DD, Meow and some anticipation
So I don’t know what amuses me more….the fact that Marvel Meow is in it’s 12th issue, the fact that they’ve introduced a Loki cat, or the fact that Jeff the Landshark is basically crossing over to EVERYTHING now, including this series.
In all honesty, I can see how the inclusion of something like Cat Loki was necessary. Marvel Meow is really a one note gag and you can only stretch this out so far. Having Cat loki there gives us a visible protagonist, especially in issue 8, where he’s causing some mischief with Jeff and Pizza Dog. (Great idea to slip him in there too!)
I’m really enjoying these infinity comics. It’s nice lighthearted schtick in the “Funny animal style. But I can’t help but noticing, there’s a tiny ulterior motive. They are using them to insert a lot of the new and shall we say, less popular characters that Marvel has been pumping out lately. It probably wouldn’t be so noticeable if they were using more Spider-Man and Cap and Black Widow, ect like they were when the series first began. A better mix please!
Also caught up with Daredevil. We’re in full ninja mode now. That should annoy me, but it turns out that Chip Zdarsky really seems to know what he’s doing here, and it’s really captured my interest. Watching Stick, Elektra and DD build the Fist – a rival organization to the Hand has been absolutely fascinating. Watching DD pushed further to the wrong side of the law has been far more compelling than I had imagined it would be.
The interesting thing as well is – remember who’s currently leading the Hand? That’s right. Daredevil’s new mission will put him on a direct collision course with the Punisher.
I dropped the Punisher book a while back because I think the utter vandalization that Jason Aaron is doing to Frank’s origin is utterly despicable, and that he just doesn’t get – OR EVEN LIKE the character. Nice to have the Punisher showing up over here. A conflict between matt and Frank is ALWAYS good stuff.
That’s it for this week – all that’s left is to wait excitedly for The Flash to come back! We’re down to less than a month and Feb 8th can’t come soon enough.
Early July
What took them three months to release Suicide Squad Blaze part 3? I mean, Rogues as well, but I jumped off that train with part two anyhow. 3 months for these black label titles???? *ugh* This isn’t Image comics you know guys! And everyone keeps trying to tell me the comics industry isn’t broken.
It’s strange too . the title actually got a lot worse in the intrum. I know I keep harping on the Amanda Waller as a villain thing, but they REALLY turned her into a terrible person here – off the charts. The story goes esoteric off the charts and gives the strangest Vertigo title a run for it’s money. It’s one of those things – you can go too freaky, too weird, and too edgy. Blaze revs up and goes right off that cliff.
I
t’s a beautiful fall though. The art is absolutely gorgeous and inspired. Standing alone it’s some wonderful rendering. But for this thing to fall apart here is a big disappointment to me – especially with me digging the first couple issues.
I’d actually completely forgotten that Batman ’89 was still going. I probably should have just waited for the whole thing to wrap up and grab a trade. I still might, now that it’s all over. a trade would look really nice next to my copy of the actual film adaption (By Jerry Ordway – my favorite Superman artist 
no less!)
It’s genuinely an interesting take on this universe. I’m not sure I would have been happy with it if this had been the actual third film, but then again – I wonder how much like this a film would have been. I don’t feel as much Burton influence as I think we would have seen had he made it. I also remember not being real thrilled with the racebending on Robin when it was rumored back then, but then again, I was similarly disappointed with the recasting of Two-Face when we ultimately got Batman Forever (which I DO really like). Because this exists as an exercise in theory, I think it becomes far more palatable and it’s been an interesting enough read – with the occasional moments of brilliance.
I also checked in with Daredevil. You may recall me pointing out that Devil’s Reign didn’t quite reestablish the status quo that I really wanted, rather redirecting DD into a whole new globetrotting direction – but before we do, it’s time for one last night out on the town in the big apple, busting heads with Spidey. It’s genuinely good. It’s everything I want this title to be. We’ll see where issue two goes, but this one bit of storytelling sure did make a good deposit of goodwill in the bank.
Over at the Punisher though – my patience is just about wearing out. They are doubling down on this garbage about Frank being a trouble kid and trying to retcon a foreshadowing of the Punisher into his ten year old self and ….UGH! Just read my last review. It’s all there.
There’s some cool stuff here once we get past that bit. It’s particuarly interesting to see Lady Bullseye and her companion show up to do battle with Frank…and we may just be seeing the real turning point here where he turns on the Hand. It sure feels like it, but I’m honestly not sure where this is going. For now I’m still on the ride and just enjoying the pretty pictures.
By the way, is anyone else reading Flashpoint Beyond? I grabbed issue three on impulse and then had to go back and read the rest of it. Perhaps it’s got to do with me recently reading through that amazing Flashpoint special ediditon trade, but I really enjoy this. I find most Batman comics from the last decade or so to just be impenetrable, but this actually works for me. It’s a cool continuation in that universe and actually does these characters some justice. Seriously, give this title a chance and see if you don’t dig it.
