Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.
So…we meet again, Diamond Previews. You may think you have the upper hand this time, but I still have a trick or two up my sleeve. Let us begin, then, and may the best man…or 450-page catalog…win.
If you want to keep tabs on our battle, then grab your own copy of Diamond Previews, March 2012 edition, and follow along:
p. 119 – Legion of Super-Heroes #9:
“One of the greatest LEGIONNAIRES quits!”
Whaa–!? “Greatest Legionnaire?” Why, that could only mean…
…that Arm-Fall-Off-Boy had finally made the team! I had no idea. I guess I should have never quit reading the Legion books.
p. 121 – Smallville Season 11 #1:
Just as a guess, I’m going to say the emotion being conveyed on that face there is “hideous embarrassment.” “…Boy, I sure hope any of my friends who didn’t suffer multiple debilitating head injuries don’t see me in this and guess my secret identity!”
p. 122 – Batman Beyond Unlimited #4:
Oh, you can say more. I’m not seeing any “Swamp Thing Beyond” there, after all.
p. 128 – Mister Terrific Vol. 1 Mind Games TP:
Collecting the entirety of a cancelled series and throwing a “Volume 1” on it? Now that’s just rubbing salt in the wound.
p. 145 – The Dark Knight Rises 1:6 Scale Icon Statues:
I’m sure the follow-up series of statues will have Catwoman standing in the heroic pose, and Batman squatting with his ass sticking out. You know, just to be fair.
p. 147 – Batman Arkham City Deluxe Action Figures:
I didn’t realize Batman fought a Predator and one of the crew of the Nostromo in Arkham City. Now I have to get this video game!
p. 151 – Star Trek The Next Generation / Doctor Who – Assimilation2 #1:
Oh come on. What kind of completely ridiculous, fan-fictiony, totally pandering piece of nonsense that I’m absolutely going to be buying is this?
p. 186 – Youngblood #71:
Now, a long time ago on this site, I opined that if Rob Liefeld had stuck with Youngblood from the beginning, and just kept pumping out an issue month after month after month for years, my guess is that by now that theoretical Youngblood series, which would be in its 170s or 180s, would be amazing. I don’t know if it would be “amazing” as in “actually really good” or “amazing” as in “oh my God what the hell is this,” but seeing this relaunch beginning with #71 just reminded me of a wonderful thing we may never see. Unless he commits to this series for twenty years, of course.
p. 329 – X-O Manowar #1 QR Voice Variant:
When I just saw the headlines about this, as opposed to, say, actually reading the articles and seeing what the actual deal was, I just assumed all the X-O Manowar #1s would have sound chips in the covers, like those novelty greeting cards.
Which resulted in these Twittering shenanigans:
Luckily you’re going to need one of those fancy QR-code-readin’ space phones from the future to enable the talking bit of the talking covers, so you talking comic book covers won’t be gettin’ a hold of me, nosiree.
p. 351 – Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? SC:
Answer: because why wouldn’t he? He’s Batman. Duh. Should’ve asked me first, Brian.
p. 354 – Doctor Who Where’s the Doctor? HC:
Of course, if they were really mean, they wouldn’t tell you which version of the Doctor was hidden in each picture. That’ll keep you Whovians off the streets for a while.
p. 360 – Star Wars Cookbook: Wookiee Pies, Clone Scones, And Other Galactic Goodies HC:
“My God, that’s Wookiee Pie! …It’s good, though.”
p. 398 – Strong Guy Mini-Bust:
Usually, I poke a little fun at the crazy statues they’ll produce for a hopelessly limited market. But…yeah, I have no problem with this one. Buy it, put it on a shelf, and if anyone doesn’t get it…let ’em wonder.
p. 423 – Spider-Man Back Buddy:
“Hey, there’s a spider on your back!”
p. 433 – Spider-Man Collector’s Edition Monopoly:
Do not pass the George Washington Bridge, do not catch Gwen Sta…oh, what’s that? …Ooh, that’s a damn shame.
p. 433 – World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition Monopoly:
Do not pass, um, the Warcraft Base, do not collect…orc treasure? Or something? Hell, I don’t know anything about World of Warcraft, I have no idea.
Marvel Previews p. 32 – Mighty Thor #14:
“What really happens in your room at night…?” Um, we’re still talking about the comic, right?
Marvel Previews p. 39 – Fantastic Four #606:
Wait for it….
Marvel Previews p. 41 – Marvel Zombies Destroy! #1:
Looks like Nazi Zombies are all the rage this year!
I’m going to admit that this is a permutation on the zombie fad I didn’t not expect to be gifted upon us at this late date. Well, if there are two things fanboys love, it’s zombies, and, um, yeah.
Marvel Previews p. 82 – Civil War Prose Novel HC:
Revealed at last! The inner motivations of Clone Thor! What are his hopes? His dreams? His deepest desires? His darkest fears? Finally get into the head of the breakout character of…2006, was it? Like, 5 and a half years ago? Geez. I didn’t need to be reminded of that.
I’ve actually grown to enjoy Clor’s appearances . . . he just shows up every year or so, is rebuilt and told to kill someone else, a completely random and non sequitor plot point. It’s like the old Hulk robot from THE ETERNALS that used to show up out of the blue periodically, only this one has the added baggage of having been built by Mr. Fantastic and Skrull Hank Pym to kill their friends.
Batman doesn’t carry shark repellant*. It’s in the Bat-Copter which, given that it has pontoons, seems like a perfectly sane thing to have.
*I won;t be ultra-nitpicky and point out that it’s Bat-Shark repellant and how that seems like the next step after Sharktopus
I also will never be able to hit the “‘” instead-of “;”
Forget Youngblood. Alan Moore is back on what I consider his best work ever: Supreme!
Or is he writing Youngblood, too? Cause those Alan Moore issues in the Awesome/Maximum whatever twilight years were great as well.
This post was solid gold, Mike!
I like how all the characters feet are hidden, obscured or very, very tiny on the cover of Youngblood.
The ‘PLORP’ sound effect over that guy pulling his arm off almost made me gag.
Also, to me, Smallville Supes is definitely sporting Me Gusta face.
I put down my coffee when I started reading this, because I knew there would be a “THEN…KOREA!” gag and I didn’t want to ruin my keyboard. Well played sir.
You have described exactly my reaction to the Doctor Who/TNG crossover. Good to know I’m not alone.
Nazi zombies? Meh. They’re all just riffing off of DEAD SNOW, and earlier flicks.
“How can Thor fight a foe that’s not there?”
He… he doesn’t need to. He’s not there. :/
You had me at Kids in the Hall clip, but I almost did a spit take with the “Then….KOREA!” joke. Thank you for being so funny, Mike.
Not a single scantily-clad anime statuette this time around? I’m very disappointed … ;)
There’s also StarCraft RISK.
There’s not much to say about World of Warcraft Monopoly other than the fact that I’m sitting here cringing and facepalming at both.
The fact that that Alan Moore take on Youngblood was cancelled so quickly is one of comics’ great tragedies. But yes, getting to read the end of his Supreme run (and presumably getting a half-decent collected edition of the whole run) is extremely exciting.
“Batman doesn’t carry shark repellant”
Have no fear, the book addresses that misconception.