Or perhaps not. Some of these are a bit cynical for the holiday season, but if a good chunk of your students still didn’t know by the end of the semester that novels are italicized while poems go in quotation marks, you’d be bitter too.
The Order #6. Yay! Barry Kitson is back and the book recoups whatever mojo last issue’s Khari Evans fill-in misplaced. One of the best issues of a strong series yet: in addition to the Blackhawk DownmeetsJessica-Lynch backstory for Supernaut, it features a superpowered girl gang, giant mutant desert monsters, and a merman attack. Superhero comics at their best threaten to make all other forms of art and entertainment seem redundant, and Matt Fraction seems to have set up a family-size tent in that sweet spot.
Justice League of America #16. On the other hand, there’s this. I started buying JLA because I wanted to read Dwayne McDuffie stories, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen. His first three issues were taken up with a fairly pointless fight scene which took place in a down moment set just before a widely panned event comic that came out a couple months ago, and now this issue is a lead-in to an event featuring the characters from the Tangent fifth-week event of a few years back. Which I sort of liked—the Tangent event, not this issue of JLA—but still. This is what earning a high-profile gig at DC gets you these days: the chance to spin your wheels before a massive audience. Remember the Onion story of a few years back that characterized the (fictional) new Matchbox 20 album, Beige, as the perfect record for people “who have a limited interest in music but enjoy the act of shopping”? JLA #16 is the corporate superhero-comics equivalent of Beige: for people who don’t like being entertained but who are interested in donating three dollars to DC Comics.
McDuffie’s Fantastic Four is still fun, though, and makes superb use of all the delightful character embellishments that Christopher Priest introduced into Black Panther in his under-appreciated run: the Galactus contingency plan, the notion of Panther, Doom, and Namor (and at the time Magneto) as a loose confederation of superhuman monarchs. So buy FF instead.
Checkmate #21 appealed to my geek impulses with the casual revelation of the identity of the new White Queen, which I won’t spoil here. A solid issue focused on Mme. Marie and a nice recovery after the underwhelming ending of “The Fall of the Wall.” How did it end? The Wall fell. I know it was right there in the title, but still. Some swerve would have been nice. That she fell because of some events going on in a mini-series that I’m not reading made it even less resonant. Still, between this and the better-every-issue John Ostrander Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag mini-series, I feel comfortably nestled in the mainstream of a demographic that DC has determined is suitably lucrative.
Incredible Hulk/Herc #112. This is going to be fun.
She-Hulk #24. This is not fun yet.
I re-read Hellboy: Conqueror Worm recently—my favorite of the Hellboy collections that I’ve read, partly because, you know, it’s about a Nazi space program to contact and retrieve Lovecraftian demons, but really almost entirely because of that one panel of a Nazi super-robot rusting in a South American jungle—and that re-read, along with the preview for the new Hellboy movie (spotted at Geoff Klock’s), led me to explore the various BPRD series. Hey, those are good! Someone should have told me. “Plague of Frogs” was actually a little disappointing, but “The Dead” was a treat and I’m about halfway through “The Black Flame” now.
Well, I oughta pack. More later!
And so you have italicized Comics, which are, obviously, and I refer to “Nazi sapce program to contact and retrieve Lovecraftian demons”, pure poetry?
Oh no, I hope I didn’t do that. Proper style kind of goes out the window with exam week.
I’ve given up on the JLA. It always just seemed like the DC Universe variety hour to me, like just a way to tie in cross-title events or bring back disused characters. That, or another way for Supes to save the day after all else has failed.
JLA is gettin’ dropped as soon as I can remember to. At least the art isn’t flat and uninteresting! Wait, I said that wrong. Also dropped: Midnighter (why is Keith Giffen sucking so much?), FINALLY Jonah Hex (I am a terrible dropper), and boy oh boy . . . buying Ultimates 3 was a mistake, wasn’t it? Yes, it was.
my list has only avengers, booster, thor, and shehulk. i’m tempted to add allstar superman. is there anything good that Im really missing out on?
You should definitely add All-Star Superman. I just finally picked up the most recent issue of Booster Gold—the Killing Joke one. And so: Rip Hunter tortures people now? I’m going to read next issue’s Blue Beetle extravaganza, but maybe that’s it for me.