Speaking if digging stuff…I finally figured out why this current run of Ghost Rider has got me so hooked.
Quite frankly, it’s Hellblazer. This title is absolutely a new version of Hellblazer – but with more motorcycles and chains. (and not THAT many more chains – John got into some WIERD stuff)
It really occurred to me when I was watching the cop who’s 
pursuing him do magic. Her partner isn’t into it, so it feels cheeky and alien to him, but it’s that sort of mystical edged horror that we’re really seeing here in Ghost Rider. It gives it a freshness of dark delights that just has me totally hooked. It even spills over onto the other characters in the series. This issue it’s Ghost Rider vs the Circus of Crime. Now these guys are fine – but on the goofy side. very 70’s marvel….
This issue is the Circus of Crime like you’ve NEVER seen them before… and they are TERRIFYING.
Batgirls continues to be delightful. Normally I’d be annoyed that Babs is coming in and taking center stage, taking the focus off of Cass and Steph, but man. She’s just so CUTE with Dick. Like, I barely remember what the actuall misson was. I was just there to watch her and Nightwing flirt.
They don’t skimp on the action, never fear. There’s plenty of jumping and punching and foiled evil, but the way these characters are written is just SO compelling and I haven’t ben THIS into Dick and Babs since the ORIGINAL Birds of Prey when it was running simultaneously with the original run of Nightwing. This stuff is ABSOLUTELY back on form. I can’t believe this is one of my favorite comics going right now but is totally is.
The other title I’ve found myself looking forward too every month is the current relaunch of Archer and Armstrong. The books was always a little cracked, but it’s just complete Lunacy these days and enormous fun. Imagine opening the book to see something like this….
Like I said….just really fun. And that’s a lot of what I’m looking for these days. I know we’re only on issue three of this run so far, but it feels like I’ve gotten way more than three issues of reading out of them. I’ll leave you with this image and check back next time!
Last week’s pulls (week of 2-9-22)
Of all the titles that DC could put out as black label, Suicide Squad actually makes the most sense. There’s been a lot of times during that original 80’s run where this title crept right up to the edge of mature readers territory… And quite frankly, the first Deadshot miniseries absolutely should’ve been mature. So I was definitely interested when I saw Suicide Squad Blaze.
I picked up Batgirls number three. It’s actually turned into one of those tiles I look forward to each month now. We’ve got a kid on the street using Scarecrow schtick, fear gas and such. It’s a nice straightforward adventure, and just a fun chance to spend some time and hang out with Steph and Cassie.
withdrawn, except for her physical prowess. You can basically either turn her into a background character or a tank. That’s about all. I’ve never really connected with Cassie. Oh, there’s been moments… I seem to recall an issue of Cassie’s old Batgirl series where Barbara takes her on a cruise and chance of having to fight bad guys. There’s some good moments there, like when they’re at dinner, or describing how wearing a swimsuit makes her feel uncomfortable because of the way she reads the body language of everyone around her. The almost romance with Superboy peaked my interest and I didn’t go anywhere, and the way Batman fired her at one point did nothing for me. In the past They would try too hard with her when they try at all, like putting her in the classic Batgirl suit (“Look! She tripped on her high heels!” Bleh.), or portray her as quirky, walking around the Outsiders compound naked in front of people because she just didn’t care… None of it lands.
strangest things to me was a dialog box where they describe Steph as her best friend. And attacking her best friend is obviously going to make her angry… That’s interesting. It’s interesting because I never really looked at Cassandra as someone who even had friends. Maybe Barbara, but she’s more of a mentor. Cassie with that sort of a relationship… The best friend… A typical teenager thing… I like it. It feels like growth.
approaching this personally as a miniseries. If we get more than six issues, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. If we get more than a year, I’ll be shocked. But, as one of the few new comics coming out that I’m really liking, I’m going to hang on and enjoy the ride.
I picked up Secret X-Men on a whim. Mainline Marvel titles like the Avengers books or the X titles I like to dip my toe in every once in a while just to see if there’s anything worth reading. X-Men hasn’t been all that worthwhile for quite a long time now. The X titles are ugly preachy books with some disturbing ideas. It used to be that X-Men was solid superhero storytelling with a subtext about equality. It would bubble to the surface here and there, and frequently they would deal with things in metaphor. The problem is, metaphor isn’t good enough anymore and the current crop of writers have put the subtext in the foreground and frequently forget to write an adventure. You know how I describe large chunks of the CW shows as “attractive-people-standing-around-in-hallways-talking-about-their-feelings“tm? The X-Men comics are all that. And all the talk is very much “Look how diverse we are! Look how gay we are!“ (It’s strange actually, every new mutant created seems to be required to have some LGBT characteristics. Just being a mutant isn’t enough… But then again like I said, these people don’t understand metaphor anymore. Wierd. It’s a statistical unlikelihood and sure fire Darwinian path towards extinction by the way). The X-Men themselves have become full on segregationists living on an island only for mutants. It’s actually almost crossed over into kind of racist territory… Like I said. These books have gotten ugly.
