GL books are fun, there’s nothing particularly wrong quality-wise with the Deadpool titles…I mean, they’re not for me, but the people who do read them seem to enjoy them, and all the Batman books are okay…but do we really need a Batman and a Batman and Robin? Do we really need a Green Lantern Corps and a Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors?
…
Sigh. Sorry, felt like shouting into the wind there, a bit. Don’t mind me.
And yeah, I know, “do we really need any comics?” Yes, yes we do.
- Still enjoying the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, which is current at #4 of the five-issue mini “Hardcases,” which is, what, the fourth or fifth mini-series out of the approximately 1000 mini-series it’s going to take to compete this project? But it’s a good adaptation, and I find it odd that this comic, which is basically a word-for-word retelling of the novel, still maintains my interest, while the multiple series based on King’s Dark Tower, featuring untold tales and new storylines, lost me and, judging at least by our sales, most of its readership several months ago.
- Charles Burns has a new handsome volume of cartooning out this week…Xed Out. Gorgeous production values on this book. You can see a picture of the cover here, which really doesn’t do it justice.
- Okay, here’s another potential cover of the week, from Loki #1:
Boy, Loki’s never been happier. Just look at that joy on his face.
Your comment about leaving the Legion after forty years really struck a nerve. As you quote it so very well, “enough’s enough”. I had almost exactly this same feeling when I dropped the Avengers several years ago. I’d been a trooper for decades, liking and disliking, and even once in a while loving what was being done, but finally it all just got to be too much to care about. It’s hard to cut ’em loose, but I find it’s very easy to live with after the day is done.
Rip Off
I’ve had the same thing happen to me with comics. Really it’s not a bad thing, as something going for several decades needs to pick up new readers more than it needs to keep old ones.
It’s funny, I’ve had similar experiences with music. Example: the last Sonic Youth album I bought I liked, but it was kind of like, “okay, I have all the Sonic Youth I need now.”
I’m with you on the not understanding the sudden flush of Batman titles. They will have 5 ongoing titles shortly (Detective, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman, Inc., and Batman: The Dark Knight), not including titles Batman appears in regularly and the Batman: The Brave and The Bold series. Even during the haydays of the 90s there were only 4 ongoing series (Batman, Detective, Shadow, and Legends). I was a Batman fanatic for a while, but can’t seem to be interested in anything they’re doing right now. Maybe I’m just done with the character. I’ve come to that realization with the X-Men.
I don’t really understand Deadpool, either, but I will say that after ignoring the character for years, Marvel managed to get me to pick up some of the Team-Up issues, the Suicide Kings trade, and I’m totally onboard the MAX series. I’m also interested in the Merc With a Mouth trades (have those come out yet?).
I think that if there’s a series called Batman, then the Batman & Robin series should be the exact same comic, only with Robin drawn into the background of various panels, making quips and otherwise have no impact.
Or they could make the Batman & Robin comic first, and then create Batman in “Garfield without Garfield” style. Page after page of a crazed guy in a Batman costume talking to a non-existant teenage boy in capes and a speedo. Yeah, that’d work.
THANK you! I’ve been griping for years that the current system of comics smacks of desperation. If you look at the variety of titles put out in the ’70s as opposed to today… well, it’s obvious the Big Two are scared to death to put out anything that doesn’t center around an established big seller. Frankly, I’m bored with all the Batman, Deadpool, X-Books and Avengers books. If they cut back to one or two titles a month, I might not feel so overwhelmed.
I guess that’s why I like Secret Six and Thunderbolts – one comic each per month, and I know what’s going on.
You hit the nail on the head in regards to the Legion. There’s nothing exciting about the current Legion titles to keep me buying it at this point (and two titles to boot!). These current Legion titles are too ‘nostalgia’-based for me. The 3boot and Archie Legions might have had their flaws but at least they were trying to do something original.
Is Mjolnir turning Loki into The Monarch?
DC tried to expand the Green Lantern line before, by putting out Green Lantern: Mosaic, Guy Gardner, and Green Lantern Corps Quarterly books to go with the main Green Lantern title. I think you can draw a line from that to the sales desperation that led to Emerald Twilight and Parallax.
Oh. My. God. I can’t believe they turned Beaker into Frankenstein’s Monster in the Core Muppet Universe! It’s one thing if it was in a non-canon miniseries, but it strains credibility for it to occur in the Core Muppet Universe. Stupid Disney, ruining a Universe that’s been around for 40 years by mandating more fantasy.
Until Franken-Beaker gets retconned I will no longer buy Muppet Comics!
:)
I am digging the DC 100 page collections they are putting out. I didn’t buy one until yesterday (the Batman one, because I’m big on Ed Brubaker) but I like the concept of relatively cheap, self-contained reprint collections. I know that’s what the trades are for, but the $8 price point is easier to swallow than the $15 – $20 that trades tend to go for.
Meep-meep-meep-meep. (in Beaker this means ‘I love the new Muppet Show cover and this awesome site!’)
I see Green Lantern in the same light I do X-Men. There are so damn many of ’em, you can’t really compact their stories in one book. I think having three titles right now is a comfortable middle ground since I haven’t really seen much carryover between the titles (Something the X-Men could learn from their constant crossovers).
Deadpool and Wolverine, however? Please, just STOP.
All comics should be Green Lantern comics. a comic per green lantern.