I like a lot of this team. Boom Boom and Banshee have always sort of been fan favorites and Strong Guy is a really fun character when he’s in the right hands. I’m actually a little disappointed that we don’t get more funny stuff with him, although there’s a bit of a whopper towards the end involving holding breath at a graveyard.
times and it feels like 90s X-Men to me (an era I’m particularly fond of). I’m not sure if I’m gonna stay with this book, but I’m definitely gonna pick up the next issue just to see where this goes.
Last Week’s Pulls (2-2-22)
Suicide Squad #12 looks like they’re still trying to exploit any possible synergy between last summers movie and the current Peacemaker series on HBO Max. We have Rick Flag assembling his own squad, consisting of Peacemaker and Bloodsport to take down Amanda Waller. In the meantime, Waller has the actual squad fighting a battle on Earth three. And that’s fine, because quite frankly, as long as they keep Ambush Bug around, I’m still sticking with this title.
Back in the Marvel versus DC days of the 90s, I remember constantly saying that the one real versus match I wanted to see what does Ambush Bug versus Marvel’s Slapstick. Well, this issue is about as close as I’m gonna get to that! Buggy describes their opponents as Thunderbolts – referring to the Marvel title. Well, he doesn’t see the entire word, he explains that he’s prohibited from finishing that sentence for legal reasons. It’s great stuff. Honestly though, they feel less like Marvel ‘s Thunderbolts and more like one of those big teams of one-note villains with two word names that Rob Leifield would create for every other Youngblood issue back in the heyday of Image comics. (you can say what you want about Leifield, but when it comes to character creation, no one’s more prolific than him. And very few people have the aptitude to squeeze as many characters on a page as he does… while obscuring all their feet at the very same time!) Ambush Bugs opponent is a clown faced jokester with lots of pouches. He feels a lot like Slapstick, and the matchup goes almost exactly how I expected. I know, I know, this isn’t even the best storyline, it’s basically just background gags, but like ambush bug says, I do skim through this book every month just to look for his bits. I’m just so happy to see him in print again, and in what has traditionally been one of my favorite titles.
I also decided to pick up Daredevil, the Woman Without Fear this week. This has been a fairly good Elektra story, expanding on some themes that we were getting last year’s in Daredevil. It almost feels like they’re running the series because there were some side quests that they never managed to quite get around to in the main book. That’s not surprising, because despite the fact that Elektra‘s female Daredevil was on the cover of every issue, her arc was really more of a b storyline than it was anything else. I read that run, mostly because I’m a big fan of prison stories. Unfortunately, the premise, that the court would separate the superhero identity from the main identity, and that Matt could go to jail as a daredevil… It’s ridiculous on its face. It’s such a bizarre and implausible concept that it taints everything else. It also doesn’t help that the story had been done better 15 years ago in at Brewbakers Devil in Cell Block D, or that the middle of that run had to take a break for a couple months to participate in the company wide carnage storyline… A pause that killed their momentum dead stop.
But then again, there’s the real elephant in the room. See, this idea of Elektra taking over for Daredevil might have worked better in a different climate, Especially considering we just had the “We are all Daredevil” bit right before Matt goes to jail. It could’ve led in smoothly, with her trying to prove herself to him and prove that she can work with his ethics and his methods. But in this current era where characters are constantly gender swapped it’s become passé, it’s predictable and just tiresome. It reeks of being done for political reasons rather than an organic evolution in the story.
But that’s not the real problem.
See, Elektra is one of the worlds deadliest assassins. She’s the perfect ninja, and an amazing martial artist. In terms of skill, strictly speaking, she’s better than Matt. Becoming gender swapeds Daredevil? This is actually a demotion. It’s a step down, and really, they (the writers) know it. Reading through the woman without fear miniseries, we’re an issue three, and I don’t think they’ve actually referred to her as a daredevil ones. And they shouldn’t, she’s Elektra. She’s already an empowered, unique, highly skilled hero… And anything else really just takes away from her character.
I like the suit, but take the DD off of it and lose the blunted sais. They look remarkably stupid. If you’re going to use a stabby sword, just use the stabby sword. Put the points back on them, remove the DD, and let’s just call her Elektra. Just admit who she is, instead of trying to make this gender swap work. She already is somebody. She already is a name character… And considering that Daredevil isn’t that crazy high profile, I would be willing to bet that Elektra has just as much name recognition is Daredevil. We don’t all need to be Daredevils, after all, isn’t diversity our strength?
We don’t need lady Daredevil, we need Elektra!
Daredevil vs the Punisher
Bonus shot- Sinestro also beating the tar out of Daredevil…poor Nick takes a lot of abuse at my hands…..
Extra bonus of the “Deadpool ruins everything catagory…..
Daredevil Premier at Pop!
Join us as we view the first episode of the new Marvel/Netflix “Daredevil” series and discuss the Man Without Fear’s career! Tonight at the west side meeting in Parma, 6:30!
Argo City Comics 